Run Phishing Simulations for $37/Month Instead of $30,000/Year

Source: Dev.to

Overview

Most enterprise phishing simulation tools charge $3‑5 per user per year.
For a 10,000‑person company, that’s $30,000‑$50,000 annually.

We run unlimited simulations on a $37/month Azure VM.

GoPhish is an open‑source phishing simulation framework that has been around for 10+ years, with over 10,000 installations, and is MIT licensed. I’ve been maintaining the core repository and handling issues since early 2018.

You can:

• Create realistic phishing campaigns
• Track who opens, clicks, and submits credentials
• Measure improvement over time
• Import thousands of targets via CSV

The problem? Vanilla GoPhish lacks enterprise basics: no MFA, no encryption at rest, no audit logging.

Features

Setup

1. Create an Ubuntu 24.04 VM from the GoPhish 0.14.2 public image on Azure (Standard_B2s = $37/month).
2. Retrieve the auto‑generated admin password from the Azure Serial Console.
3. Log in at https://:3333.

The provided setup script configures:

• systemd services
• TLS certificates
• Ubuntu hardening

Cost Comparison

Same capabilities, a fraction of the cost, and your data stays on your infrastructure.

Links

• GitHub:
• Azure Marketplace: Search for “GoPhish” or “HailBytes”

Questions? Drop them in the comments.