Let’s say a compliance platform costs $12,000 a year. Is it expensive?

The replacement it makes will determine the answer.

If you invest $12,000 to reduce the time spent of repetitive evidence gathering in a complex technological environment this could be money wisely invested. The calculations would be different in the event that a small group of individuals could gather similar evidence in only several minutes each month.

That’s a useful way to approach the search for a Vanta alternative. Do not start by asking which platform has the greatest features. Determine how many hours and time these features could save your business.

The Break-Even Point of Automation

Automation of compliance isn’t always beneficial or harmful. The value of compliance automation is dependent on the size of the business. Imagine a company growing in technology with hundreds of employees, many cloud environments, many applications, and frequently access changes. Manually collecting evidence could be a huge operational burden. Integrations that automate monitoring systems and gather evidence can easily justify their expense.

Now think about a 10-person company getting ready for its first SOC 2. Think about a startup that has 10 employees working on its first SOC 2.

This distinction is crucial when evaluating Vanta’s pricing. The capabilities of an advanced platform are amazing, but they can only be of value when a company requires them.

Compare Architecture and Not Just Brands

Vanta Vs Drata is a debate that can easily become a feature-by-feature test. It is crucial to examine the services, features, contracts and quotes of each platform. Both are established systems for compliance that are focused on integrations and automation.

There’s a second decision to take prior to that. Does your company want an integrated compliance platform at all? Certain businesses would prefer continuous monitoring as well as automated evidence collection and automated evidence collection. Some companies prefer to create evidence on their own, particularly when the workload is low.

Vanta Competitors Don’t All Follow the Same Model

A number of well-known Vanta competitors compete in a market that is centered around automation. There are also more lightweight platforms that focus on the organization of systems rather than a large amount of connectivity.

CertAssist is a part of the second group. The product was created by compliance consultants as well as internal auditors, CertAssist organizes framework controls in a central work area, allows for the editing of policies and evidence guidelines, and allows auditors to review evidence submitted by gaining access to only read-only.

It intentionally doesn’t connect to operational systems, nor does it create infrastructure agents. Customers can upload their own evidence if they prefer.

Consideration of System Access in the Decision

The elimination of integrations has its disadvantages: someone must be able to manually collect evidence.

This is a way to eliminate the need for integration, and the use of compliance is not dependent upon an integration with the operating environment.

Both architectures aren’t universally superior. Which one is appropriate for your business?

CertAssist is targeted at companies that have between five and 200 employees and gives pricing information, rather than having to have an in-person sales meeting. Its official launch price is $225 per month which is compared to a standard price of $375 monthly.

Let Complexity Find Its Proper Place

The requirements of a 10 person startup today won’t necessarily be its needs when it has 100 or 500 employees.

It is possible to maintain compliance with a the help of a basic platform. As the amount of employees, systems as well as frameworks and evidence requirements grow, the economics will eventually favour deeper automation. This is a much better approach to purchase compliance technology: let complexity earn its rightful place.

Affording fifty integrations because they look impressive in a table of comparisons isn’t worth it. You should pay for them only if you realize that the cost of the task they replace manually is more expensive.