Testing and defence led by a published security researcher with five CVEs, including a CVSS 9.1 Mirai botnet kill-switch.
All security →SOC 2, ISO, and the Canadian privacy stack, run end to end with an independent auditor.
All frameworks →Original research, free tools, and plain-language guides on security and compliance, from a published security researcher.
Read the blog →Real engagements, with the numbers from the engagement record rather than rounded-up marketing figures. Some clients are unnamed while naming permission is outstanding, which is why they are described by shape.
The compliance work itself: what was in scope, what it took, and what came out.
A venture-backed US security company with no compliance programme at all. Built in-house by Jacob as Head of Operations: 76 controls, a five-layer change-approval flow and a 60-plus asset audit across a team of 15. Passed with zero exceptions, with the platform holding 99.9% uptime throughout.
A data centre operator running three sites needed SOC 2 Type II across Security, Availability and Confidentiality alongside ISO 27001:2022 including the Climate Action Amendment. Physical and environmental controls in scope at every site, plus a datacenter platform, an AI compute platform and a self-hosted collaboration stack.
A VC-backed Ontario medtech company putting clinical AI in front of practitioners. Gap analysis, an 84-item evidence programme, and the questions health buyers ask that SOC 2 itself never will.
The parts of a compliance programme nobody publishes: what auditors charge, why their quotes differ, and what tooling is genuinely worth.
The firm revised its number once the client's readiness position was set out and a prep firm was confirmed. Less uncertainty to price, so a smaller estimate.
Four firms, one identical scope. What actually drives a spread that size, and why the preparation spend is the cheaper half of the decision.
The client had priced a compliance automation subscription at five figures a year. They ran the whole programme in our workspace instead, and kept the evidence afterwards.
On the numbers. Everything here comes from the engagement record rather than from an estimate. Where a client is unnamed, naming permission is still outstanding rather than the engagement being hypothetical. We do not publish another firm's audit quotes, so audit pricing is described by what drives it and by the differences we saw. If you want the detail behind any of these, ask us.
One client avoided a five-figure platform subscription. Another had $11,000 taken off the audit firm's own quote for arriving with a documented readiness position. Both of those came out of the same workspace.
| traztech Workspace | Other GRC platforms | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence cost | $0. Free forever, no card, no paid tier | $7,500 to $50,000 a year, on an annual contract |
| Control library, evidence register, policy templates, risk register, vendor questionnaires, readiness scoring | Included | Included |
| What it costs inside an engagement with us | $0. You need a workspace either way | Unchanged. The subscription sits on top of the fee |
| What it does to your audit quote | $11,000 off a five-figure quote on one engagement, for a documented readiness position | Nothing. The audit firm prices your readiness, not your tooling |
Pricing in the right column is what compliance automation platforms are publicly reported to charge; none of them publish a number, so treat it as a range rather than a quote. The $11,000 came off the audit firm's own number once the readiness position was documented (the engagement). Where a paid platform is the better buy, and the fuller comparison, is on the Workspace page.
Track record
We would rather show you the work than a wall of logos. Here is what is behind the advice.
Five published CVEs. CVE-2024-45163 (CVSS 9.1) is a flaw in the Mirai botnet itself, which gave defenders a way to shut down attacker infrastructure. CVE-2026-42626 takes HP ENVY 5000 printers offline from any unauthenticated device on the same network.
The printer is the one that matters on a compliance page: an asset nobody counts as a computer, on a flat network, downed by a device that never had to log in. Auditors ask how controls fail. We have found out first-hand.
At Humera, a venture-backed US security company, Jacob built the compliance programme in-house from nothing: no report, no policies, no documented controls. It ended in a Type II attestation across 76 controls with zero exceptions, on a team of 15.
The platform held 99.9% uptime throughout, which is the part most readiness projects get wrong: controls are easy to design and hard to retrofit onto a system people already depend on.
For a Waterloo data centre operator we ran SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 together rather than one after the other, across a production campus, an AI compute platform and a self-hosted collaboration stack. Scoped so further Ontario and Quebec sites enter as they reach production. Findings delivered and remediated.
For an Ontario medtech company putting an AI clinical assistant in front of practitioners, we ran the gap analysis and built the evidence programme behind their SOC 2.
Before you go
A few short notes on how these programmes actually run, including what auditors accept as evidence. Unsubscribe in one click, and replies reach me directly.
From Jacob Masse, principal of traztech. No spam, unsubscribe in one click.