Should you build your own pentester team or outsource tests to external firms? This is a question many organizations face when developing their security program. The answer isn’t straightforward and depends on many factors.
Internal Pentest Team
Advantages
1. Deep Environment Knowledge
- Pentesters know the infrastructure inside out
- Understand business context and change history
- Know where to look for “skeletons in the closet”
- Shorter recon and mapping time
2. On-Demand Availability
- Ad-hoc tests without waiting for vendor availability
- Quick fix verification
- Support for DevSecOps (tests in CI/CD)
- Incident response (forensics, compromise investigation)
3. Continuity and Consistency
- Same team for years = deep knowledge
- Comparable results between tests
- Building institutional knowledge
- Mentoring and knowledge transfer
4. Process Integration
- Direct collaboration with developers
- Participation in design reviews
- Security champion for the organization
- Fast escalation path
5. Data Control
- Sensitive information stays internal
- No leak risk through external vendor
- Simpler compliance (especially in regulated industries)
Disadvantages
1. High Fixed Costs
- Salaries of experienced pentesters ($40-80k+/year)
- Training and certifications
- Tools and licenses
- Test infrastructure
2. Recruitment Difficulties
- Employee market – good pentesters are in demand
- High financial expectations
- Turnover – better offers on the market
- Time to onboard new people
3. Limited Perspectives
- Tunnel vision – getting used to environment
- Lack of fresh outlook
- Limited exposure to various technologies
- Risk of skill stagnation
4. Scalability
- Hard to scale for peaks (e.g., before audit)
- Vacations and illness = coverage gaps
- One departure = big competency gap
5. Specialization
- Hard to have experts in everything
- Some technologies require niche knowledge
- Mobile, IoT, OT – different competencies
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Outsourcing Penetration Tests
Advantages
1. Access to Broad Expertise
- Specialists in various technologies
- Current threat knowledge
- Experience from many environments
- Certified professionals (OSCP, OSCE, CREST)
2. Fresh Perspective
- No environment habituation
- Objective assessment
- Different attack perspectives
- Benchmark with other organizations
3. Scalability
- Ability to increase scope ad-hoc
- Different specialists for different tasks
- No vacation or turnover problems
- Flexible billing models
4. Variable Costs
- Pay for completed tests
- No fixed costs (salaries, tools)
- Predictable budget per project
- Easier financial planning
5. Independence and Compliance
- Objective assessment for auditors
- Third-party validation
- No conflict of interest
- Meeting regulatory requirements (PCI DSS 11.3.2)
Disadvantages
1. Lack of Deep Environment Knowledge
- Time to understand infrastructure
- Business context must be conveyed
- May miss organization-specific issues
2. Availability
- Waiting for schedule slot
- Difficulties with urgent requests
- Seasonal overloads (Q4, before audits)
3. Team Variability
- Different pentesters in different projects
- Lack of knowledge continuity
- Need to re-onboard
4. Hidden Costs
- Retests often paid additionally
- Consultations outside report
- Scope creep and change orders
- Relationship management costs
5. Quality Risk
- Market full of firms of varying quality
- Need for careful selection
- Dependence on specific people in the firm
Decision Criteria
When Internal Team Makes Sense
Organization size:
- Large company with extensive infrastructure
- Many applications requiring continuous tests
- Sufficient budget for 3-5+ person team
Development model:
- Own development (not just off-the-shelf)
- Frequent releases requiring tests
- DevSecOps / CI/CD requiring security integration
Industry:
- Finance, healthcare – strict regulations
- Defense, government – data security requirements
- Critical infrastructure – limited external access
Culture:
- Security as core competency
- Desire to build internal competencies
- Long-term security program
When Outsourcing is Better
Organization size:
- Small/medium company
- Limited budget for fixed costs
- Sporadic testing needs
Business model:
- Mainly off-the-shelf products
- Rare infrastructure changes
- Outsourced development
Test purpose:
- Compliance (annual pentest required)
- Third-party validation
- Point-in-time assessment
Requirements:
- Need for specialized expertise (OT, mobile, cloud)
- Independent assessment
- Fresh perspective
Hybrid Model
Many organizations choose an approach combining advantages of both models:
Variant 1: Core team + external specialists
Internal team:
- Daily work with developers
- Tests in CI/CD
- Vulnerability management program
- Triage and coordination
External specialists:
- Annual comprehensive pentests
- Specialized tests (mobile, OT, cloud)
- Red team exercises
- Third-party validation for auditors
Variant 2: Security engineer + external pentests
Internal security engineer:
- Security program management
- Coordination with developers
- Vulnerability scanning
- External pentest oversight
Outsourced pentests:
- All penetration tests
- Retests
- Specialized audits
Variant 3: Full outsource with retainer
Permanent partner:
- Retainer for specified days/month
- Environment knowledge grows over time
- Priority availability
- Long-term relationship
Advantages:
- Costs still variable
- Building environment knowledge
- Availability close to internal team
Costs – Comparison
Internal Team (3 people)
Annual costs:
- Salaries of three specialists — the largest item
- Training/certifications
- Tools (Burp Suite Enterprise, BloodHound Enterprise, etc.)
- Infrastructure
- Overhead (HR, management)
Total: a high fixed cost, independent of the number of tests performed
You get:
- ~600 person-days of testing/year (minus vacations, training, other tasks)
- Continuous availability
- Process integration
Outsourcing (comparable scope)
Annual costs:
- Comprehensive pentest (web, infra, mobile)
- Retests
- Ad-hoc consultations
- Specialized tests (OT, cloud)
Total: a variable cost that depends on the number and scope of engagements — for a comparable scope, clearly lower than maintaining an in-house team
You get:
- 40-60 person-days of testing/year
- Broad expertise
- Independent validation
Conclusion
Outsourcing is significantly cheaper per project, but internal team gives more person-days and continuous availability. For organizations needing continuous security support, internal team may be more cost-effective per testing day.
How to Make the Decision
Step 1: Assess Needs
- How many tests per year do you need?
- How often do you change code/infrastructure?
- Do you need continuous availability?
- What specializations are required?
Step 2: Assess Resources
- What budget do you have for security testing?
- Can you hire and retain talent?
- What’s specialist availability in the market?
Step 3: Consider Compliance
- Do regulations require independent tests?
- Is third-party validation needed?
- How often are tests required?
Step 4: Pilot
- Start with outsourcing
- Assess frequency of needs
- Consider building team as needs grow
Summary
| Criterion | Internal Team | Outsourcing |
|---|---|---|
| Environment knowledge | Deep | Limited |
| Availability | Continuous | On-demand |
| Costs | Fixed, high | Variable, lower |
| Expertise | Limited to team | Broad |
| Fresh perspective | No | Yes |
| Scalability | Difficult | Easy |
| Compliance (independence) | No | Yes |
For most organizations optimal is the hybrid model or outsourcing with retainer. Full internal team pays off only with really large scale operations and mature security program.
Wondering which penetration testing model is right for your organization? Contact us – we’ll help select the optimal solution.
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Frequently asked questions
What are the main advantages of maintaining an internal penetration testing team?
An internal penetration testing team develops deep familiarity with the organization's specific architecture, systems, and business context, enabling more targeted and efficient testing over time. Internal testers are available on demand, can conduct continuous security testing integrated into the development lifecycle, and build institutional knowledge that improves with each engagement. For large organizations with high testing volume, an internal team can also be more cost-effective than frequent external engagements.
When does outsourcing penetration testing make more sense than building an internal team?
Outsourcing makes more sense when the organization lacks the budget to hire and retain multiple certified security specialists, when testing needs are periodic rather than continuous, or when fresh external perspective is needed to identify assumptions and blind spots that internal teams accumulate. Specialized areas such as OT system testing, hardware security, or advanced red team exercises often require specialized expertise that is impractical to maintain internally for most organizations.
What is the hybrid model for penetration testing and when does it work best?
The hybrid model combines a small internal security team that handles continuous security scanning, DevSecOps integration, and routine assessments with periodic external penetration tests by specialized firms. This model works best for organizations that want both ongoing security testing integration into their development pipeline and the external perspective and specialized expertise that outsourced firms provide, without the cost of a large internal red team.
How do costs compare between internal and outsourced penetration testing?
Building an internal penetration testing team requires substantial investment in salaries for multiple certified specialists, ongoing training and certification costs, tooling and lab infrastructure, and management overhead. For organizations that need frequent testing of diverse environments, this investment can be justified, but smaller organizations requiring only annual or semi-annual tests will generally find outsourcing significantly more cost-effective than hiring dedicated internal penetration testers.
