Security awareness training software compared

Security awareness training software teaches employees to spot and report attacks such as phishing, then records who finished which course. The eight products on this page each offer training modules, send simulated phishing emails to staff and report on who completed their training. We checked prices and features on each vendor's own site, and every product page links to the pages we used.

Why many small businesses buy it

Most buyers come to this category because someone else asks for proof. In the US, the FTC Safeguards Rule requires financial institutions to provide personnel with security awareness training that is updated as necessary to reflect risks found in the risk assessment. The HIPAA Security Rule requires covered entities to implement a security awareness and training program for all members of the workforce, including management. A cyber insurance questionnaire or a customer security review often asks the same question in plainer words.

Those rules ask for a program and a record, not a particular tool. A spreadsheet of attendance at a yearly video would show a program to an auditor. The software earns its price when the business wants the record to build itself, with reminders sent automatically, repeat clickers flagged and a report ready on request.

The threat is real too. The 2026 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report says the most frequent causes of breaches continue to heavily involve the human element, including social engineering, phishing and stolen credentials. It also reports 40% higher click rates on mobile devices, which matters because many simulations only test email on a desktop.

What the three must-haves mean

We list a product only when its vendor states three things. Training modules are courses or lessons employees complete, such as short videos with a quiz. Phishing simulations are fake attack emails sent to staff, with a record of who clicked, who entered a password and who reported the message. Completion reports show which users finished assigned training and which did not.

The third is the one vendors describe most loosely, so we required a statement on a vendor page or in its documentation that names completion or incomplete training. Mimecast shows completed training on individual scorecards and describes no separate admin report, and we say so on its product page. Several well-known vendors are not listed because we could not find that statement, as the last section explains.

Three ways to buy

A dedicated awareness vendor sells the platform on its own. KnowBe4, Wizer, Hoxhunt, SafeTitan and Mimecast Awareness Training work this way, and you can run them without changing your email or endpoint tools.

The second route is a module inside a security suite you may already own. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 includes attack simulation training in Plan 2, which Microsoft lists at $5 per user per month on an annual subscription that auto-renews. The same page lists Plan 1 at $2 and shows that Plan 1 does not include simulation training. Sophos Phish Threat is sold by Sophos as a separate product, so it suits a business that already runs Sophos firewalls or endpoints.

The third route is a managed service. Huntress is better known for managed endpoint detection, and it also sells Managed Security Awareness Training at $2.08 per learner per month at list price. Huntress says managed service providers face no seat minimum, while direct customers and resellers need at least 50 seats per product on a 12-month term.

What the published prices look like

Only four of the eight vendors publish a number, and each number comes with a catch. KnowBe4 prices per seat per month on a 3-year term. Its Foundation tier costs $2.40 for 25 to 50 seats, $2.13 for 51 to 100 and $1.63 for 501 to 1,000. Its Advanced tier costs $3.75, $3.40 and $2.79 for the same bands. KnowBe4 says list prices may vary by region and exclude taxes, and it quotes any company above 1,000 seats.

Wizer prices per user per year. Its free plan has basic annual training and limited reporting but no phishing simulations. The paid Boost plan costs $25 per user per year for 25 or more users, $20 at 51 or more, $17 at 101 or more and $8 at 3,001 or more. Wizer sells Boost on a 3-year term billed annually, and a 1-year term needs a conversation with sales.

Here is what a 100-person company would pay on the published figures, before tax and using the list price. Wizer Boost comes to about $2,000 a year, since 100 users fall in the $20 band. Huntress comes to about $2,496 a year at $2.08 per learner per month. KnowBe4 Foundation comes to about $2,556 a year at $2.13 per seat per month, and KnowBe4 Advanced to about $4,080 at $3.40. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Plan 2 comes to $6,000 a year, but it also covers email protection, so the comparison only holds if you want that protection anyway.

Hoxhunt, Mimecast, Sophos and SafeTitan publish no dollar price. Hoxhunt says it prices per employee and sends a quote after a 30-minute scoping call. Sophos says it prices per user in bands starting at 5 users, on one, two or three year subscriptions. TitanHQ says SafeTitan pricing depends on the number of users or modules. For these four, budget for a sales conversation and ask for the price in writing.

Term length matters as much as the rate

The cheapest published rates come with the longest commitments. KnowBe4 shows only a 3-year term, and Wizer Boost is a 3-year term billed once a year. Training content changes quickly, and a 3-year contract locks in a library you cannot judge in a trial. Huntress sells a 12-month term and says it does not offer multi-year terms for price protection, so a shorter commitment may come with a higher rate.

Ask each vendor three things before signing. Find out whether you can buy one year at the same per-seat rate. Find out what happens to your completion records if you leave. Find out whether the price changes when headcount drifts up or down mid-term, because staff turnover is normal at small companies. The public pages we checked do not answer these, so we left those fields empty on product pages instead of guessing.

Phishing simulation depth varies

Every product here sends simulated phishing, but the controls differ. Hoxhunt says it personalizes simulations by skill level, role and location. SafeTitan sends each user a unique lure and runs continuous campaigns. Microsoft supports credential harvest, malware attachment, link in attachment, drive-by URL and OAuth consent grant techniques, with QR code payloads. KnowBe4's feature list includes simulated vishing and callback phishing, according to its pricing page.

CISA's guidance on recognizing and reporting phishing notes that good grammar no longer proves a message is real, since AI can now produce flawless text. That changes what a good simulation looks like. Templates full of spelling errors train staff to look for the wrong thing, so check that the vendor refreshes templates and lets you edit them.

Completion is not the same as safer behavior

A completion report shows that people sat through a course, which satisfies an auditor but says little about behavior. Proofpoint, a vendor not listed here, says on its own site that training works best when it reduces human risk, not when completion is treated as the main outcome. The same point applies to every product above.

Use the click and report numbers alongside completion. A rising share of staff who report the simulated message matters more than a falling click rate, because reporting is the action that helps your IT team during a real attack. Microsoft's reports separate completed, in progress and incomplete training from repeat offenders, which are users compromised by consecutive simulations, with the default threshold set at two.

Products we left out

We checked several other vendors and left them out because we could not confirm all three must-haves or a verifiable price from the vendor's own pages. Proofpoint's current product page does not describe completion reports, although older pages did. Barracuda, NINJIO and Arctic Wolf pages describe reporting but do not mention training completion. Keepnet publishes a price table whose columns are not labeled, so we could not tell which figure belongs to which plan. Infosec IQ blocked our automated check. Any of these may qualify once we confirm the missing statement with the vendor.

What to test during a trial

• Send a simulation to a small group and time how long it takes to see who clicked and who reported.
• Assign one course, leave it unfinished for a few staff and export the incomplete list.
• Edit a phishing template to use your company name and a real internal process, then check that it still sends.
• Ask the vendor for the cancellation terms and a data export in writing before you sign anything longer than a year.
• Confirm in the quote whether the per-seat price applies to your actual headcount in six months.