A 3PAO assessment is the independent security assessment a cloud service offering must pass to reach a FedRAMP Authority to Operate. The single most common error in budgeting for it is conflating the 3PAO's own fee with the total cost of getting authorised. The assessor fee is one line item; the full authorisation programme, advisory work, control implementation, documentation, remediation, the GovCloud premium, and continuous monitoring, runs several times larger. This page is the 2026 cost reference for the 3PAO assessment fee specifically, and how it sits inside the total authorisation budget.
A Third Party Assessment Organisation (3PAO) is a firm accredited by the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) to perform FedRAMP security assessments. The 3PAO independently tests the cloud service offering against the FedRAMP control baseline and produces the Security Assessment Report (SAR) that the sponsoring agency reviews to grant Authority to Operate (ATO). The market is concentrated in roughly 50 accredited firms. The fee buys the assessment work: a Security Assessment Plan (SAP), control testing and evidence review, penetration testing, and the final SAR. It does not buy the advisory or remediation work that gets the system ready to be assessed.
FedRAMP has three impact levels, defined by FIPS 199 categorisation, with escalating control counts: Low (125 controls), Moderate (325 controls), and High (421 controls). The assessment fee scales with the control count and system scope. The figures below are advisory-firm estimates for 2026, not list prices.
Initial 3PAO security assessment fee by FedRAMP impact level (advisory-firm estimates, 2026)
| Impact level | Controls | Initial 3PAO assessment fee | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| FedRAMP Low | 125 | $30K to $60K | Smallest scope; fastest |
| FedRAMP Moderate | 325 | $125K to $300K | Most common impact level |
| FedRAMP High | 421 | $150K to $500K | Largest scope; longest |
A separate Readiness Assessment Report (RAR), the optional pre-assessment that earns FedRAMP Ready status on the marketplace, typically runs $30K to $60K. Many sponsors prefer to see a passing RAR before committing to the full assessment. After authorisation, the 3PAO performs an annual assessment as part of continuous monitoring; that annual reassessment is smaller than the initial assessment because it re-tests a sample of controls rather than the full baseline. DoD IL4 and IL5 assessments run materially higher than the equivalent FedRAMP Moderate and High levels.
No 3PAO publishes a rate card
The 3PAO assessment fee is a small share of the total FedRAMP authorisation cost. The total includes advisory and gap-analysis work, control implementation and engineering, documentation (the System Security Plan, the SAR, the Plan of Action and Milestones), the remediation cycles that follow assessment findings, the GovCloud or Government region pricing premium, and ongoing continuous monitoring. Advisory-firm estimates for the full authorisation cost cluster well above the assessor fee.
3PAO assessment fee versus total FedRAMP authorisation cost (advisory-firm estimates, 2026)
| Impact level | 3PAO assessment fee | Total authorisation cost | Assessor fee as share of total |
|---|---|---|---|
| FedRAMP Low | $30K to $60K | $250K to $500K | Roughly 10 to 15% |
| FedRAMP Moderate | $125K to $300K | $500K to $1.5M | Roughly 15 to 25% |
| FedRAMP High | $150K to $500K | $1M to $3M+ | Roughly 10 to 20% |
The total authorisation cost is dominated not by the assessor but by the advisory, engineering, and remediation effort needed to meet the control baseline, plus the continuous monitoring that runs indefinitely afterwards. A team that arrives at the assessment with mature security practices and clean documentation pays the 3PAO fee once and moves quickly; a team that treats the 3PAO assessment as the start of the work pays for multiple remediation cycles and re-tests, which is where budgets overrun.
Budget the 3PAO fee as a known, bounded line item, and budget the much larger advisory, engineering, and continuous-monitoring effort separately. The discipline that keeps the total down is arriving at the assessment ready: a tight boundary, a complete System Security Plan, and inherited platform controls.
A. The 3PAO's own fee for the initial FedRAMP security assessment runs roughly $30K to $60K for FedRAMP Low, $125K to $300K for FedRAMP Moderate, and $150K to $500K for FedRAMP High, based on advisory-firm estimates for 2026. A separate Readiness Assessment Report (RAR), the optional pre-assessment that earns FedRAMP Ready status, typically runs $30K to $60K. These are the assessor's fees only, not the total cost of getting authorised.
A. 3PAOs set their own prices and do not publish rate cards. Scopes vary so much (control count, system boundary, number of components, organisational readiness) that no two engagements produce comparable numbers. FedRAMP proposed a cost-reporting rule, RFC-0019, that would have required 3PAOs to report assessment costs publicly, but it was never finalised. Every figure on this page is an advisory-firm estimate, not a list price.
A. No, and conflating the two is the most common error. The 3PAO assessment fee is one line item. The total FedRAMP authorisation cost, which includes advisory and gap-analysis work, control implementation and engineering, documentation (SSP, SAR, POA&M), remediation cycles, the GovCloud or Government region pricing premium, and continuous monitoring, is far larger: advisory firms put it at roughly $250K to $500K for Low, $500K to $1.5M for Moderate, and $1M to $3M or more for High. The 3PAO fee is typically a small fraction of that total.
A. An accredited 3PAO (Third Party Assessment Organisation) independently tests the cloud service offering against the FedRAMP control baseline and produces the Security Assessment Report (SAR) that the sponsoring agency reviews to grant Authority to Operate (ATO). The work spans assessment planning, a Security Assessment Plan (SAP), control testing and evidence review, penetration testing, and the final SAR. The 3PAO must be accredited by the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA); the market is concentrated in roughly 50 accredited firms.
A. The Readiness Assessment Report (RAR) is a lighter-weight pre-assessment that a 3PAO performs to confirm a cloud service offering is likely ready for full authorisation; a passing RAR earns FedRAMP Ready status on the marketplace. The full security assessment is the formal, in-depth evaluation that produces the SAR and supports the ATO decision. The RAR is cheaper (about $30K to $60K) and optional, though many agencies and sponsors prefer to see it before committing to the full assessment.
A. Yes. After authorisation, the 3PAO performs an annual assessment as part of continuous monitoring (ConMon), re-testing a subset of controls and reviewing the change history over the year. The annual reassessment is smaller than the initial assessment, typically a fraction of it, because it re-tests a sample of controls rather than the full baseline. It is an ongoing, indefinite cost for as long as the authorisation is maintained.
Updated 2 May 2026