Many organizations find themselves balancing the need to invest in proactive security improvements while ensuring expert help is available when an incident occurs.

Proactive testing, readiness exercises, and security assessments are essential for reducing risk, but they are often delayed or deprioritized as day‑to‑day operational demands take over. When a serious incident happens, security leaders find themselves scrambling to secure incident response under pressure, with uncertainty around availability, response times, and cost.

The Sophos Security Services Retainer is designed to give partners a simpler, more consistent way to deliver security outcomes across both preparedness and response.

 

The Sophos Security Services Retainer

The retainer brings together Sophos proactive, readiness, professional, and emergency incident response services into a single, easy‑to‑consume offering.

Instead of selling one‑off services or positioning preparedness and response as separate decisions, partners can now offer a unified model that allows their customers to:

• Plan and prioritize proactive security work throughout the year.
• Strengthen readiness before an incident occurs.
• Lock in guaranteed access to incident response experts with defined SLAs.

 

A consistent way to deliver full security lifecycle coverage

The Security Services Retainer is designed to support your customers across the full security lifecycle, from identifying gaps early, to strengthening defenses, to responding rapidly when a threat actor strikes. The retainer is built on a Service Unit model, giving customers the flexibility to apply services where they have the greatest impact, while securing emergency response in advance.

With the retainer, your customers get access to:

Proactive and readiness services
Service Units can be used for expert‑led penetration testing, web application security assessments, incident readiness exercises, tabletop exercises, and professional services that help customers maximize the value of their security investments.

Guaranteed emergency incident response
When a cyberattack occurs, customers have rapid access to Sophos Emergency Incident Response, with defined service‑level agreements and pre‑negotiated discounted hourly rates, eliminating delays, uncertainty, and last‑minute procurement challenges.

 

How to position the Security Services Retainer with customers

The retainer is especially effective for customers who:

• Want to reduce risk through proactive testing and readiness, but struggle to prioritize it.
• Need confidence that expert response will be available during a major incident.
• Are looking for a more predictable, defensible way to plan security services spend.
• Are facing increasing expectations from executives, regulators, or cyber insurance providers.

Rather than asking customers to pick between preparedness and response, the retainer allows partners to lead with a simple message: both areas are planned, both are covered, and both are delivered through one flexible model.

 

How the retainer benefits your business

For partners and MSPs, the Security Services Retainer enables a more repeatable, scalable, and predictable services motion.

Key partner benefits include:

A simpler way to position services
One retainer replaces fragmented conversations about ad‑hoc testing, standalone incident response retainers, and professional services projects.

More predictable service delivery
Service Units allow customers to plan and schedule proactive services throughout the year, reducing reactive engagements and improving delivery consistency.

Stronger customer trust during incidents
Guaranteed incident response with defined SLAs helps partners protect credibility and customer relationships when pressure is highest.

Access to deep expertise without adding headcount
Experienced Sophos security specialists, incident responders, and professional services consultants deliver retainer services, meaning the partner does not need to build or maintain those capabilities in‑house.

 

Getting started

• Start quoting and ordering today.
• Get more information, training, and sales tools on the Partner Portal.
• Refer your prospects and customers to the Security Services Retainer webpage.