A managed SOC (Security Operations Center) monitors your systems 24/7, detects threats, and responds to incidents. An in-house security operations team does the same thing but with people on your payroll. For startups deciding between the two, the math is straightforward. The strategy is more nuanced.
What a managed SOC provides
A managed SOC vendor deploys agents on your infrastructure, ingests your logs, and runs them through detection rules and machine learning models to identify threats. When something suspicious happens, their analysts investigate and either resolve it or escalate to your team.
Standard managed SOC services include:
- 24/7 log monitoring and threat detection
- Alert triage and investigation
- Incident response coordination
- Monthly security reports
- Threat intelligence integration
- Compliance-ready audit trails
Cost: $3,000-$10,000/month for a startup with 20-100 employees and typical cloud infrastructure. Major providers include Arctic Wolf, Expel, Red Canary, and Huntress.
What in-house security operations requires
To run security operations in-house, you need at minimum: a SIEM platform ($1,000-$10,000/month), two security analysts for 24/7 coverage ($300K-$500K/year in salary alone), detection rule development and tuning, threat intelligence feeds, and incident response tooling.
Total cost for a minimal in-house SOC: $400,000-$700,000/year. And "minimal" means two analysts splitting on-call with no redundancy, limited coverage, and high burnout risk.
When managed SOC wins
Cost efficiency: At $36,000-$120,000/year, a managed SOC costs 80-90% less than an in-house team. For any startup under 200 employees, this math is overwhelming.
24/7 coverage: Two in-house analysts cannot provide true 24/7 coverage with vacation, sick days, and burnout factored in. A managed SOC has a team of 20-50 analysts across time zones.
Detection capability: Managed SOC vendors see threats across hundreds of customers. Their detection rules are tuned by this collective intelligence. An in-house team only sees your traffic.
Speed to value: A managed SOC can be operational in 1-2 weeks. Building an in-house team takes 6-12 months.
When in-house wins
Context and depth: In-house analysts understand your business, your application, and your threat model deeply. They can distinguish between a real attack and normal application behavior faster.
Response speed: In-house analysts can take immediate remediation actions. A managed SOC typically alerts and recommends, but your team still needs to execute the response.
Customization: In-house teams can build custom detection rules for your specific application and threat model. Managed SOCs provide generic detections that may not cover application-specific threats.
The recommendation
For startups under 200 employees: managed SOC plus one in-house security engineer who serves as the liaison. The managed SOC handles monitoring and detection. The in-house engineer handles remediation, security architecture, and compliance. This gives you the best of both worlds at a fraction of the cost of a full in-house team.
Above 200 employees, start building in-house capability while maintaining the managed SOC for baseline coverage. Full in-house SOC typically only makes sense above 500 employees with a mature security organization.
Need help with security operations?
traztech helps startups set up and manage security operations, whether that means selecting a managed SOC provider, hiring your first security engineer, or both.
Book a free strategy call