VAPT Cost for Indian Startups — Honest Market Rates

VAPT market rates for Indian startups (2026)

Public rates from the major Indian VAPT firms — pulled from their own pricing pages and reseller documents — so you can benchmark any quote you receive:

• Astra Security — annual subscription (getastra.com/pricing)
• CyberNX — per-engagement fee (cybernx.com)
• SecureLayer7 — per-engagement fee (securelayer7.net)
• Kratikal — per-engagement fee (kratikal.com)
• Progressive Techserve — annual subscription per web app (progressive.in)
• Bachao.AI — Free first scan, pay-per-use for the full report — materially less than traditional vendors (request a quote)

Hidden costs nobody quotes you up front

The headline figure is rarely the actual cost. Add: engineering time spent setting up scope, granting credentials, and answering pentester questions (typically 8–16 hours per engagement); retests after fixes (often billed at 30–50% of the original engagement); compliance mapping if the firm doesn't include CERT-In or DPDP alignment by default; report-revision rounds if findings are noisy. A low initial quote can easily double by the time the engagement closes.

Why automated VAPT is cheaper without losing depth

Manual pentest cost is dominated by the senior pentester's time — 4-6 weeks of billable engagement hours. AI-orchestrated automation does the same scope (OWASP Top 10, API Top 10, business-logic, auth-flow, infra CVEs) in under 10 minutes of compute, then validates each finding with a second AI pass to drop false positives. The pentester comes in only for the chained business-logic flaws where humans still beat AI — drastically reducing the billable-hours line item.

How Bachao.AI scope-based engagement works

We scope each engagement around your data surface — target count, surface depth, retesting cycles, compliance frameworks to map, CI/CD integration. The result is materially lower TCO than the manual market rate, with no per-seat licensing and no annual commitment. The first scan is always free; you decide from the executive summary whether to upgrade. Book a 30-minute scoping call for your specific quote.

Get started

Run a free scan against a target you control. The platform spins up within minutes, returns an executive summary by email when complete, and gives you a 30-minute slot with the founder team. No commitment, no calendar games.