What is the cheapest way for a small company to stay compliant with NIS2?

Quick answer

For a company of 5 to 30 people, the cheapest defensible NIS2 setup is: run the free scoping test to confirm you're in scope, then run the Start plan at 2,995 SEK per month. That includes the gap analysis, the required policies, ten integrations for automated evidence, and the MSB incident-reporting flow. Total yearly cost is around 36,000 SEK, less than one consultant-day-per-quarter model, and it stays current instead of going stale.

What NIS2 actually requires from a small company

The Cybersecurity Act (Sweden's NIS2 implementation) requires risk management measures proportionate to your size and risk: incident handling with authority reporting, basic hygiene (MFA, backups, patching, access control), supplier security, training for management, and documentation proving all of it. Proportionate is the key word; a 15-person company doesn't need an enterprise GRC program, but it does need evidence, not intentions.

The minimal setup that holds up

Scoping and gap analysis through the onboarding wizard, so your program matches your actual obligations.
Policies from templates, adapted to your environment and e-signed by employees.
Automated checks on the basics: connect Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace and your cloud, and let integrations verify MFA, offboarding, and backups continuously.
The incident flow ready before you need it. The 24-hour MSB early-warning deadline is not something to figure out during an incident.
Management training, since NIS2 explicitly requires board and management involvement, and personal liability applies.

Where not to save money

Two corners are expensive to cut. Don't skip the incident-reporting readiness: missing the 24-hour deadline turns an incident into a sanctions case. And don't run compliance in spreadsheets to save the subscription: the hours you'll spend reconstructing evidence for a supervisory authority cost more than years of the Start plan. If budget is genuinely zero, start with the free scoping test and the free supplier account tier, and upgrade when the first customer questionnaire arrives; see what the free plan includes.