A ten-person team can run a credible security awareness programme for roughly $108 to $720 a year on the published prices in the market, with the mainstream self-serve tiers landing near $180-$360. The spread looks wide until you see that the products being priced are not the same product: a self-serve platform that automates lessons and simulations prices nothing like an enterprise suite with onboarding and dedicated support. This guide walks the published price points, does the maths for ten seats, and names the hidden cost that usually decides the budget.
TL;DR
- The 2026 market band runs from about $0.45 to $6 per user per month, so ten seats span roughly $54 to $720 a YEAR at the extremes.
- Published vendor prices: KnowBe4's SAT Foundation lists at $2.40 per seat per month (25-50 seat band, three-year term) and Huntress Managed SAT at USD $2.08 per learner per month MSRP.
- A ten-person team on a mainstream self-serve tier lands near $15-$30 a month, or $180-$360 a year.
- The hidden cost is admin time; a fully automated platform for a small team should cost under an hour a month.
- Context: ASD's FY2024-25 figures put the average self-reported cost of a reported incident at A$56,600 for an Australian small business.
The short answer
For ten people, budget $15-$30 a month ($180-$360 a year) on a mainstream tier. Below that sits a small band of genuinely self-serve platforms; above it sits enterprise pricing built for companies ten to a hundred times your size. Anything quoting six figures for ten seats is selling a different product.
What published prices actually say
Most vendors quote privately, but three published data points anchor the market:
| Vendor and tier | Published price | Term | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| KnowBe4 SAT Foundation, 25-50 seats | $2.40/seat/mo | 3-year | Vendor list pricing |
| KnowBe4 SAT Advanced, 25-50 seats | $3.75/seat/mo | 3-year | Vendor list pricing |
| Huntress Managed SAT | USD $2.08/learner/mo MSRP | monthly | Vendor pricing page |
| Modern SaaS self-serve platforms | $0.45-$1.25/user/mo | monthly or annual | Market pricing guides |
The KnowBe4 numbers come straight from its published list pricing table ($1.63-$2.40 per seat monthly for SAT Foundation, $2.79-$3.75 for SAT Advanced, on three-year terms), and Huntress publishes its Managed SAT rate on its pricing page. Both anchors sit well inside the wider market band of $0.45-$6 per user per month.
Two caveats for a ten-seat buyer. First, KnowBe4's published table starts at the 25-50 seat band; smaller teams typically get a quote, and small fleets sometimes see a higher per-seat rate than the published band. Second, Huntress is a channel-first product - most buyers go through an MSP partner, and the rate you see is not always the rate a partner charges on top.
The maths for ten seats
| Tier | Per seat | 10 seats per month | 10 seats per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lean self-serve | $0.90 | $9 | $108 |
| Mainstream self-serve | $1.50 | $15 | $180 |
| KnowBe4 Foundation (published band) | $2.40 | $24 | $288 |
| Huntress SAT (MSRP) | USD $2.08 | USD $20.80 | USD $249.60 |
| Specialist or premium | $6.00 | $60 | $720 |
Read the table as a range, not a ranking. At ten seats the annual spread between a lean self-serve plan and a published enterprise band is a few hundred dollars - real money for a small business, but not the factor that decides whether the programme works.
The hidden cost: your admin hours
The seat price is the visible cost. The admin cost is the one that quietly decides the outcome. On a manual platform a ten-person programme means: enrol each person, chase the ones who have not finished, schedule phishing tests, build the report. Done properly that is an hour or two a week, and it is the first thing that stops when the quarter gets busy - which is exactly when the risk is highest.
An automated platform compresses that to under an hour a month: directory sync enrols people, reminders chase them, simulations schedule themselves, and the report exports as a PDF. Price the programme, not the platform: seat cost plus admin hours. The cheapest per-seat quote with the most manual work is usually the most expensive product in the room.
What you get for the money
A complete programme at this tier includes monthly short lessons with a quiz, a monthly phishing simulation with same-day remediation for anyone who clicks, and per-learner reporting you can show an insurer or an auditor. Cyber Aware's security awareness training runs exactly that cadence, and human risk reporting rolls completions, quiz results and phishing behaviour into one score per learner.
Why the spend is worth defending
ASD's Annual Cyber Threat Report 2024-25 received more than 84,700 cybercrime reports - an average of one every six minutes - and puts the average self-reported cost of a reported incident at A$56,600 for an Australian small business (ASD Annual Cyber Threat Report 2024-25). One avoided invoice-fraud email pays for several years of training at any tier in the table. That asymmetry - hundreds of dollars a year against tens of thousands per incident - is the whole business case.
How to choose in a week
- Run a security gap assessment first. It tells you which framework requirements - Essential Eight, insurance, client contracts - training evidence actually satisfies, so you buy the evidence you need instead of a brochure.
- Trial two platforms at ten seats and compare what automation actually happens without you.
- Check the reporting export before you sign: if a per-learner completion record takes a support ticket to obtain, the compliance use case is already broken.
- Ask what happens when someone leaves. Deprovisioning should be automatic, or your seat count drifts and you pay for ghosts.
FAQ
How much does security awareness training cost for 10 employees? Roughly $15-$30 a month ($180-$360 a year) on a mainstream tier, with the full published market spanning about $54-$720 a year across ten seats.
How much does KnowBe4 cost a small team? The published list price is $2.40 per seat per month for SAT Foundation ($3.75 for Advanced) on a three-year term, but the table starts at the 25-50 seat band, so a ten-seat quote may differ.
Is there a cheaper way? Some vendors publish free baseline phishing tests and free courses exist, but free tiers rarely include automated reminders, directory sync or audit-grade reporting. A free test is a starting point, not a programme.
Is it tax deductible in Australia? Staff training is generally deductible as an operating expense - confirm the specifics with your accountant.
What is the biggest mistake small teams make? Buying an enterprise tier they cannot administer. At ten seats, automation matters more than content library size.
One last thing
Before you compare quotes, compare your own hours. Write down what you would personally do each month to keep a manual programme alive. Then pick the platform where that list is empty. At ten seats, that decision is worth more than any per-seat discount.