Turning SOC 2 into Software
Drata
This was a workflow redesign, not just a cheaper audit. The winners turned SOC 2 from a consulting project into software that plugs into GitHub, AWS, Google Workspace, HR systems, and employee devices, checks controls continuously, and gives both the company and the auditor a live evidence trail. That changed compliance from a once a year scramble into a recurring system of record, which is why the category could support SaaS pricing and fast adoption by startups selling upmarket.
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Before automation, teams were doing point in time evidence gathering with spreadsheets, screenshots, email, and in person auditor reviews. Founders and engineers had to pull logs, prove settings manually, and repeat the process each year, which made compliance slow and expensive relative to startup budgets.
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The core product mechanic across Vanta, Secureframe, Laika, and Drata is similar. Connect systems already used to run the company, map those systems to a library of controls, flag missing settings like MFA or encryption, and package the evidence so auditors can review the same underlying data faster.
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The real business model shift was from one off audit prep to annual subscriptions tied to company size and number of frameworks. Once the data pipes exist for SOC 2, vendors can reuse the same controls for ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, questionnaires, and trust center products, which expands revenue without starting from zero each time.
From here, compliance automation keeps moving closer to a broader trust and security operating layer. The durable platforms will be the ones that use the same integrations and evidence graph to handle more frameworks, buyer security reviews, and continuous monitoring, while making auditors more efficient instead of trying to remove them from the process.