Direct answer: Compliance automation software connects to your cloud, identity provider, and code hosting, checks a set of technical controls on a schedule, and stores the results as audit evidence. The main platforms are Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, Sprinto, and Scrut. They are genuinely good at continuous evidence collection and genuinely bad at the part that actually takes the time, which is deciding what your controls should be, writing them, and fixing what is broken. Expect roughly $7,000 to $25,000 a year depending on headcount and framework count. If all you need right now is to understand the scope, you can do the whole self-assessment for free.
What compliance automation actually does
Every platform in this category does the same three things. It reads configuration from systems you already run, compares what it finds against a control set, and keeps a dated record so an auditor can see the check ran. That is real work and it saves real hours, particularly for the controls that need proving every quarter forever: access reviews, backup checks, endpoint coverage, and onboarding and offboarding.
What none of them do is decide what is in scope, write a policy that matches how you actually operate, fix a broken change management process, or answer the auditor when they push back. Those are the parts that consume a first SOC 2, and they are why buying a platform in month one and expecting a report in month three usually does not work.
The platforms, compared
Vanta
The most established, the widest integration catalogue, and the one most auditors have seen before. Strong on the SOC 2 and ISO 27001 path, and its trust page product is genuinely useful when you are answering enterprise security reviews. Pricing scales with headcount and framework count. Its weakness is the same as its strength: the opinionated control set is fast to adopt and awkward to deviate from when your environment does not look like the template.
Drata
Closest direct competitor to Vanta, with a similar integration surface and a stronger story on control customisation and multi-framework overlap. Teams running several frameworks at once tend to prefer it. Similar pricing band.
Secureframe
Comparable feature set, generally positioned on a higher level of included human support. If you want the tooling and some guided help in one contract rather than buying an operator separately, it is worth a look. Verify what the included support actually covers before you sign, because it varies by tier.
Sprinto
Aimed at smaller and faster-moving teams, usually cheaper, and well suited to a first SOC 2 or ISO 27001 on a straightforward cloud stack. Fewer integrations at the long tail. For a twenty person B2B SaaS company on AWS with Google Workspace and GitHub, that long tail rarely matters.
Scrut
Broad framework coverage for the price, including the ones the bigger platforms treat as an afterthought. Often shortlisted by teams who need several standards at once without paying enterprise rates.
traztech Workspace, the free option
We build a free compliance workspace, so treat this entry with the scepticism it deserves and check it yourself. It covers the self-assessment half: every control of fourteen frameworks in plain English, an evidence register that maps one artefact to every control asking for it, a policy library, a risk register, vendor records with the actual reports attached, and a security testing register. It does not do continuous automated evidence collection, which is the main thing the paid platforms are for. There is no paid tier, no trial clock, and no card. We make money when someone asks us to help close the gaps, not from the workspace.
How to choose
| Your situation | What usually makes sense |
|---|---|
| You do not yet know what the framework asks for | Do the free self-assessment first. Buying automation before you understand scope means paying to automate the wrong control set. |
| One framework, small cloud stack, first audit | Sprinto or Scrut, or the free workspace plus an operator. The premium platforms are priced for a problem you do not have yet. |
| Several frameworks at once | Drata or Scrut. Overlap handling is where the time is saved. |
| Enterprise buyers already asking hard questions | Vanta, largely because its trust page and auditor familiarity shorten the security review. |
| You have the tool and are still not audit ready | The gap is not tooling. It is the remediation and the evidence nobody has written. That is an operator problem. |
What the tools will not do for you
- Decide your scope. Which systems, which trust criteria, which entities. Get this wrong and you either fail or pay for an audit twice the size you needed.
- Fix the finding. A dashboard turning red tells you change management is broken. Someone still has to design the process, get engineering to adopt it, and prove it ran.
- Write a policy that matches reality. Generated policies describe an idealised company. Auditors test against what you actually do, and the gap between the two is where findings come from.
- Handle the auditor. Sampling arguments, scope negotiation, and evidence pushback are human work.
- Prove a control operated. Continuous checks show the current state. A Type II asks whether it held for the whole window, including the month somebody turned it off.
A realistic budget
For a first SOC 2 at a startup, the three buckets are the licensed CPA firm that issues the report, the tooling subscription, and the readiness work to actually pass. The readiness work is usually the largest and is the one most often left out of the plan. Tooling is real but it is the smallest of the three, which is why choosing the platform first is the wrong order.
Frequently asked
Is compliance automation software worth it?
For recurring evidence, yes, particularly once you are maintaining a Type II across multiple years. For a first audit where nothing is built yet, it accelerates the easy half and leaves the hard half untouched.
Can I get SOC 2 without any of them?
Yes. Plenty of companies pass with a spreadsheet, a document store, and someone organised. The tooling reduces manual collection; it is not a requirement of the standard, and no auditor will ask which platform you bought.
Do I need one before talking to an auditor?
No. Scope and readiness come first. An auditor cares about your controls and your evidence, not your dashboard.
What is the cheapest way to start?
Run the self-assessment for free, see the real size of the problem, then decide whether to buy tooling, hire help, or both. The scope is the thing worth knowing before you spend anything.