vCISO Pricing in India — Monthly Retainer Tiers
Indian vCISOs typically structure engagements as monthly retainers rather than hourly billing. Entry-level retainers cover basic compliance monitoring, vulnerability tracking, and quarterly reporting. Mid-tier engagements add board-pack delivery, incident response on-call coverage, and vendor risk reviews. Bachao.AI's platform pricing is structured to leave the bulk of client billings as your margin — Solo, Practice, and Firm plans scale with your client count so you only pay more as you earn more. Request a quote for the tier that fits your practice.
DPDP Act DPO Duties Covered by Bachao vCISO
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 allows companies to appoint a Data Protection Officer from outside the organisation. A vCISO can serve in a combined CISO-plus-DPO role for Indian SMBs without needing to hire two separate executives. Bachao.AI maps every VAPT and security review to DPDP Schedule I requirements, auto-generates data processing records, and tracks consent hygiene — so the vCISO can cover DPO duties without building a separate compliance toolset from scratch.
Multi-Client Dashboard for Independent vCISOs
Managing ten clients from spreadsheets means ten separate risk trackers, ten email threads for findings, and ten manual board decks every quarter. The Bachao.AI multi-client dashboard gives every client a separate risk score, compliance status, and finding queue — all in one view. Drill into any client in a single click. AI synthesises portfolio-wide trends so you can spot which clients share the same underlying risk patterns and address them in a single advisory round.
Board & Investor Security Pack — Generated Monthly
Every month, Bachao.AI generates a board-ready security pack for each client: risk trend chart, top five open findings, compliance milestone status, and a plain-language executive summary. The pack is white-labeled with your firm's branding. Provide ten minutes of context — business changes, board priorities, upcoming audits — and AI fills the rest. Partners and investors are increasingly asking for these; now they take minutes instead of hours.
When to Hire In-House vs Engage a vCISO
A full-time CISO makes sense when the security function needs to own hiring decisions, negotiate vendor contracts daily, or sit in on every engineering sprint. For most Indian startups under 200 people, the economics rarely support that — a senior CISO costs ₹50-80 lakh per year plus equity, before you have hired a single analyst to work under them. A vCISO covers the strategic and compliance layer at a fraction of that cost, with the option to step back gracefully once an internal team is built.
vCISO Packages for Indian SMBs
Most Indian SMBs hiring a vCISO have a specific compliance goal in mind — not an open-ended retainer. Bachao.AI structures engagements around three outcome tracks: DPDP-Ready (90-day sprint to meet Digital Personal Data Protection Act obligations), SOC2-Ready (6-month track to Type I readiness), and ISO27001-Ready (9-month track to certification readiness). Each track comes with a defined scope, milestone deliverables, and a readiness report you can share with investors, auditors, or enterprise customers. Pricing is scope-based — request a quote to match the track to your timeline and budget.
DPDP-Ready in 90 Days — Scope & Deliverables
The 90-day DPDP-Ready track is designed for Indian SMBs that need to demonstrate Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 compliance before a fundraise, enterprise contract, or regulator inquiry. Deliverables include: a gap assessment against DPDP Schedule I technical safeguards, a data processing inventory, a consent management framework review, a VAPT scan with findings cross-mapped to DPDP obligations, and a readiness report suitable for sharing with your DPO or legal counsel. The track ends with a written compliance posture summary — not just a list of open issues.
SOC2 Type I Readiness Track
SOC2 Type I certification confirms that your security controls are suitably designed at a point in time — the entry requirement for most US enterprise sales cycles. The 6-month readiness track covers: Trust Service Criteria mapping (Security, Availability, Confidentiality), control design documentation, evidence templates for each criterion, a VAPT scan with findings mapped to the relevant criteria, and a pre-audit gap closure report. Bachao.AI coordinates the documentation layer while your engineering team closes the technical gaps — so you arrive at the formal audit with the evidence already assembled.
When You Need a vCISO vs a Full-Time CISO
The decision is usually triggered by a specific event, not a gradual budget build-up. You likely need a vCISO now if any of these apply: you received your first enterprise customer security questionnaire and have no one to answer it; your DPDP Act DPO obligation is unmet; a funder asked for a security posture summary before term sheet; you are 90 days from an ISO 27001 or SOC2 audit with no owner. You likely need to hire a full-time CISO when you have 50+ engineers, you are signing multi-crore contracts that require the CISO to be a named contact, or your board has made security a board-level function. Most Indian startups under Series B are firmly in vCISO territory — the work is real but the headcount is premature.
Managing 10+ SMB clients from one dashboard
A vCISO practice beyond three clients typically breaks the same way — spreadsheet tracking falls behind, context-switching between client portals consumes hours, and quarterly board report cycles overlap. The Bachao.AI multi-client dashboard separates each client into its own risk score, finding queue, and compliance status — all accessible from one login. Filter by risk severity across the entire portfolio, drill into a specific client with one click, and track remediation progress without switching tools. Adding a new client takes minutes; the dashboard scales without additional administrative overhead as the practice grows.
Auto-generated board decks per client, monthly
Most vCISOs spend three to five hours per client per quarter assembling a board pack from raw VAPT output. Bachao.AI generates the draft automatically: risk trend chart for the quarter, top five open findings with severity and remediation status, compliance milestone progress, and a plain-language executive summary a board member can read in two minutes. Provide ten minutes of context — any business changes, board priorities, or upcoming audits — and AI fills the rest. The pack is white-labeled under your firm's branding. Monthly cadence keeps clients engaged without proportionally increasing your delivery time.
DPDP DPIA & SoA templates pre-filled per client
DPDP Act compliance requires a Data Protection Impact Assessment for high-risk processing activities and a Statement of Applicability for the security controls in scope. Bachao.AI pre-fills both templates per client using VAPT scan data: findings map automatically to DPDP Schedule I safeguards, gap items flow into the SoA, and processing activity records are tagged by risk category. The vCISO reviews, adjusts for client-specific context, and delivers — rather than building from scratch. For practices managing multiple BFSI or healthtech clients with active DPDP obligations, the template layer compresses compliance delivery from days to hours.
White-label reports under your consulting brand
Every report, dashboard, and compliance certificate generated by Bachao.AI carries your firm's branding. Upload your logo, set your color palette, configure headers and footers. When a client receives a board deck, a VAPT report, or a DPDP readiness document, it looks exactly like your firm produced it — because from their perspective, you did. Clients never see the Bachao.AI name. For independent vCISOs and boutique security firms building a brand in the Indian market, the white-label layer protects the client relationship and justifies premium retainer positioning.
Pricing: per-client seat vs flat firm license
Bachao.AI's vCISO Copilot is structured around practice size rather than individual scan transactions. Solo practitioners managing a smaller roster access the platform at a different rate than established firms managing 15–20 clients simultaneously. Plans scale with your client count so platform cost grows only as your revenue grows. Flat firm licenses suit practices where a team of consultants shares a client portfolio under one entity. Per-client pricing suits independent vCISOs with a more concentrated roster. Pricing is scope-based — contact ceo@bachao.ai or book a 30-minute call to match the right plan to your practice model.