Security Awareness and Phishing Training Cost

Security awareness training cost is almost always priced per user, by the month or the year, and the per-user platform fee is the smaller part of the real number. The published list prices we checked in October 2026 run from $1.63 to $5.00 per user per month, depending on the vendor, the seat count and the term. What moves the total is how often you run simulated phishing campaigns, whether someone inside your business or the provider runs them, what reporting your insurer and regulators expect to see, and the staff time the program consumes.

NetSys includes awareness and phishing training in its managed agreement and quotes the program on its own for businesses with in-house IT, month to month, rather than publishing a per-user rate. This guide covers what the platforms charge, what changes the price, how to estimate the full cost and how to compare two programs that both promise to make people stop clicking.

How is security awareness training priced?

Cost driver	What it covers	How it is usually billed
Platform subscription	Training library, phishing simulator, reporting, learner portal	Per user, monthly or yearly, tiered by features
Simulation cadence	How many campaigns run and how targeted they are	Labor, or a higher managed tier
Managed service	Someone designs, schedules, reviews and reports on campaigns	Per user per month, or bundled with managed security
Content and compliance modules	HIPAA, PCI DSS, state privacy, role-specific courses	Included in higher tiers or sold as add-ons
Onboarding and integration	User sync from Entra ID, mail allow-listing, report-phish button	One-time setup labor
Staff time	Minutes per person per month, plus the administrator's hours	Never on the invoice, always real

Some vendors publish list prices, and they give a useful floor. As of October 2026, KnowBe4 lists $1.63 to $3.75 per seat per month, depending on seat count and content library, on a three-year term (its prices are dated May 2026). Huntress lists Managed SAT at an MSRP of $2.08 per learner per month and says that price excludes deployment, integration and day-to-day portal management. Microsoft lists Defender for Office 365 Plan 2, which carries its Attack simulation training, at $5.00 per user per month paid yearly. Other vendors quote after a call. Our comparison of security awareness training platforms sets them side by side; the rest of this guide is about the rows a platform price does not include.

How does simulation cadence change the cost?

A phishing simulation is a fake malicious email sent to your staff to see who clicks, who reports it, and who types a password into the fake login page. The platform fee usually allows unlimited campaigns; what costs money is designing and running them well. A program that sends one generic template a quarter costs little and teaches little, because staff learn to spot that one template. A program that sends a varied campaign monthly, targets departments with the lures they would really receive (a fake invoice to accounts payable, a fake resume to HR, a fake password reset to everyone), and follows each click with a short lesson takes hours of administration each month.

Cadence also affects the reporting your insurer sees. Click rates from a single annual test are close to meaningless. A monthly series over a year shows a trend, and a trend is what underwriters and auditors want. Decide the cadence first and price the labor from it, rather than buying a platform and hoping someone finds time.

Self-run or managed: who does the work?

Self-run means your office manager or internal IT person owns the platform: builds campaigns, assigns training, chases the people who never finish it, and pulls reports before the insurance renewal. The platform fee is the only invoice, and the cost is hidden in somebody's week. This works in firms with a person who wants the job and has time for it. It fails quietly when that person gets busy, which is usually the third month.

Managed means the provider runs the program: campaign design, scheduling, remedial training for repeat clickers, and a monthly report that lands in the owner's inbox without anyone asking. The invoice is higher, the hidden cost is gone, and the program keeps running. NetSys runs awareness training this way, tied to the same reporting the rest of the security program produces, so the phishing results sit next to the MFA coverage, patch status and backup tests an insurer will ask about at the same time.

Worksheet: estimate the full annual cost

Add up four lines for one year, using your own numbers:

1. Seats. Everyone with a company mailbox who can be phished, part-time staff and contractors included, times the per-user price for the tier you need, times twelve if it is quoted monthly.
2. Administration. The hours each month someone spends building campaigns, assigning lessons, chasing completions and answering reported mail, times twelve, times that person's hourly cost. In a managed program this line becomes the provider's fee.
3. Staff time. Minutes of training per person per month, times headcount, times twelve, at an average hourly cost. Two-minute lessons keep this line small; an hour-long annual course concentrates it into one long session.
4. Extras. Compliance or role-specific modules, text message and voice callback simulations if your tier charges for them, and setup work such as syncing users and adding the report-phish button.

Compare programs on that total, not on the seat price. A cheap platform that nobody has time to run produces a report with nothing in it.

What do cyber insurers and regulators expect to see?

Cyber insurance applications commonly ask whether employees receive security awareness training and whether phishing simulations are run. Each carrier words the question its own way, and the answer you sign has to match your records. A one-time onboarding video does not satisfy the question the way a scheduled program with records does, and after a claim the carrier may ask for the records. Our guide to cyber insurance requirements lists the other controls that appear on the same form.

Regulation adds its own drivers. HIPAA's Security Rule requires a security awareness and training program for all members of the workforce, management included (45 CFR 164.308(a)(5)). The FTC Safeguards Rule, which treats firms that prepare income tax returns as financial institutions, requires security awareness training updated for the risks your risk assessment identifies (16 CFR 314.4(e)(1)). New York's Department of Financial Services requires covered entities to train all personnel at least once a year, social engineering included (23 NYCRR 500.14(a)(3)). PCI DSS requires a security awareness program reviewed at least every 12 months, and since March 31, 2025 its training has to cover phishing and related attacks and social engineering (requirements 12.6.2 and 12.6.3.1). New York's SHIELD Act lists training employees in the security program among its administrative safeguards. Each of those raises the cost slightly, because the program needs role-specific content and records that survive an audit, and each of them makes skipping the program far more expensive than running it.

Is there a version already in Microsoft 365?

Attack simulation training requires Microsoft 365 E5 or Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2, according to Microsoft's documentation. Microsoft 365 Business Premium includes Defender for Office 365 Plan 1, which does not include it. As of October 2026, a business on Business Premium can add Plan 2 at $5.00 per user per month paid yearly, get Plan 2 inside the Defender Suite for Business Premium at $10.00 per user per month for up to 300 users, which bundles it with other Microsoft security products, or buy a third-party platform. Our review of the Defender Suite for Business Premium covers the bundle. Microsoft's tool covers simulations and a training library inside the Defender portal; it does not run the program for you, so the labor question above still applies.

Whichever platform you use, the report-phish button in Outlook matters more than the simulation itself. Training people to report suspicious mail, and routing those reports to someone who looks at them, is what turns a training expense into an early-warning system. Ask any provider how reported messages are handled and how fast.

How do you compare security awareness training quotes?

• Per-user fee, and which tier. Simulator, content library, integrations and reporting differ by tier.
• Cadence and targeting. How many campaigns per year, whether they are department-specific, and who designs them.
• Who runs it. Self-service with your staff's time, or managed with the provider's.
• Reporting. A sample of the monthly report, and whether it is written for an insurer and an owner or only for an administrator.
• Repeat clickers. What happens after the third click: more training, a manager conversation, or nothing.
• Contract term. Many platforms sell annual or multi-year terms; a managed program on month-to-month terms keeps the pressure on the provider to show results.

For NetSys clients, our security awareness and phishing training is included in the managed agreement, with monthly simulated phishing, short lessons and results you can show your insurer.

Frequently asked questions

How much does security awareness and phishing training cost per user?

The published list prices we checked in October 2026 run from $1.63 to $5.00 per user per month: KnowBe4 by seat count and content library on a three-year term, Huntress Managed SAT at an MSRP of $2.08, and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 at $5.00. The full cost is the platform fee plus the labor to run monthly campaigns and produce reports, which is either your staff's time or a managed service fee. For NetSys managed clients the program is included in the managed agreement; businesses with in-house IT that want the program alone get a standalone monthly figure based on headcount after a short call.

Do security awareness platforms include phishing simulation in the base price?

Usually the simulator is part of the platform subscription, but what comes with it depends on the tier. The simulator, the content library, integrations and reporting differ from one tier to the next, so check which tier a quote is for before you compare prices. The platform fee usually allows unlimited campaigns; the cost is the labor of designing, scheduling and reviewing them well, which is either your staff's time or a managed service fee. Microsoft 365 is the case to check: Attack simulation training comes with Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 or Microsoft 365 E5, and Business Premium's Plan 1 does not include it.

How often should we run phishing simulations?

Monthly is the practical answer for most small businesses: frequent enough that people stay alert and the trend is meaningful, infrequent enough that the program does not become noise. Vary the templates and target departments with realistic lures. Pair each campaign with a short lesson for anyone who clicks. Quarterly is the floor at which results still mean something; annual testing is a checkbox.

Does security awareness training count for cyber insurance?

Yes, and applications commonly ask about it directly. Carriers want to know that training happens on a schedule, that phishing simulations run, and that records exist. A managed program produces those records automatically. Training alone does not satisfy an application; MFA, endpoint detection, backups and email filtering appear on the same form, and the training program is strongest when it is reported alongside them.

What should we do about employees who keep clicking?

Treat it as a process problem before a people problem. Repeat clickers usually sit in roles that receive the most external mail, such as accounts payable, HR and reception, so start by tightening the controls around those roles: stricter email filtering, payment verification steps, and link isolation in the browser. Then add short, role-specific training and a manager conversation. Firing people for failing simulations makes staff stop reporting real phishing, which is the worst possible outcome.

Is cyber security awareness training priced differently from phishing training?

No. Cyber security awareness training, security awareness training and phishing training are names for the same kind of program, and the platforms above sell the training library and the phishing simulator in one per-user subscription. Quotes differ because of the tier, the channels simulated (email only, or text message and voice callback too), the compliance modules and who runs the program, not because of the name.

What is included in NetSys security awareness training?

An unannounced baseline phishing campaign, so the first number is honest; a monthly simulation drawn from a current attack, with text message and voice callback scenarios for the roles that receive them; a two-minute lesson for anyone who clicks; a quarterly module for everyone, such as payment fraud or data handling; an onboarding module for each new hire; a report-phish button in Outlook on desktop, web and mobile; and an annual summary formatted for cyber insurance and compliance questionnaires. Individual names never appear in the reports leadership sees.

How does onboarding work?

There is no setup project to fund. We tell the whole company the program exists, add the report-phish button to Outlook, run the unannounced baseline campaign and load the first lesson set. After that the monthly cadence starts, and new hires take the onboarding module as part of joining.

What affects the cost of security awareness training?

Headcount, the platform tier and content library, the channels you simulate, any compliance or role-specific modules, the contract term and, above all, who runs the program each month. Check the term as well as the rate: KnowBe4's published prices assume a three-year term. NetSys publishes no per-user rate; the program is included in the managed agreement, and a standalone program is quoted monthly on headcount.

Who handles reported phishing and escalations?

NetSys engineers. The report-phish button sends the message to our team, who reply to the person who reported it and remove confirmed phishing from every inbox that received it. If someone clicked a real link or typed a password, they should call the help desk at once: it is staffed seven days a week from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern, and monitoring and emergency service run around the clock. Leadership sees the click and report trend every quarter.

Building a program with NetSys

NetSys runs security awareness training as a managed program: campaigns designed for your departments, monthly reporting written for owners and insurers, and results that sit alongside the rest of your security controls. See our security awareness training page, or read our broader guide to security awareness training for small business.

Book a call to talk through your headcount, the rules you answer to and who runs training today, and we will show how the monthly program would work for your staff.

Sources and further reading

• Attack simulation training in Microsoft Defender for Office 365, including its licensing requirement.
• HIPAA Security Rule, which includes the workforce training standard.
• Microsoft Defender for Office 365 plans and pricing and Defender Suite for Business Premium, checked October 2026.
• KnowBe4 pricing and Huntress pricing, checked October 2026.
• eCFR: 16 CFR 314.4, the FTC Safeguards Rule's elements, including staff training.
• NYDFS: Second Amendment to 23 NYCRR 500, including the training rule in section 500.14(a)(3).
• PCI SSC: Summary of changes from PCI DSS 3.2.1 to 4.0, for requirements 12.6.2 and 12.6.3.1.
• New York General Business Law section 899-bb, the SHIELD Act's reasonable safeguards.