How Much Does CMMC Cost for a Small Business?

If you're a small defense contractor staring down a CMMC requirement, the first question is always the same: what is this going to cost me? The honest answer is "it depends" — but that's not helpful, so here's a realistic breakdown of where the money actually goes.

The Two Buckets: Readiness vs. Certification

CMMC costs fall into two distinct buckets, and conflating them is where sticker shock comes from:

1. Readiness (getting compliant) — implementing the controls, documenting them, and fixing gaps. This is the bulk of the cost, and it's where an enablement partner like us helps.
2. Certification (proving it) — the assessment performed by an independent C3PAO. We are not a C3PAO, so this is a separate cost paid to the assessor.

You pay for readiness once heavily, then maintain it. Certification recurs (typically every three years for Level 2).

What Drives the Cost

• Your target level. Level 1 (17 practices, self-assessed) is a fraction of the cost of Level 2 (110 controls aligned to NIST SP 800-171).
• Your scope. The more systems that touch Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), the bigger and more expensive the assessment boundary. Smart CUI scoping — often using a dedicated enclave — is the single biggest lever for controlling cost.
• Your starting point. A contractor already running a well-managed Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace tenant with MFA and decent documentation is far closer than one starting from scratch.
• Your government-grade cloud. Most contractors handling CUI need to move it into a compliant environment — Microsoft 365 GCC High, or Google Workspace with its compliance tooling alongside Google Cloud Assured Workloads. Either path carries its own licensing and migration cost, and we manage both.

A Rough Picture for Level 2

For a typical small contractor (10-50 seats), expect readiness to span gap assessment, remediation of the 110 controls, an SSP, a POA&M, and often a migration into a compliant cloud (GCC High or a Google equivalent). The third-party assessment itself is a separate line item paid to a C3PAO. Costs vary widely with scope — which is exactly why we start every engagement with a gap assessment rather than a quote pulled from the air.

How to Spend Less

• Shrink your scope first. A CUI enclave can take most of your environment out of the assessment boundary.
• Don't gold-plate. Implement to the standard, not beyond it.
• Maintain continuously. Rebuilding evidence the month before reassessment is far more expensive than keeping it current year-round — which is the whole point of our Compliance-as-a-Service model.

Next Step

The cheapest mistake is starting blind. Download our CMMC Readiness Checklist or explore our CMMC Enablement services to get a scoped, realistic number for your situation.