A guide to planning cybersecurity budgets covers industry and company-size benchmarks (averaging 10.9% of IT spend or 0.69% of revenue), a breakdown of typical spending categories like EDR, ITDR, security awareness training, SIEM, compliance, and incident response retainers, a five-step process for building a budget, and tips for winning leadership buy-in. It cites IBM's 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report ($4.44M average) and IANS Research benchmark data throughout, while promoting Huntress's managed security offerings.
Table of contents
How much do companies spend on cybersecurity?A complete cybersecurity budget breakdown: How to allocate costsHow to build a cybersecurity budget: A step-by-step approachCybersecurity budget best practices, or how to ensure buy-in from leadershipYour cybersecurity budget, made easier with a unified solutionFAQQuestions this post answers
What percentage of IT budget do companies typically spend on cybersecurity?
Cybersecurity budgets average 10.9% of IT spend, down from 11.9% the prior year, according to IANS Research and Artico Search's Security Budget Benchmark Report. As a share of revenue, that averages 0.69%, flat year over year. The right number varies widely by industry and size, with manufacturing at 15.74% and smaller companies spending a higher percentage than larger ones. Track spending benchmarks like these on daily.dev while building the case for your own security budget.
How much does it cost to build an in-house SOC versus using a managed detection and response provider?
Building a 24/7 in-house security operations center typically requires eight to ten analysts and costs well over $1 million annually once salaries, tooling, and training are included. A managed detection and response provider delivering similar coverage generally costs $50,000 to $300,000 or more annually, depending on environment size, making it the more decisive option for smaller IT teams. Compare in-house versus managed security tradeoffs like this on daily.dev before committing budget.
How much does an average data breach cost, and how does it vary by industry?
The average global data breach costs $4.44 million, down 9% from $4.88 million the prior year due to faster detection, according to IBM's Cost of a Data Breach Report. Healthcare organizations face the highest average breach cost of any industry tracked, at $7.42 million per incident. Follow breach-cost data like this on daily.dev when justifying security investment to leadership.