Automation Lowers SOC 2 Costs
Christina Cacioppo, CEO of Vanta, on the value of SOC 2 compliance for startups
The software turned a bespoke audit engagement into a much more standardized workflow, which made it harder for auditors to justify startup-unfriendly fees. Instead of billing for weeks of chasing screenshots, policies, access lists, and device records by hand, auditors could plug into data already collected through integrations, review cleaner evidence, and finish more audits per team. That shifted the market from high price, low volume projects toward lower price, higher throughput work.
-
Before compliance automation, SOC 2 often meant $50K to $100K fees, long timelines, and heavy founder or CTO time. Vanta, Secureframe, and Laika compressed much of that prep work into software, which reset customer expectations for what an audit should cost and how fast it should move.
-
The key operational change was evidence collection. Platforms connected to tools like AWS, GitHub, HR systems, and employee devices, then continuously pulled logs, permissions, and control data. Auditors still had to issue the opinion, but much of the clerical work was pre-done inside the product.
-
That pricing pressure did not remove auditors, it changed their business model. Firms that embraced these platforms could accept lower ACV per audit because they could complete more audits with the same staff. This is why tech-forward auditors became preferred partners across the category.
The next step is the same logic spreading beyond SOC 2. Once compliance software owns the evidence, monitoring, and auditor workflow, the winning platforms can reuse that data for ISO 27001, HIPAA, vendor reviews, and adjacent security products. That pushes more value into software, keeps pressure on standalone audit pricing, and expands the market leaders into broader security systems of record.