Government Contract Compliance Cost Calculator (DFARS / CMMC)
This free calculator estimates what DFARS and CMMC compliance will cost your defense business - one-time implementation, assessment fees, and recurring annual spend - based on your size, CUI scope, current maturity, and IT environment. It is built for contractors and subcontractors budgeting for CMMC Level 1 or Level 2, and for executives deciding whether DoD work remains worth pursuing. Enter six numbers and get a three-year total cost plus the figure that matters most for the bid/no-bid decision: annualized compliance cost as a percentage of the DoD revenue it protects.
Your numbers
Revenue from DoD prime contracts and defense flowdown work that compliance protects.
Headcount across all sites, including shop floor.
Engineers, planners, quality, and shop roles handling controlled drawings or data. Smaller scope (enclave) means lower cost.
How much of NIST 800-171 you have genuinely implemented today.
Legacy on-prem systems and OT/shop-floor equipment raise remediation effort; a contained cloud enclave lowers it.
Level 2 C3PAO certification is required where CUI is handled; Level 1 self-assessment covers FCI-only work.
Your results
Estimates only, based on published industry cost ranges for NIST 800-171 and CMMC programs. Actual costs vary with scoping decisions, existing tooling, and assessor pricing. Not a quote or professional cost opinion.
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How the cost model works
The model starts from a fixed program base (SSP, policies, planning) plus a per-CUI-user cost covering the controls that scale with people - MFA, endpoint hardening, training, and access management, benchmarked around $1,800 per in-scope user for implementation. That subtotal is adjusted by three multipliers: maturity (starting from scratch costs roughly 40% more than the midpoint; being mostly done costs roughly 40% less), environment complexity (legacy on-prem and shop-floor OT raises effort about 25%; a contained enclave lowers it 20%), and assessment level (Level 1 scope is a fraction of Level 2). Recurring cost is modeled at 28% of implementation plus $600 per in-scope user annually, matching the common observation that sustainment runs 25-35% of buildout each year.
Benchmarks behind the numbers
The default assumptions produce results consistent with published industry ranges, which you can use to sanity-check your output:
- Mid-market manufacturers (100-250 employees) typically report $150K-$500K total spend reaching CMMC Level 2 readiness
- C3PAO Level 2 assessments are commonly quoted in the $30K-$60K range depending on scope and site count
- Annual sustainment - monitoring, licenses, training, evidence refresh - generally runs 25-35% of the initial implementation cost
- Contractors who scope aggressively with enclaves report cutting total program cost by half or more versus assessing the whole enterprise
How to interpret and act on your result
Read the percentage-of-revenue output first. Below about 3%, compliance is a defensible cost of doing DoD business and the decision is execution, not strategy. Between 3% and 8%, the economics say rescope before you spend: shrink the CUI boundary with an enclave, reduce in-scope headcount, or consolidate CUI-touching work into fewer systems, then re-run the calculator with a lower CUI share to see the effect. Above 8-10%, have the honest strategic conversation - either DoD revenue needs to grow to carry the cost, or the compliant capacity itself becomes the product, since certified suppliers command pricing power as uncertified competitors exit. Whatever the number, budget the three-year total, not just year one; underfunding sustainment is how certified companies fail surveillance.
How Netray reduces the number you just calculated
Most of the cost this calculator estimates is driven by scope, and scope is a design decision. Netray helps defense manufacturers shrink it: enclave architectures that isolate CUI to a fraction of the enterprise, ERP-centric scoping that keeps SyteLine, LN, or Baan data flows compliant without dragging every workstation into the boundary, and implementation of the specific controls - FIPS encryption, logging, MFA on legacy systems - that consume the most consultant hours when done wrong. Because we also deliver on-prem AI, the same secure environment that satisfies your assessor can host the automation that pays for it, turning compliance spend into productive infrastructure.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does the calculator scale cost by employees who touch CUI instead of total headcount?
Because assessment scope, not company size, drives cost. CMMC applies to the systems and people that store, process, or transmit CUI - a 500-person company with a 40-person engineering enclave can have a smaller assessment footprint than a 100-person shop where controlled drawings circulate everywhere. That is why the single most powerful cost lever in the model is the CUI share slider, and why scoping work should precede any tooling purchases.
Are these costs allowable or recoverable on government contracts?
Generally yes - cybersecurity compliance costs are ordinarily allowable indirect costs on cost-reimbursable work and are recovered through overhead rates, and on fixed-price work they belong in your pricing. Many contractors treat CMMC spend as unrecoverable overhead when it should be reflected in forward pricing rates. Talk to your government accounting advisor about capturing these costs properly; competitors who price compliance in while you absorb it are taking margin you are entitled to recover.
Can I avoid these costs by only taking FCI work at CMMC Level 1?
Some contractors can, and the calculator's Level 1 option shows how much smaller that program is - self-assessment against 17 basic safeguards rather than 110 controls with third-party certification. The constraint is commercial: most manufacturing subcontracts in defense involve drawings and specifications that qualify as CUI, and primes increasingly route work only to Level 2-capable suppliers. Retreating to Level 1 is really a decision to exit CUI-bearing work, so weigh the avoided cost against the revenue that goes with it.
Run your numbers now, then re-run them with a smaller CUI scope to see what disciplined scoping is worth.
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