Imagine a compliance platform costing $12,000 annually. What is the cost?
What it replaces will determine the answer.
If technology can eliminate hundreds of hours of repetitive evidence collection across a complicated technology system, $12,000 might be a good investment. If a small business of seven people could have the same proof manually in a few minutes every month, the total is quite different.
This is a good approach to start your search for an Vanta alternative. Do not begin by asking which one has the greatest features. Determine how much time and effort those features can save your business.
The Break-Even Point for Automation
It’s not inherently either good or negative. The value of it changes as you grow. Imagine a growing technology company with multiple cloud environments and various applications. Manually collecting evidence could become a serious operational burden. Integrations that automately monitor systems and gather evidence can be able to justify the cost.
Take a look at a startup that has 10 employees who are preparing for their first SOC 2. It may have a relatively tiny infrastructure, and gathering of evidence can be managed without extensive automation.
That difference matters when evaluating Vanta pricing. The capabilities of a high-end platform are impressive, but they can only be of value for organizations that require them.
Compare Architecture and Not Just Brands
A search for Vanta and Drata can quickly become a feature-by-feature exercise. It is crucial to evaluate the services, features as well as the quotes and contracts of each platform. Both are established systems for compliance that are focused on automation and integrations.
But there’s still another decision you have to make. Do you need a compliance platform that integrates? Certain businesses want continuous monitoring and automated collection of evidence. Some businesses prefer to collect evidence on their own, especially if the volume of work is low.
Vanta Competitors Do not all follow the Same Model
A number of famous Vanta competitors compete within the same category of automation. There are also lighter platforms which focus on organization and the vast system connectivity.
CertAssist falls into the latter category. CertAssist was designed by internal auditors and compliance experts. It organizes framework controls into a single work space and allows for editing of guidelines for policy and evidence. Auditors are able to review the evidence provided through a purely read interface.
It is deliberately not connected to operating systems, nor install infrastructure agents. Customers can upload their own evidence if they want to use.
Consideration should be given to the system access.
It is evident that the removal of integrations could have disadvantages. Someone must collect evidence by hand.
This removes the requirement to integrate and the implementation of compliance doesn’t require a connection to the operational environment.
The architectures of either are not superior to the other. The relevant question is which option is most appropriate for your organization.
CertAssist aims at teams with five to 200 employees and offers pricing information rather than having to have an in-person sales meeting. The price stated for the launch of CertAssist is $225 per monthly in comparison to the standard $375.
Let Complexity Have Its Proper Place
The requirements for a start-up with a staff of 10 are not necessarily the same as those of a company with 100 or 500 employees.
A lighter platform can make sense while compliance remains straightforward. Automation’s cost-effectiveness can grow as systems, staff and frameworks multiply. It is better to let the complexity of compliance technology earn its place.
The cost of purchasing fifty integrations simply because they look great in a table of comparisons is not worth it. You should pay for them only when you realize that the cost of the job they replace by hand is greater.
