A Cobalt alternative for teams that ship every week
Human pentest-as-a-service is deep and valuable — and it is a point-in-time snapshot, scheduled in advance and priced per engagement. If your code changes faster than an annual engagement can keep up, a continuous model is a better fit. Here is an honest comparison.
What Cobalt is good at
Cobalt is a pentest-as-a-service (PTaaS) platform that pairs you with human penetration testers through an on-demand, credit-based model. The value is real: skilled testers bring creativity and judgment a machine can't fully replicate, which is exactly what you want for a deep, high-stakes assessment. For a one-off engagement on a critical system, human-led testing is worth it.
Where the model strains — and AssurePort fits
Two things define human PTaaS: cadence and cost. An engagement is scoped, scheduled and delivered over a window, then certifies your system for that point in time. A traditional test runs $10,000 to $30,000, and annual PTaaS programs commonly reach $20,000–$100,000+. On a codebase that ships weekly, a once- or twice-a-year test leaves most of the year uncovered — a fresh access-control bug can live for months before the next engagement finds it.
AssurePort is built for that gap. It runs authorized, AI-driven penetration tests continuously — as often as you deploy — from $399 per scan with transparent, per-scan pricing instead of credits scoped to each engagement. Every finding still ships with a human-verifiable proof of concept and a mapping to the compliance control it affects, across 11 engines (web, API, cloud, network, Active Directory, SAP, email and more). And all data stays in the EU end to end.
The honest version: continuous AI testing doesn't replace a skilled human red team on the rare occasion you need deep, creative, one-off work. It replaces the annual snapshot as your routine coverage — the layer that proves exploitable risk on every change and produces audit evidence without the scheduling and the invoice of a full engagement each time.
Side by side
| Cobalt (human PTaaS) | AssurePort | |
|---|---|---|
| Who tests | Human pentesters | AI agents, authorized & read-only by default |
| Cadence | Scheduled, point-in-time | Continuous — as often as you deploy |
| Pricing model | Credit-based, per engagement | Transparent, from $399 per scan |
| Typical cost | $10k–$30k+ per engagement | A fraction of one engagement, per year |
| Proof of exploitability | Yes (human PoC) | Yes (verifiable PoC per finding) |
| Coverage | Scoped per engagement | 11 engines in one platform |
| Data residency | Varies | EU throughout (Cloudflare EU, Fly Frankfurt) |
Choose AssurePort if…
- You ship weekly and a once- or twice-a-year snapshot can't keep up with your changes.
- You want transparent, predictable pricing instead of per-engagement credits and quotes.
- You need audit evidence on a continuous cadence — auditors increasingly ask how often you test, not just whether you did. See our ISO 27001 control matrix.
- You are an EU organisation and need end-to-end EU data residency.
For the broader picture, see our comparison of AI pentesting vs scanners vs human PTaaS, and our take on annual pentests vs continuous testing.
Coverage that keeps pace with your pipeline.
Run authorized, AI-driven penetration tests continuously — from $399 per scan, EU-hosted, with a human-verifiable proof of concept and compliance mapping behind every finding.
Run your first scan →Cobalt is a trademark of its respective owner and is named here only for comparison (nominative use). This page reflects general, publicly observable differences in delivery model as of 2026 and AssurePort's own capabilities; it is not an endorsement by, or affiliation with, Cobalt. Cost ranges are typical industry figures and vary by scope. Verify any third-party service's current model and pricing with that vendor directly.