How Much Does MDR Cost for a UK Small Business?

That headline figure is a starting point, not a quote. What you actually pay depends on how many devices you protect, whether monitoring is genuinely round-the-clock, and how much hands-on response is included. Below is how the numbers break down, what a fair per-endpoint fee covers, and how MDR compares to building the same capability yourself. For the wider picture, see how this sits inside managed cybersecurity as a whole.

How much does MDR cost in the UK in 2026?

Most UK SMEs pay on a per-endpoint, per-month basis. AMVIA's managed detection and response starts from £10 per endpoint per month, which scales predictably with headcount rather than springing surprise costs after an incident. The table below shows indicative monthly budgets at that rate.

These are AMVIA service figures preserved as published and not yet independently reconciled, hence the flags. Treat them as a planning baseline and get a scoped quote before budgeting. The point that matters: fixed monthly pricing turns an unpredictable risk into a known line item.

What should a per-endpoint MDR fee include?

A genuine MDR fee should cover EDR agent deployment, 24/7 SOC monitoring, alert investigation by human analysts, active threat containment and remediation guidance. If a provider quotes "MDR" but only sends you alerts to action yourself, that is monitoring, not response, and it should cost less.

AMVIA's MDR is built on Microsoft Defender for Endpoint monitored by an in-house 24/7 SOC. Microsoft documents the underlying detection and response capability in its official guidance (learn.microsoft.com). A fair per-endpoint fee should include:

• EDR agent rollout and tuning across every covered device
• 24/7 monitoring by human analysts, not just automated triage
• Alert investigation that separates real threats from noise
• Active containment — isolating a compromised device, not emailing you about it
• Remediation guidance and a clear post-incident report

The average cost of the most disruptive breach for UK businesses was £3,550 (DSIT Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025), so even a year of MDR can pay for itself by stopping one serious incident. For the deeper mechanics, read our explainer on managed detection and response.

Why does MDR pricing vary so much between providers?

The spread reflects four things: monitoring hours (business hours versus genuine 24/7), whether human analysts or automated triage handle alerts, the depth of response included, and the EDR technology underneath. Two quotes labelled "MDR" can describe very different services, which is why per-endpoint comparisons mislead unless you check what each fee covers.

Threat volume is the reason 24/7 matters. The NCSC handled 429 total incidents in 2025, with 204 classified as nationally significant — the highest-ever number (NCSC). Around 19,000 UK businesses were hit by ransomware in 2025 (Sophos, 2025), and attackers do not keep office hours. A cheaper business-hours-only service leaves nights and weekends — when ransomware is most often detonated — uncovered.

Phishing remains the dominant entry point: 85% of businesses that identified a breach pointed to phishing as the attack vector (DSIT Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2025). MDR earns its fee precisely when a phishing click slips past your filters and someone has to act in minutes. See how the technology layer alone compares in our MDR vs EDR breakdown.

Is MDR cheaper than building an in-house SOC?

For almost every business under 500 staff, yes. Running a credible 24/7 security operations centre means hiring at least five or six analysts to cover shifts, plus SIEM tooling, threat intelligence feeds and management overhead — comfortably six figures a year before a single alert is investigated. MDR spreads that cost across many customers.

The honest caveat: very large enterprises with mature security teams sometimes justify an in-house SOC. Most UK SMEs do not, and the staffing market makes it harder still. If you want the full cost picture across services, see how much managed cybersecurity costs, and for the operations layer specifically, our managed SOC service.

What hidden costs should you check before signing?

Watch for onboarding fees, minimum endpoint commitments, charges for out-of-hours incident response, and whether log retention and reporting are included or billed separately. A clean MDR contract states the per-endpoint fee, what triggers any extra charge, and the response actions the SOC is authorised to take on your behalf.

Ask three questions of any provider: do humans investigate every alert, can the SOC contain a threat without waiting for your sign-off, and is the price fixed per endpoint regardless of incident volume. AMVIA's answer to all three is yes — and the EDR data that powers it is examined in our endpoint detection and response guide.