diff --git a/salt/common/tools/sbin/soup b/salt/common/tools/sbin/soup
index 3f1aea956..597bf99df 100755
--- a/salt/common/tools/sbin/soup
+++ b/salt/common/tools/sbin/soup
@@ -200,7 +200,7 @@ verify_latest_update_script() {
 while getopts ":b" opt; do
   case ${opt} in
     b ) # process option b
-      if [[ $OPTARG =~ ^[0-9]+$ ]] && [[ $OPTARG -gt 0 ]]; then
+      if [[ $OPTARG =~ '^[0-9]+$' ]] && [[ $OPTARG -gt 0 ]]; then
         BATCHSIZE=$OPTARG
       else
         echo "Batch size must be a number greater than 0"