SOC 2 compliance software: which to buy

What matters is whether the platform produces evidence your auditor will sample without arguing, and whether it started producing it before your observation window opened.

Last reviewed 2026-08-27Written by Jacob Masse, TrazTech Inc.

For a first SOC 2 at a Canadian company, the shortlist is Vanta, Drata, Sprinto and Secureframe, and the choice between them matters less than three other things: connect it before the observation window opens, connect every system in scope, and check that your chosen auditor will work inside it. Expect $8,000 to $30,000 CAD a year depending on headcount.

The wider category view, including platforms that make sense only when you run several frameworks, is on the compliance automation page. This page is about getting a SOC 2 report out the other end.

What to buy, by company shape

Longer positions on each are at Vanta, Drata and Sprinto, and the direct comparison is at Vanta against Drata.

The platform cannot backdate your observation window

This is the single most expensive misunderstanding in this category. A Type 2 report covers a period, and the auditor samples evidence from inside that period. A platform connected in June cannot produce March's access review, and buying one does not shorten the window.

Connect the platform, fix what it flags, let it run for a few weeks so the evidence stream is continuous, and only then open the window. Companies that sign a platform contract and an audit engagement on the same day find the first month of their window has thin evidence in it, and that month gets sampled like every other.

Comparing firms for this? Tell us what you need and it goes to the ones in the directory that do this work. No charge, and no phone number required.

What an auditor actually wants from your platform

Auditors do not accept a control as met because a dashboard is green. They sample underlying evidence, and the platform's value is that the evidence is there, dated, and attributable. What makes an engagement smooth:

• Auditor access to the workspace. Every one of these platforms supports a read-only auditor role. Using it saves several weeks of emailed screenshots across a first audit.
• Evidence with a timestamp and a source. A screenshot uploaded by a person is weaker than a record pulled automatically from the system of record, and auditors treat them differently.
• Complete population data. For access reviews and change management, the auditor needs the whole population to sample from, not a filtered list. Check the platform exports it.
• Coverage of every in-scope system. Anything the platform cannot connect to becomes manual evidence, and it is worth knowing which systems those are before you sign.

The evidence requests themselves are set out on the requirements page, and the criteria they map to on the Trust Services Criteria page.

Check the platform against your auditor, not the other way round

Every platform maintains a network of audit firms and will introduce you to one. That introduction is a commercial arrangement, not a recommendation, and the networks skew heavily American. A Canadian CPA firm can issue your report and American buyers accept it. Shortlist audit firms on their own merits, then confirm each is comfortable working inside the platform you are considering. Most Canadian firms doing this work regularly are comfortable with all four of the main platforms, and asking costs nothing.

What to ask the firm: have you audited inside this platform before, do you take auditor access or do you want evidence exported, and does working in it change your fee. That last answer is occasionally yes, in your favour.

The manual alternative, honestly described

For a company under twenty people with one cloud account, this is enough instead of a platform: a control matrix in a spreadsheet mapping each criterion to a control and an evidence owner, a folder per control with dated evidence, a quarterly access review done in a spreadsheet and signed off by email, branch protection producing change records automatically, a vendor register with review dates, and a calendar with the recurring tasks on it.

That costs a few hours a month and no subscription. It stops working when the number of people whose access has to be reviewed passes about twenty five, or when the person keeping the spreadsheet also has a product to ship. The step-by step version is on SOC2Prep.

Between the spreadsheet and a subscription sits a free workspace that gives you the mapped control set, an evidence register and policy templates. TrazTech, which operates this site, runs one called traztech Workspace, free with no credit card and no seat limit. It connects to AWS, Okta, Google Workspace, GitHub, GitLab, Cloudflare and Jira, and anything else with an API is described as a check rather than picked off a list. Those checks run daily and file evidence against the control they prove. What it does not have is the breadth: seven connectors rather than hundreds, no endpoint agent and no HR integration. If your estate needs that coverage, buy Vanta or Drata. Readiness without a paid platform sets out what each option covers.

Prices for Canadian buyers

Pricing is per employee on an annual term and no vendor here publishes a rate card, so these are bands rather than quotes. Ask for Canadian dollars, ask for the renewal price in the first contract, and get a competing quote before you sign anything. The cost calculator puts this line next to the audit fee and readiness so you can see the whole first year.

Common questions