Let’s be honest—nobody brags about buying the cheapest parachute. 

Or hiring the cheapest brain surgeon. 

Or getting the cheapest babysitter off Craigslist. 

And yet, when it comes to cybersecurity, business leaders keep searching for the “most affordable” option—like it’s a Groupon deal for defending their life’s work. 

I was about to write a blog explaining why you need third-party penetration testing. Why you can’t just rely on the same vendors who built your defenses to test those defenses. (Spoiler: they’ll miss something. Not because they’re shady, but because no one is going to look for flaws in their own blueprints.) 

So, I did a quick Google search for “third-party penetration test.” 

Guess what the first three ads were? 

“Affordable Pen Test Solutions.” 

“Budget-Friendly Security Validation.” 

“Lowest-Cost Cybersecurity Testing.” 

That’s when it hit me: this is exactly like buying a parachute off eBay. The listing says “slightly used, mostly works, 90% chance of opening.” And you think, well, it’s a deal! 

Except when you jump out of the plane, you really want 100%. 

Here’s the truth: a bargain-basement penetration test doesn’t give you confidence. It gives you paperwork. A neat little PDF you can wave around and tell yourself you’re secure. But if the people doing the testing don’t think like hackers—if they’re not using the same tricks, tools, and twisted logic that attackers use—then you’ve paid for nothing more than a false sense of security. 

And here’s the scary part: your CFO brain is probably telling you that saving a few thousand dollars is smart business. But I’ll tell you what’s not smart: explaining to your board—or worse, your customers—why you spent money on the “cheapest test money can buy” right before you got breached. 

Our clients don’t play that game. They pay for the standard of care. For a patented process that rips through their network the same way a real attacker would. It costs a little more, but it buys something priceless: the peace of mind that when the wolves come knocking, the walls will hold. 

So the next time you’re tempted by a cut-rate penetration test, ask yourself this: 

Do you really want the cheapest parachute in the sky? 

Or do you want to land safely?