Cobalt
AI-powered offensive security platform for continuous risk mitigation and pentesting as a service.
By Cobalt Labs · HQ San Francisco, US · 4.0/5 Value-Position score (estimate)
Positioning guardrails
Best for
- AppSec and product security teams that need pentests at the speed of release cycles
- Organizations that must produce audit evidence for SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, HIPAA or NIST
- Companies wanting one platform for web, API, cloud, network, mobile, red team and AI/LLM testing
- Teams that want human pentesters augmented by AI, with real-time findings and unlimited retesting
- Enterprises scaling a continuous offensive security program across a broad attack surface
Ideal size: 50–5,000 people · Scale-up or enterprise with an established security function and DevSecOps workflows
Not for
- Teams wanting a fully self-serve, credit-card priced scanner with no sales or scoping call
- Organizations that only need a one-off automated vulnerability scan rather than human-led testing
- Buyers who require published public price lists instead of quote-based annual credit packages
- Very small teams with no compliance, customer or regulatory pentest requirement
Value metrics scorecard
Time-to-Value
Testing can start within 24 hours
~1 days to first production value
Total Cost of Ownership
$3,500/yr
Starts at $3,500 · Annual credit packages; one Cobalt Credit equals 8 testing hours; promotional entry offer of $3,500 per test; otherwise quote-based.
Implementation Friction
2/5
Engineering + admin effort required
Value-Position score
out of 5 · model estimate
Full cost breakdown
Mandatory implementation fee
None
Seat tiers
No per-seat tiers; Standard, Premium and Enterprise packages sold as annual credit pools.
Add-on costs
- Additional credits can be purchased mid-year if the attack surface grows
Company & support
Who is behind Cobalt, and how your team gets help once it is live.
Company
- Founded
- 2013 · 13 yrs in business
- Headquarters
- San Francisco, US
How you get support
- PhoneNot listed
- EmailAll plans
- Live chatNot listed
- Support portal / ticketsNot listed
- Community forumNot listed
- Help centre / docsNot listed
- Dedicated account managerEnterprise only
- In person / on-siteNot listed
- Hours
- Not recorded
- Response time
- Not stated
Pricing page lists customer success team (named CSM on Premium and Enterprise) and onboarding support methods (email on Standard, live on Premium/Enterprise). No support hours or SLA stated.
“Not listed” means the vendor’s public pages don’t mention that channel, not that it is unavailable. Ask about it during evaluation.
Market position
Where Cobalt sits against its closest alternatives. Pick any two of cost, speed, friction and buyer score, and up to 9 companies to compare.
Quadrant view
Typical annual cost × Time-to-value
The lines cross at the median of the solutions shown, so about half sit on each side of each line.
Companies on the chart 6 / 10
- Cobalt
- StackHawk
- Doppler
- SonarQube
- Twingate
- Snyk
Add or change companies
Up to 10 companies including Cobalt. Listed closest first.
Stack fit signal
Compatibility with standard B2B ecosystems.
No supported MCP path today, so it cannot be driven from an AI client.
AI & MCP readiness
What Cobalt ships in AI, and what it asks of your ecosystem.
AI features shipped
Cobalt states that its AI powers autonomous pentest agents and orchestration from scoping to remediation, built on its pentest dataset (Cobalt Sage AI). No source describes BYOK model choice or per-action AI logging.
In your ecosystem
- AI connection
- Not supported
- Model key
- Not recorded
- AI usage audit
- Not recorded
Compliance attestations
* IAPP AIGP certifies individuals, not products. It means named staff hold the credential — not that the platform does.
Bottom line
Cobalt is a penetration-testing-as-a-service (PTaaS) vendor combining Cobalt Core pentesters with an AI-powered platform for scoping, orchestration and remediation. Testing covers web, API, cloud, network, mobile, red team and AI/LLM targets, with engagements launched within 24 hours and findings tracked in-platform. Pricing uses annual credit packages (one credit equals eight testing hours), and results sync to Jira, GitHub, Slack and 50+ tools. Buyers typically come for compliance evidence such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS and HIPAA.
Frequently asked questions
How quickly can we start a pentest with Cobalt?
Cobalt advertises starting testing within 24 hours and going from scope to active pentest in hours, with findings surfaced in real time. The pricing page lists start times of 1 business day for Enterprise, 2 business days for Premium and 3 business days for Standard, and findings delivered within 24 hours on its promotional autonomous pentest offer.
How does Cobalt's credit pricing work?
A Cobalt Credit equals eight hours of offensive security testing, blending automated detection with human validation, orchestration and reporting. Credits are sold in annual packages covering scoping, testing, retesting and platform access. Credits do not roll over between contract years, but additional credits can be purchased mid-year. A promotional offer lists $3,500 per test.
Do we still need an internal security team?
Yes. Cobalt is a managed service that augments internal security and development teams, supplying vetted Cobalt Core pentesters, customer success contacts and security program managers, plus a platform for tracking and remediating findings. Customers describe using it to move from manual processes to continuous security embedded in DevSecOps pipelines.
Which compliance standards does Cobalt address?
Cobalt publishes compliance solutions for SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, NIST 800-53 and the EU Cyber Resilience Act, and delivers audit-quality attestation reports. These are customer compliance use cases; the sources reviewed do not show Cobalt claiming its own SOC 2, ISO 27001 or similar certifications.
What integrations does Cobalt offer?
Cobalt states integrations with Jira, GitHub, Slack and 50+ other tools, plus a Vanta integration that syncs findings, pentests, assets and user data to automate evidence collection. Findings also flow into the Cobalt Offensive Security Platform for centralized reporting and remediation tracking.