Let’s say the cost of a compliance program costs $12,000 annually. Does that sound like a lot?

The answer will depend on the product it replaces.

If $12,000 is used to save hundreds of hours of repetitive evidence gathering in the complex technological world that could be worth investing. If a startup with seven employees could gather the same evidence in two hours per month, the calculation will be different.

This is a good method to begin your search for the best Vanta alternative. Don’t begin by asking which one has the most features. Consider how many hours and time these features can save your business.

Automated Manufacturing Comes with a Break-Even Level

Automation of compliance isn’t intrinsically beneficial or harmful. Scale can alter its value. Imagine a tech company that is growing, and has several cloud environments, a variety of applications and frequent changes in access. The strain of manually gathering evidence over time could become extremely excessive. Integrations that automatically monitor systems and gather evidence can quickly justify their cost.

Think about a company with 10 employees preparing for their first SOC 2. It might have a small infrastructure, and the documentation of the evidence could be handled with minimal automation.

That difference matters when evaluating Vanta pricing. The capabilities of a high-end platform are impressive, but they only provide financial value in the event that an organization requires them.

Compare Architecture and not just Brands

Looking for Vanta and Drata quickly turns into a feature by -feature search. Both are established solutions for compliance based on automation and integrations. Therefore, the comparison of their frameworks supported and integrations, services, contracts, and individual quotations could prove useful to companies seeking that approach.

However, there’s another choice you need to make. Does your company want an integration-driven compliance platform at all? Some businesses want automated evidence collection and constant monitoring. Certain businesses prefer collecting evidence on their own.

Vanta Competitors Do Not All Utilize the Same Model

Many well-known Vanta competitors compete within a similar automation-focused category. On the market, there are platforms with a simpler design that are more focused on the system’s organization, rather instead of connectivity.

CertAssist is part of the latter group. Created by compliance experts and internal auditors, CertAssist organizes framework controls in a central work area, provides editable policy as well as evidence-based guidance. It also permits auditors to look over evidence with access to only read-only.

It intentionally doesn’t connect to operational systems nor create infrastructure agents. Customers upload their own evidence.

Consideration of System Access in the Making

Removal of integrations comes with its drawbacks. One must take the time to collect evidence.

It also removes the need for integration setup and this means that the compliance application does not require connections to the operational environment.

The structures of one are not superior to the other. It is essential to consider what tradeoffs are appropriate to your business.

CertAssist is aimed at teams of between five and 200 persons. The company publishes its pricing rather than requiring for a sales meeting to get the price at which to start. The advertised price of launch for CertAssist is $225 monthly rather than the usual $375.

Let Complexity take its rightful Place

What is required of a startup with a staff of 10 are not necessarily exactly the same as the company that has 100 or 500 workers.

Compliance can be managed with a simple platform. As systems, employees, frameworks, and evidence requirements multiply, the economics can eventually favor greater automation. Allow complexity to take the lead when buying compliance technologies.

Do not purchase fifty different integrations just because they look attractive on the chart of comparison. They should be paid for only when they are necessary and the cost for doing the task they replace manually is greater.