Vanta / Drata
$10,000–$25,000
per year, typical for teams under 50
Excellent platforms, once you have a security team to drive them. Pricing and integrations assume 50+ people, not your first enterprise deal at 12.
01Audit-ready SaaS
Your first SOC 2, without the enterprise platform tax.
Audit-ready in weeks. Scoped controls, an evidence vault, policy templates, and a live readiness dashboard. For a fraction of what enterprise platforms cost.
No card to scope out · Set up in minutes · Cancel anytime
certn.app / dashboard
Audit readiness
74%
Almost there
By category
View all →- Security28/3580%
- Availability4/667%
- Confidentiality4/580%
- Privacy11/1861%
Next up
3 left- CC6.7Restrict to authorized users
- A1.2Backup recovery testing
- PI3.1Input validation
Audit package
Cover sheet · controls index · 10 policies · evidence by control
Built around the AICPA Trust Services CriteriaSecurity · Availability · Confidentiality · Processing Integrity · PrivacyNo infrastructure access required
02 · Product
Everything to pass.
Nothing extra.
Scoping
A 6-question intake that does the hard part for you.
SOC 2 isn't a single checklist. It's five Trust Services Criteria, and most companies only need one or two. The intake asks six structured questions about how your service actually works — not blunt yes/no, but pick-the-option-that-fits, so the wizard separates "we have a measured SLA" from "uptime matters but no contract," and "we collect PII for regulated purposes" from "our customers bring us their data." That precision is the difference between landing at around 40 controls and the 70+ a generic checklist would assign.
- Pick-the-option questions distinguish controller from processor, measured SLA from informal commitment
- Re-scope anytime as your business evolves
- Justification trail for every Trust Services category we exclude
certn.app / onboarding
Question 4 of 667%
Which best describes your relationship with the people whose personal information is in your system?
SOC 2 Privacy applies when you are the data controller — directly responsible to data subjects. Most B2B SaaS are processors and do not need Privacy.
We sign up end users directly
D2C apps, prosumer tools, or employee-facing apps where the data subject is your user.
Regulated personal information
Identity verification, payroll-to-employee, background checks, or healthcare.
Our customers bring us their data
B2B SaaS — your business customer is the data controller. You process their data on their behalf.
No personal information
You do not knowingly store any personal information about identifiable individuals.
Saving automatically · Use ← → to navigate
Controls
Track readiness control-by-control, with evidence right where you need it.
Every control has its own page with auditor-style prompts for what they expect to see. Drag in a screenshot of your access review, a CSV of terminated employees, or a PDF of your pen test. Two views: by control when you're working through the list, and by folder when you have evidence (access reviews, vendor reports, training records) that spans many controls. Nothing is auto-marked complete: you confirm each control when you're actually done, so the readiness number reflects truth, not just uploads.
- Per-control prompts so you know exactly what an auditor is looking for
- Folder view for cross-control evidence: one access review file lives in one place but counts for every control it touches
- Explicit "mark complete" action per control, no auto-complete on first upload
- One-click export of the full audit package, organized for handoff
certn.app / vault
Unfiled › Folder
Q1 2026 Access Reviews
8 files in this folder · 7.7 MB total
- pdfaccess-review-engineering-q1.pdf2.3 MBMar 14
- csvokta-export-march-2026.csv412 KBMar 15
- pngaws-iam-snapshot.png1.1 MBMar 16
- csvticket-history-eng-q1.csv786 KBMar 12
- pnggithub-team-permissions.png892 KBMar 11
- pdfaccess-review-sales-q1.pdf1.8 MBMar 13
- csvreviewer-signoffs-q1.csv156 KBMar 15
Synced·37 / 40 applicable controls have evidence
Drag any file onto a folder or control to attachPolicies
Ten fill-in-the-blank policies with sensible defaults.
Acceptable Use, Incident Response, Access Control, Data Retention, Password, Vendor Management, Business Continuity, Vulnerability Management, Change Management, and Risk Assessment. Each one is a guided form. Fill in the blanks, preview the finished doc, and download as PDF.
- Live preview as you type
- Per-policy or collated PDF export
- Reviewed against AICPA Trust Services Criteria
certn.app / policies / data-retention
Editing
Data Retention Policy
5 of 8 fields filled · ~10 min remaining · maps to CC6.5, C1.2
Customer data retention period
36 months from contract termination
Backup retention
90 days rolling, encrypted at rest
Deletion procedure on cancellation
Soft-delete immediately, permanent removal after [number] days
Auditors typically expect 30 or 90 days here. The default in the template is 30.
Legal hold exception
Not yet filled
Live preview updates as you typePreview PDFDownload
03How it works
From signup to audit, in four steps.
01
Sign up & scope
Create an account and answer six questions. Takes about three minutes.
02
Upload evidence
Drop screenshots, configs, or PDFs into each control. We tell you exactly what auditors look for.
03
Generate policies
Fill in the blanks, preview the finished policy, and export the full package as PDF.
04
Hand off to your auditor
Download a single audit package with controls, evidence, and policies, formatted the way auditors expect.
04Why we built it this way
One job. Done well.
SOC 2 platforms got expensive because they kept adding things: infrastructure monitors, employee training, vendor risk modules, AI policy generators. Each new layer brings another price tier, plus another integration that takes weeks to wire up.
Certn does the opposite. Four jobs, focused: scope your controls, hold your evidence, generate your policies, surface your readiness. No infrastructure access. No implementation engineer. No 90-day rollout.
The benefit isn’t only the price. It’s that you can sign up at 9am and have a real picture of your audit readiness by lunch.
Where focus shows up
No infrastructure access
Your AWS keys, GitHub admin tokens, and HR APIs stay where they are. Evidence is uploaded by you, not scraped by Certn. No IAM tickets, no security review with your CTO.
No AI-generated policies
Templates you fill in with sensible defaults, in language auditors recognize. Nothing you'd have to verify line by line, or explain in front of an auditor.
No bolt-on modules
Vendor risk, employee training, pen test tracking. Those tools exist and most are good. Use what you already have. Certn doesn't pretend to replace them.
No 90-day implementation
Nothing to wire up, no kickoff meeting, no implementation engineer. You sign up at 9am and have a real readiness picture by lunch.
05The SOC 2 landscape
Three other tools. Three different fits.
Vanta, a consultant, and a spreadsheet each solve a real problem. The cards below sketch where each tool was built to fit.
Compliance consultant
$10,000–$30,000
one engagement, a real person guides you
A real human walks you through every step. The right call if you have the budget. Hard to justify pre-Series A when runway is measured in months.
Google Sheets
Free
until something falls through
What most small teams reach for first. The risk lives in what you don't know to track. One missed quarterly review becomes an audit exception.
06Pricing
Honest, founder-friendly pricing.
Start free with the scoping wizard. Pay only when you’re ready to run the audit — no contracts, no implementation fees.
Free
$0forever
Run the 6-question scoping wizard and see your trimmed SOC 2 control list. Confirm whether SOC 2 is worth pursuing before paying a cent. No credit card required.
Type 1
$499one-time
Audit-ready zip: cover sheet, controls and evidence index, ten policies as individual PDFs, and your evidence files organized into per-control folders. The structure auditors expect.
Coming soon
Type 2
$199/ month
Type 2 readiness across the 12-month observation window. Recurring evidence reminders and a drift signal for controls that haven’t been touched recently. In active development — join the waitlist for early access.
07 · About Certn
Built for the gap between
Vanta and a spreadsheet.
Compliance tooling grew up around the largest customers. The 200-person companies with dedicated security teams and the budget for an enterprise compliance platform. Certn is for everyone else.
Certn was built after talking to founders going through their first SOC 2 audit at small companies. The pattern was consistent: a 12-person SaaS gets asked for SOC 2 by an enterprise customer, looks at Vanta, looks at the price, and looks at the integration requirements. They walk away and try to do it in spreadsheets. Six months later, evidence is scattered across three Notion pages and four Google Drives.
Certn fills that gap with one focused product. No infrastructure monitor, no training system, no vendor risk tracker. Four things that actually get a small team through an audit: scope, evidence, policies, readiness.
01
Compliance should be a tool, not a tax.
Big platforms charge more than your first engineer's salary because they bundle infrastructure monitoring, training, and vendor risk. We build only what a small team actually needs.
02
Auditors want clarity, not cleverness.
Every feature is judged on one question: does it make the auditor's job easier? If yes, it earns a spot in the product. If not, it gets cut, no exceptions.
03
Founders should never read a 200-page framework doc.
You shouldn't need the AICPA Trust Services Criteria memorized to pass SOC 2. Certn translates the framework into questions a non-security person can answer in an afternoon.
07FAQ
Common questions.
Do I actually need SOC 2?+
If enterprise customers are starting to ask for it, or if you're losing deals over a security questionnaire, then yes. SOC 2 is the de-facto trust signal for B2B SaaS in North America.
Will this actually pass an audit?+
Our controls and policies follow the AICPA Trust Services Criteria. You still hire a CPA firm for the audit itself. Certn gets you 90% of the way there so the audit is short and inexpensive.
Is the audit itself included?+
No. The actual SOC 2 audit is performed by a CPA firm. Certn gets you 90% of the way there so the audit is short, smooth, and inexpensive. Most customers spend $7,000 to $20,000 with their auditor depending on whether they pursue Type 1 or Type 2.
How is this different from Vanta or Drata?+
Vanta and Drata are full compliance platforms: infrastructure monitors, training systems, vendor risk modules, the works. That's why they typically run $10,000 to $25,000 a year for teams under 50 and need an implementation engineer to deploy. Certn is deliberately smaller. Scope, evidence, policies, readiness. The four pieces a small team needs to walk into an audit ready, with nothing extra to set up or pay for.
How can you do SOC 2 without integrations?+
Most SOC 2 controls aren't automated anyway. They're access reviews, incident postmortems, vendor lists, and training records, all handled by hand regardless of the tool you use. The pieces an integration could automate, like an access list snapshot, you upload as a CSV or screenshot. That trades a few minutes a quarter for skipping the platform fee, the IAM grants, and the implementation rollout.
When does Type 2 launch?+
Type 2 (the continuous-compliance subscription for the 12-month observation window) is in active development. Join the waitlist and we'll email you the moment it's live, with an early-access discount for waitlist members.
Can I switch between plans?+
Once Type 2 launches, you'll be able to upgrade from Type 1 anytime and we'll credit what you already paid. For now, Type 1 is the only paid plan available.
Can I cancel anytime?+
Type 1 is a one-time purchase, so there's nothing to cancel. When Type 2 launches, it'll be month-to-month with no contracts — cancel anytime. Either way, you can export everything you've uploaded whenever you want.
Stop losing deals over
security questionnaires.
Sign up free, complete the 6-question scope, and see your full readiness picture in under five minutes.