SOCaaS vs. In-House SOC: Cost and ROI Analysis for Companies in Poland (2026 Edition)

Deciding whether to set up a Security Operations Center (SOC) is no longer just something the IT team would like to have. The NIS2 Directive is now in force, ransomware groups keep getting more aggressive and insurers keep raising their requirements. Boards in Poland now face a clear choice: build an in-house team from scratch, or rely on an outside partner (SOC as a Service)?

Let's be honest: this is first and foremost a financial decision. It can cost your company millions of złoty a year. Or it can save you most of your security budget while giving you better protection.

In this article, we break down the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of both models. We'll lay out what each one really costs and point out the expenses vendors often "forget" to mention over coffee.

Part 1: In-House SOC – What Does It Really Cost?

Many IT managers who open Excel to plan a capital budget (CAPEX) enter the price of a SIEM license and the salaries of "three IT people." Unfortunately, day-to-day operating costs (OPEX) quickly prove those assumptions wrong. This becomes especially clear once you understand what 24/7/365 monitoring actually involves. Under NIS2, it is already the standard for essential entities.

1. Human Capital: Math You Can't Cheat

This is where estimates most often go wrong. It seems like three people should be enough to cover three shifts. They're not. To keep monitoring going around the clock for a single role (for example, first-line support), you need at least 5–6 full-time employees.

Why so many? Because a week has 168 hours. On top of that come vacation (26 days), sick leave, training (essential in this field, not a perk) and ordinary life.

Realistic market staffing costs (Warsaw, 2026 estimates):

• SOC Manager: PLN 360,000–480,000 (total employer cost). Someone has to build the strategy and take responsibility for it.
• Senior Analyst / Threat Hunter (Tier 3) x1: approx. PLN 300,000. The brains of the operation, who handles the toughest cases.
• Incident Responder (Tier 2) x2: 2 x PLN 220,000 = PLN 440,000. The people who respond when something serious happens.
• SOC Analyst (Tier 1) x6 (shift rotation): 6 x PLN 140,000 = PLN 840,000. The people watching the screens at 3 a.m. on a Sunday.
• Recruitment and onboarding: Conservatively, 20% of annual salary.

Annual total (salaries alone): well over PLN 2 million.

Turnover also adds up. The average SOC analyst stays with one employer for only 18–24 months. Burnout from so-called alert fatigue is a real problem in this industry. When a specialist leaves, replacing them often costs the equivalent of six months' salary, counting the time spent on recruiting, onboarding and getting the team back to full productivity.

2. Technology (the SOC Stack): A SIEM Alone Isn't Enough

People need tools to work with. Open source is free, but only in theory. In practice, it takes a great deal of engineering work to maintain, integrate and parse logs. Commercial enterprise-grade solutions, on the other hand, come with hefty license bills.

• SIEM (e.g., Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel): You usually pay by data volume (GB/day). For a mid-sized company (about 500 employees), that runs PLN 200,000–400,000 a year.
• SOAR (automation): Essential to keep analysts from drowning in repetitive tasks within a week. Cost: approx. PLN 100,000 a year.
• Threat intelligence feeds: High-quality threat data (IOCs) costs PLN 50,000–150,000. Without it, your SOC is effectively "blind" to new hacking campaigns.
• Infrastructure (storage/cloud): Storing logs (1–3 years of retention to meet legal requirements) adds tens of thousands more.

3. Processes: Documentation That Has to Stay Current

Technology changes every day, and a team that stops training falls behind. Certifications such as SANS, OSCP and CISSP cost at least PLN 50,000 a year per team. On top of that, senior staff spend hundreds of hours building and updating playbooks, so that procedures actually work in practice instead of just looking good in a binder.

Part 2: SOC as a Service (SOCaaS) – Economies of Scale

SOCaaS works a bit like cloud computing, but for security. The provider (an MSSP – Managed Security Service Provider) invests in top-tier technology, builds the processes and employs a large team of experts. Those large costs are then spread across hundreds of clients.

What Do You Actually Gain by Outsourcing?

1. No barrier to entry: Instead of spending PLN 3 million up front, you pay a monthly subscription. Costs move from capital expenditure (CAPEX) to operating expenditure (OPEX), which CFOs usually like.
2. Flexibility: After a merger or acquisition, or during a sudden growth spurt, you simply upgrade your package. With an in-house model, you'd have to hire and train new people in a hurry.
3. The network effect (collective intelligence): This is probably the biggest advantage. When the provider detects a new ransomware variant at one client, it immediately updates detection rules for every other client, including you. With an in-house team, you mostly learn from your own mistakes.

Sample SOCaaS Calculation (SMB / Mid-Market)

Take the same organization that would spend more than PLN 2 million on its own staff:

• Setup fee (audit, deployment, log integration): PLN 50,000–100,000 (one-time).
• Monthly subscription (24/7 monitoring, detection, response): PLN 20,000–60,000 per month (depending on the number of endpoints/EPS).

The annual TCO of SOCaaS comes to PLN 300,000–800,000.

That's a saving of about 60–75%. The math is simple: a provider's night-shift analyst monitors 20 companies at once, not just one. Your risk is the same, but the cost is shared among many clients.

Part 3: Case Study – In-House vs. SOCaaS in Practice

Let's look at two scenarios for a typical Polish manufacturing company with 500 employees that falls under NIS2 as an important entity.

Scenario A: Building a Fortress (In-House)

The board decides: "We want full control, so we'll do it ourselves."

• Months 1–6: Recruiting a manager and putting a team together. Buying hardware and choosing a SIEM.
• Months 6–12: Deploying the SIEM and writing rules while the team is still settling in. Monitoring really runs only from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. At night, it's just "on-call by phone."
• After one year: PLN 2.5 million spent. 24/7 monitoring still falls short because two key employees have left. False positives are piling up and frustrating the IT department.

Scenario B: Strategic Partnership (SOCaaS/Hybrid)

The board decides: "We want results, not headcount."

• Weeks 1–4: Environment audit, EDR sensor installation and a secure log connection to the provider's cloud.
• Month 2: Full 24/7 monitoring is live. An old malware infection the company didn't even know about is detected and removed.
• Cost after one year: PLN 400,000.
• Bonus: The company has hired an in-house CISO to oversee the provider and own the long-term strategy (cost included in the budget).

When Does It Still Make Sense to Build Your Own SOC?

In some situations, an in-house SOC is the best choice, or the only one:

1. You're a target for state-sponsored actors (APTs). For example, defense contractors and other sectors with a high risk of espionage. Paranoia is healthy here, and you may need to isolate data completely (air-gapping).
2. You operate at enterprise scale. With 50,000 employees, the scale justifies a dedicated department. Unit costs (per employee) drop to the point where it simply pays off.
3. Specific legal requirements. Rare cases where the law explicitly prohibits processing certain data outside the company's physical premises.

The Hybrid Model: The Sweet Spot for 2026

For many digitally mature companies, the best option is a hybrid SOC, which combines the strengths of both models:

• SOCaaS provider: Handles the grunt work: 24/7 monitoring, filtering out false positives (Tier 1), and incident handling at night and on holidays.
• Your in-house team: A small unit (e.g., a CISO plus two senior specialists) focuses on:
  • Security strategy and architecture.
  • Threat hunting (searching for threats specific to your business).
  • Working with DevOps and business teams.
  • Overseeing the quality of the SOCaaS provider's work.

You pay a fraction of what a fully in-house SOC costs and protect your people from burnout by handing the repetitive work to the provider. The "brains" of the operation stay inside the company.

How to Decide

Before you sign off on an invoice worth millions of złoty, ask yourself three simple questions:

1. Business risk: Can I afford to have production stop at 3 a.m. on a Saturday? If not, you need 24/7 monitoring.
2. Budget: Do I really have the money for six full-time employees, enterprise licenses and ongoing training? If not, a service model is the safer financial choice.
3. Core business: Does my company make money from cybersecurity? If you manufacture windows, building your own army of cyber soldiers probably isn't one of your business goals. Outsourcing lets you focus on what actually makes you money.

Whichever model you choose, remember: The most expensive SOC is the one that isn't working when you really need it.

Want an Exact Calculation?

Every company is different. If you're not sure which model fits you best, get in touch. We can prepare a free TCO analysis for your organization that compares the cost of building an in-house team with deploying the SecurHUB Managed SOC service.

Book a consultation →

FAQ

Is SOCaaS safe for my data?

Yes. Professional providers (MSSPs) operate under strict ISO 27001 standards and are audited more often than internal departments. Logs are usually sent over an encrypted channel, and access to them is tightly restricted. What matters most is signing the right contracts (an SLA and an NDA).

Does the NIS2 Directive allow SOC outsourcing?

Yes. The NIS2 Directive doesn't require any particular deployment model. It requires organizations to have effective monitoring, detection and response in place. For many companies, outsourcing is actually the preferred way to reach compliance quickly, because SOCaaS providers already have processes and technology that meet the regulation's requirements.

What are the biggest "hidden costs" of building an in-house SOC?

The most underestimated cost is staff turnover (HR). When a senior specialist leaves, the cost of recruiting, onboarding and lost knowledge is huge. Other hidden costs include ongoing training, maintaining server infrastructure for the SIEM (storage, power, cooling), and time spent "fighting the tools" instead of analyzing threats.

How does the hybrid model differ from full SOCaaS?

With SOCaaS, you outsource the entire 24/7 operation. With a hybrid model, you share responsibility. The provider usually takes on the grunt work (first line, nights, weekends), while your in-house team focuses on strategy, security policies and responding to the most critical incidents during business hours.

How long does it take to get a SOC up and running?

Building an in-house SOC from scratch takes 6 to 18 months (recruitment, hardware purchases, deployment). Launching a SOCaaS service (connecting logs, configuring rules) usually takes 2 to 6 weeks. That difference is critical if you need to meet regulatory requirements quickly.