Looking for a CyberSmart alternative?
CyberSmart and HackRisk take two very different views of the same problem. Here’s how they compare, and how to pick between them.
CyberSmart is the best-known name in UK Cyber Essentials certification, with device monitoring, staff training and bundled insurance for 7,000+ businesses.
HackRisk approaches the same problem from the opposite direction: it scans your business from the outside, the way an attacker sees it, and turns the result into one plain-English score, from a published £49.99 a month on a 12-month commitment, with nothing to install.
Choose CyberSmart if certification and device compliance are the whole job. Choose HackRisk if you want to know what’s actually exposed, including credentials already on the dark web.
Why people go looking for an alternative
CyberSmart has earned its position. It effectively built the software category around Cyber Essentials, holds a 4.4/5 on G2 and 4.8/5 on Trustpilot, and its certification packages include a £25,000 cyber insurance policy. For a UK SME whose goal is “get certified and keep the devices compliant”, it’s a credible default.
The searches for an alternative tend to come from four frustrations.
You can’t see the price without a call. CyberSmart’s bundled packages (Core, Complete and Managed Cyber Essentials Plus) are sold through a discovery call, with no package pricing published (checked August 2026). Its plans page does list individual products at £999 + VAT a year, and its own FAQ notes that certification fees vary with organisation size, so the real number still depends on a conversation. Some buyers don’t mind. Plenty do.
It watches from the inside only. CyberSmart’s protection is built around an agent installed on your desktops and mobiles, checking configurations, patching and policy compliance. That’s useful, but it’s your view of your own devices. It says little about what an attacker sees when they look at your company from the internet: exposed services, forgotten subdomains, misconfigured servers, staff passwords already circulating in breach dumps.
No dark web monitoring. Stolen credentials are one of the most common ways into a small business, and dark web credential monitoring doesn’t appear in any of CyberSmart’s listed products (checked August 2026).
Certification isn’t the same as security. Cyber Essentials is a worthwhile baseline, and CyberSmart’s own marketing quotes its protection against common attacks. But a certificate is a point-in-time statement about controls. It won’t tell you next month that a developer left a database exposed, or that your payroll provider was breached.
HackRisk in brief
HackRisk is a cyber risk monitoring service for UK small and mid-sized businesses, built and run by the security experts at CyberLab. Rather than installing software on your devices, it works from the outside in: continuous scanning of your external attack surface, dark web monitoring for stolen staff credentials, vulnerability scanning and supply chain checks, all rolled into a single number. Think of it as your credit score for cyber security.
The score comes with a report written for directors rather than sysadmins, ranking fixes by what needs attention first, and it’s the kind of evidence you can put in front of a board, an insurer or a client’s due-diligence questionnaire.
Pricing is on the website: £49.99 a month for Core on a 12-month commitment (£59.99 a month rolling), and a Cyber Essentials Readiness tier from £77 a month that adds an account manager and quarterly consultant sessions. It starts with a free board-ready report, delivered within 24 hours with 30 days of full portal access. There are no card details to enter and no sales call to sit through.
HackRisk vs CyberSmart at a glance
| HackRisk | CyberSmart | |
|---|---|---|
| Approach | Outside-in: scans what attackers can see from the internet | Inside-out: agent installed on devices checks compliance and patching |
| Anything to install? | No, read-only external scanning | Yes, Active Protect app on desktops and mobiles |
| Published pricing | Yes: £49.99/month Core on a 12-month commitment (£59.99/month rolling); CE Readiness from £77/month | Packages quote-led via discovery call; individual plans listed at £999 + VAT/year (checked Aug 2026) |
| Free offer | Free report in 24 hours + 30 days portal access, no card, no sales call | Demo-led; free trial by arrangement only |
| Core output | One risk score plus a plain-English, board-ready report | Compliance dashboard across enrolled devices |
| Dark web credential monitoring | Included in Core | Not in listed products |
| External attack surface and supply chain scanning | Included | Device-led product; no external attack surface product listed |
| Cyber Essentials | Readiness tier with quarterly consultant sessions, from £77/month | Certification is the anchor product, incl. CE Plus and £25k bundled insurance |
| Device policy management and patching | Not offered | Included; this is CyberSmart's home ground |
| Staff training and phishing simulation | Add-on at £2/person/month | Included in packages (Learn and Phish) |
| Human expert support | CyberLab's accredited security team behind every account | Support plus a large MSP partner network |
| Track record | New brand, backed by CyberLab | 7,000+ businesses; G2 4.4, Trustpilot 4.8 |
Where the two really differ
Direction of view
CyberSmart tells you whether your devices comply with good practice. HackRisk tells you what an attacker can find and exploit right now: the servers and subdomains you forgot about, the software versions visible from outside, the staff credentials already for sale. Both are legitimate views of risk. They’re just different views, and only one of them is the attacker’s.
What it takes to get started
CyberSmart needs its app rolled out across your devices before it can protect anything, which means deployment effort and staff cooperation, and coverage only of the machines you enrol.
HackRisk needs your domain name. The first scan is read-only and external; nothing is installed and your production systems are never touched. That’s also why the free report can exist: there’s no onboarding project standing between you and your first result.
Pricing and how you buy
HackRisk publishes everything: £49.99 a month for Core on a 12-month commitment (£59.99 a month on a 1-month rolling plan), £77 a month upwards for CE Readiness on a 12-month term, and add-ons priced per unit (£25 a month per extra domain, £8 per extra scan target, £2 per person for training). You can budget it on the pricing page without speaking to anyone.
CyberSmart’s bundles are priced through a discovery call. Its plans page lists individual products at £999 + VAT a year (checked August 2026), with certification fees inside that varying by company size. It isn’t hidden pricing in bad faith, but it does mean a call before you can compare quotes.
Cyber Essentials
If your single goal is the certificate, CyberSmart is built around exactly that. Its certification packages include a £25,000 insurance policy and it has taken thousands of businesses through the process. HackRisk’s Cyber Essentials Readiness tier (from £77 a month) prepares you for CE and CE+ with an account manager and quarterly sessions with a CyberLab security consultant, and keeps the outside-in monitoring running underneath.
CyberSmart treats certification as the product; HackRisk treats it as one milestone inside continuous risk monitoring.
Proof you can show other people
Both products produce evidence, but for different audiences. CyberSmart’s certificate is recognised in procurement and supply chains, and that recognition has real commercial value.
HackRisk’s score and report are built for the conversations in between certificates: the board meeting, the insurance renewal, the client who asks “how do we know you’re secure?” this quarter rather than at your last audit. Core plans also carry up to a 10% cyber insurance discount.
Who should stay with CyberSmart
Stick with (or choose) CyberSmart if:
- your immediate, non-negotiable goal is Cyber Essentials or CE Plus certification with hands-on help
- you want device-level policy enforcement, patching and training managed in one place
- the bundled £25k insurance policy matters to you
- you buy through an MSP that already partners with them
The ideal CyberSmart customer is a UK SME that needs certification for contracts and wants its device estate kept compliant with minimal thought.
Who should choose HackRisk
HackRisk is the better fit if:
- you want to know what attackers can actually see and reach, beyond whether your devices are configured well
- stolen credentials worry you; dark web monitoring is in the core plan
- you can’t or don’t want to install agents on every device (contractors, BYOD, mixed estates)
- you want published pricing and a first result within 24 hours
- you answer to a board or clients who need a number, and a report they can read without translation
The ideal HackRisk customer is a UK business of roughly 10 to 250 people that wants continuous, understandable visibility of its real exposure.
You might not have to choose
These two tools overlap less than a comparison page might suggest. One watches your devices from inside; the other watches your business from outside. Some companies will sensibly run both.
If budget forces a choice, the question to ask is which blind spot costs you more: unmanaged devices, or unknown exposure.
There’s a cheap way to find out. The free HackRisk Report shows you within 24 hours what’s currently visible and whether any staff credentials are already out there. If it finds nothing alarming, you’ve lost nothing. If it does, you’ll know exactly what the outside-in view was worth.
Comparing vulnerability scanners instead? Read our Intruder alternative comparison.
Frequently asked questions
What's the main difference between HackRisk and CyberSmart?
Direction. CyberSmart works inside-out: an installed app checks your devices for compliance, patching and policy. HackRisk works outside-in: it scans your external attack surface, monitors the dark web for stolen credentials and expresses the result as a single risk score, with nothing installed.
Does CyberSmart publish its prices?
Its bundled packages (Core, Complete, Managed Cyber Essentials Plus) are sold through a discovery call without published pricing. Its plans page listed individual products at £999 + VAT a year when we checked in August 2026, with certification fees varying by organisation size. HackRisk publishes all pricing, from £49.99 a month on a 12-month commitment (£59.99 a month rolling).
Can HackRisk get me Cyber Essentials certified?
The Cyber Essentials Readiness tier (from £77 a month on a 12-month term) prepares you for CE and CE+ with an account manager and quarterly consultant sessions from CyberLab's security team, alongside continuous monitoring. Certification itself is always issued through an accredited certification body, whichever provider prepares you.
Do I have to install anything to use HackRisk?
Nothing to get started. The free HackRisk Report and all external scanning are read-only and run from the outside, so there's no software to roll out to staff devices and your production systems are never touched. The one exception is the internal vulnerability scan included with HackRisk Core, which covers 5 endpoints and does need something installed on the systems you want scanned from the inside.
Does CyberSmart monitor the dark web?
Dark web credential monitoring doesn't appear in CyberSmart's listed products (checked August 2026). Its focus is device monitoring, patching, training and certification. HackRisk includes dark web monitoring in its Core plan, from £49.99 a month on a 12-month commitment.
Could I use HackRisk and CyberSmart together?
Yes, and the two barely overlap: CyberSmart keeps devices compliant and handles certification, HackRisk watches your external exposure and the dark web. Because HackRisk's external scanning installs nothing, adding it to an existing CyberSmart setup takes no deployment work.
See what attackers can see, free, in 24 hours
Before booking anyone’s discovery call, get the data: your score, your external exposure, and any staff credentials already on the dark web.
No card details, no sales call, nothing installed. Plans from £49.99 a month, billed annually, if you decide to keep monitoring.
Competitor information on this page was checked against cybersmart.co.uk and public review sites on 11 August 2026. If you spot something out of date, tell us and we’ll correct it.