Imagine a platform for compliance costs you $12,000 per year. Is it expensive?
What it replaces will determine the answer.
If automating the collection of evidence in a complicated technology-driven environment will eliminate hundreds of hours of tedious work, then $12,000 could be an investment worth it. If a small business with seven employees could collect similar evidence in just the space of a few hours every month, the cost is very different.
It’s a smart method to begin your search for the best Vanta alternative. Don’t begin with asking which platform has the greatest features. Consider what these features can allow your company to save time and money.
The Break-Even Point of Automation
It’s not inherently either good or negative. The value it brings changes with. Imagine a rapidly growing tech company with multiple cloud environments and multiple applications. The effort of manually capturing evidence over time could become extremely high. Integrations that automatically monitor systems and collect evidence easily justify their cost.
Now consider a 10-person startup preparing for its first SOC 2. Its infrastructure may be relatively small, and evidence collection may be manageable without significant automation.
That difference matters when evaluating Vanta pricing. While a well-developed platform can provide a variety of capabilities but they only have value for organizations that are in need of them.
Compare Architecture, Not Just Brands
A search for Vanta and Drata can quickly become a feature-by-feature exercise. It is important to compare the services, features and contracts offered by both platforms. Both are reputable systems for compliance that are focused on integrations and automation.
You’ll need to decide on an additional thing before you do. Do you want to use a Compliance platform that integrates? Certain businesses want continuous monitoring and automated evidence collection. Some businesses prefer to collect evidence by themselves.
Vanta Competitors Don’t Follow the Same Model
Many Vanta competitors are in the same class that focuses on automation. There are lighter platforms which focus on organization and large system connectivity.
CertAssist is a member of the second category. CertAssist was developed by internal auditors, compliance consultants as well as other experts, organizes the controls frameworks in a central workspace. It lets you edit guidelines and policies for the auditing process, and allows auditors to review evidence via read-only access.
It does not install agents or connect to infrastructure systems. Customers choose and upload the evidence they want to share.
Consideration should be given to the access to the system.
It is apparent that removing integrations can be a disadvantage. Someone has to gather evidence manually.
It also removes the need for integration setup and means the compliance application does not require connections to the operational environment.
Both architectures are equally excellent. What is the best choice for your company?
CertAssist is geared towards teams comprising between five and 200 people and publishes its pricing instead of requiring for a sales meeting to get the initial figure. The stated launch price for CertAssist per month is $225 in comparison to an average of $375.
Let Complexity Earn Its Place
The requirements for a start-up that a 10 person company has today might not be the same for 500 or 100 employees.
A simple platform could be beneficial while compliance stays simple. The cost of automation could increase as systems, employees and frameworks expand. Better to let the complexity of technology for compliance to earn its rightful place.
Spending money on fifty integrations just because they look good in a comparison table is not worth it. They’re worth it as the work they take over is more costly than doing them manually.