Penetration Testing Cost for UK Adtech and Martech Platforms (2026)

A penetration test for a UK adtech or martech platform typically costs £3,300 to £36,400 in the UK market. The low end is an agency’s own corporate network. The high end is a customer data platform with brand and agency client isolation and a shared cloud audience store. The price is the number of testing days multiplied by a day rate of £1,100 to £1,400.

What does a penetration test cost for an adtech or martech platform?

Most adtech and martech companies fall into one of five scopes, typically costing between £3,300 and £36,400 in the UK market. What you pay depends on how many client-facing systems are tested and how many parties share each one, because that sets the number of testing days. The table shows the typical range for each scope.

Scope	What is tested	Days	Typical UK cost
One campaign or marketing dashboard	A campaign manager, marketing automation tool or list-management app with a single user role	5 days	£5,500 to £7,000
Bidstream or partner API	One API behind programmatic bidding, a demand-side or supply-side integration, or a data-sharing feed	4 to 5 days	£4,400 to £7,000
Customer data platform with client isolation	Audience segments, pixels, API tokens and role separation between agency, brand and publisher users, plus the API behind them	14 to 21 days	£15,400 to £29,400
Platform plus shared cloud audience store	The scope above, plus access scoping and tenant boundaries in the cloud accounts holding campaign, audience and measurement data	18 to 26 days	£19,800 to £36,400
Agency corporate network	The agency’s internet-facing services and its internal network, including access to ad accounts and billing systems	3 to 6 days	£3,300 to £8,400

These are market ranges, worked out from typical engagement lengths and UK day rates of £1,100 to £1,400. They are a guide for budgeting. The pricing page shows the engagement lengths for each type of test, and the quote form gives an exact fixed price for your scope.

What drives the price?

The number of testing days drives the price, and the scope drives the number of days. On an adtech or martech platform, the day count rises with the number of parties who share a system and the number of places data leaves it. Five things matter most.

• Who shares the platform. Separate roles for agencies, brands and publishers each need their boundaries tested, because the main risk is one client reaching another’s audience segments or credentials.
• Number of integrations. Each exchange, demand-side platform, supply-side platform and measurement partner connection is an interface with its own authorisation rules and quota controls. See API penetration testing.
• Tag and pixel footprint. The tag manager, first-party pixel endpoints and consent layer are tested for unauthorised injection and for data leaving a client’s site.
• Where audience data is stored. One data store is a small review. A shared warehouse or clean-room environment across several cloud accounts is a larger one.
• Staff in scope. A phishing assessment against media-buying, finance and account-management teams is priced separately from the platform test.

Tester grade is not a pricing factor, and neither is the size of the testing company. Two quotes for the same scope should differ mainly in the number of days. If one quote is much lower, compare the day counts first.

Does the type of data change the price?

Not by itself. Price follows days, and data type does not add days. What it changes is how the test is run. EJN Labs tests non-production environments with synthetic audience and campaign data wherever possible, which keeps real advertising identifiers and consent signals out of the test and keeps live campaigns running undisturbed.

Tell the testing company early if a client or data partner insists on testing against production. Production testing is safe by default at EJN Labs, with no denial of service, but it needs agreed timing around campaign launches and peak periods.

What is included, and what costs extra?

A quote should cover scoping, testing, the report, a walkthrough of the findings and a retest. Ask every company you approach to confirm each of those in writing, because retests and out of hours work are the two items that most often appear later as extra charges.

With EJN Labs, the quote is a fixed price for a defined scope. It includes:

• Testing by UK-based, CREST-certified testers.
• Findings in a client portal as they are confirmed, each with a CVSS score.
• The report on the last day of testing, and a walkthrough call.
• Free retests until findings are resolved.
• Out of hours slots, with no out-of-hours, callout, cancellation or rescheduling fees.

What changes the price is a change of scope: an extra integration added after the quote, a new client role, or a wider cloud estate than the one described. If the scope grows, you get a new fixed price before any extra work starts.

How do you get a quote, and what will you be asked?

Send the list of systems you want tested and say who has asked for the evidence. A testing company needs a few facts about each system to count the days. Having them ready is the fastest way to get a firm price, and it makes quotes from different companies comparable.

1. Which platforms are in scope: customer data platform, campaign manager, tag manager, automation tool, APIs.
2. The user roles on each platform, and how brand and agency client accounts are separated.
3. How many integrations with exchanges, demand-side and supply-side platforms and data partners are in scope.
4. Where audience and measurement data is stored, and in how many cloud accounts.
5. Whether a staging environment with synthetic data exists.
6. Who asked for the test and the exact wording: a brand vendor assessment, a data-sharing agreement or a partner programme.
7. Any dates to avoid, such as campaign launches or peak trading periods.

Adtech and martech organisations can use a CREST-accredited company or a CHECK provider, depending on what their requirement states. EJN Labs is CREST-accredited. If the document that triggered the request names an accreditation, say so when you ask for the quote.

Do the rules for tracking change the scope or the price?

Not directly. UK GDPR Article 32(1)(d) requires a process for regularly testing the effectiveness of your security measures without naming penetration testing as the method. PECR governs consent for cookies and pixels, which is a separate review from security testing. Our guide to GDPR penetration testing sets out how the data protection side fits in.

How EJN Labs approaches pricing for adtech and martech platforms

EJN Labs is a CREST-accredited UK penetration testing company with a dedicated advertising and marketing technology service. We scope each system by what it does and who shares it, count the days, and give you one fixed price for the defined scope.

We test the systems on the scope list above: customer data platforms and client isolation, campaign managers, tag and pixel layers, marketing automation, bidstream and partner APIs, the cloud stores behind audience data and agency networks. Testing is safe by default on production, with no denial of service. Retests are free until findings are resolved, so the price you agree covers the evidence that issues were fixed as well as the evidence that they were found.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a penetration test cost for an adtech or martech company?

Typically £3,300 to £36,400 in the UK market. An agency corporate network at 3 to 6 days is £3,300 to £8,400. A bidstream or partner API at 4 to 5 days is £4,400 to £7,000. A customer data platform with client isolation at 14 to 21 days is £15,400 to £29,400. These ranges use UK day rates of £1,100 to £1,400.

Why does a platform shared by several brands cost more to test?

Because the boundary between each client is a separate test. Agency, brand and publisher roles, audience segments, API tokens and data exports all need checking, so a customer data platform with client isolation is typically 14 to 21 days, against 5 days for a single-role dashboard.

Is each exchange or partner integration priced separately?

Integrations add days when they are tested in their own right. A single bidstream or partner API is typically 4 to 5 days. A larger set of integrations is scoped by the number of endpoints and authentication flows, and priced as one fixed quote after scoping.

Is a retest included in the price?

It depends on the company, so ask for it in writing. With EJN Labs, retests are free until findings are resolved, and there are no out-of-hours, callout, cancellation or rescheduling fees. The quote is a fixed price for a defined scope.

Can testing be scheduled around campaign launches?

Yes. Tell the testing company about launches and peak trading periods when you ask for the quote. EJN Labs offers out of hours slots at no extra charge, and tests non-production environments with synthetic audience and campaign data wherever possible.

Get a fixed price for your platform

Tell us which systems are in scope and who has asked for the evidence. Request a fixed-price quote and we will come back with the number of days, the price and the earliest start date.

Related: Who Asks an Adtech or Martech Platform for a Penetration Test, and What Do They Ask For?, Best Penetration Testing Companies for UK Adtech and Martech, penetration testing for adtech and martech, penetration testing cost in the UK, API penetration testing and network penetration testing cost.