What is the best security awareness training for a small business in 2026?

Riot is one of the few vendors in this space that publishes a price: $6.89 per employee per month, billed annually. The pricing page shows no seat minimum, which matters a lot if you have 12 people. You pay for 12, not 25. You can start free without a credit card.

The product is built around Albert, an assistant that delivers training where people already work: in Slack, in Microsoft Teams, or on the web. Each course takes about five minutes. The price covers the awareness program, phishing simulations, alerts on newly leaked passwords, and a cyber helpline. Riot syncs your Google, Microsoft, Slack or Okta directory four times a day, so new hires get enrolled without you touching anything. The vendor lists GDPR and SOC 2 Type 2 compliance and offers more than ten languages.

In user reviews, the Slack and Teams integration is the standout: employees take courses without logging into yet another tool. One reviewer says Riot covers their ISO 27001 training requirement. Two complaints come up: you can't set the time of day Albert sends reminders, and there's no ready-made monthly dashboard to forward to leadership.

KnowBe4 is the market leader, and unusually, its price list is public. Prices depend on seat count and tier. Foundation runs $2.40 per seat per month for 25 to 50 seats, $2.13 for 51 to 100, $1.97 for 101 to 250 and $1.80 for 251 to 500. Advanced runs $3.75, $3.40, $3.19 and $2.96 on the same bands. Tax is extra.

Two conditions matter for a small business. You have to buy at least 25 seats. And the list prices assume a 3-year term. A 12 person company pays for 25 seats, for three years. Foundation includes 200+ pieces of content, Advanced 1,000+. There's also a free phishing test, handy to measure your baseline click rate before you buy anything.

Admin feedback is split. Some call the reporting weak and see the product as a compliance checkbox. Others say the content gets stale after a few years. The interface is described as a bit dated, with limited template and report customization. On the other hand, several admins report getting big discounts by negotiating.

Wizer is the cheapest serious option we found. The free plan covers basic annual training, with limited reporting and no phishing simulations. For a 10 person office that just needs proof everyone did their yearly training, that can be enough to start.

The paid Boost plan costs $25 per user per year from 25 users, $20 from 51 and $17 from 101, on a 3-year term billed annually. Wizer states that a minimum of 25 users is required to buy online. So the same floor as KnowBe4 applies, but at a much lower ticket: 25 users on Boost come to $625 a year.

The trade-off is depth. Wizer's library is smaller than KnowBe4's, and the free plan gives you nothing to measure behavior with. Use it as a first step, not as your whole program, if your insurer or a customer asks for click rates.

Hoxhunt is a Finnish vendor, and its pricing page is blunt: your quote depends on how many employees you have and which capabilities you need. There's no public price and no free trial, only a demo.

On review sites, users rate it among the best in the category. What comes through in reviews is a program that runs on its own and employees who engage more willingly than with standard videos. Admins who compared it with KnowBe4 also describe it as much more expensive. For a small business, it's a comfort purchase, not a savings play.

Reviews point to three limits: simulations get predictable over time, the frequency starts to wear on some employees, and the Outlook add-in is called slow. For a 30 person company, the price and the lack of a trial make it hard to justify.

usecure is built for MSPs and in-house IT teams, and says it works with 2,000+ MSP partners and secures 15,000+ organisations. You have to request pricing, but you can start a free trial from the website.

The scope is wide for a small business tool, in four modules: adaptive training (uLearn), phishing simulations (uPhish), policy management with acknowledgements (uPolicy) and dark web monitoring for exposed credentials (uBreach). The policy module is the sleeper feature. Many small businesses get asked for a written security policy by an insurer, and usecure hands you a starting point.

The catch is the quote. Without a public price, you can't compare it with Riot or KnowBe4 until you've talked to sales.

Huntress is best known for security tools sold through managed service providers (MSPs), the outside IT firms many small businesses rely on. Its Managed Security Awareness Training follows the same route. The list price is $2.08 per learner per month (MSRP), with volume pricing on request. Through an MSP there's no Huntress seat minimum, on a 12 month term billed monthly in arrears on deployed usage. Buy direct or through a reseller and you need at least 50 seats, on a 12 month term billed monthly or annually (reseller deals are annual).

That changes who does the work. Your MSP sets up the campaigns, watches the results and handles the reporting. For an owner with zero time, that's the whole point. You pay a line on your existing IT bill instead of learning a new console.

The downside is visibility. The list price is public, but your MSP may add its own fees for setup or extra services, so your final cost depends on your provider. Ask for the per-learner price in writing, and ask who owns the training records if you ever switch providers.

Microsoft includes Attack simulation training in Defender for Office 365. The catch is the license. It requires Microsoft 365 E5 or Defender for Office 365 Plan 2. Business Premium, the most common small business license, includes Plan 1, not Plan 2. If you're on Business Premium, you don't have it.

When you do, it's thorough. It simulates credential harvesting, malware attachments, links to malware, OAuth consent grants and QR codes. A 90-day trial of Plan 2 lets you run a first campaign before you commit.

Admins are split. Some say it works great, with good reporting. Others find the training videos awfully dull. That's the main limit: excellent at simulating attacks, much weaker at making people want to learn.