Every comparison of compliance automation platforms has the same problem: the prices in it are made up. Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, Sprinto and Thoropass all publish named packages and none of them publishes a rate. Articles that confidently list "$14,000/year" next to a vendor logo are reporting hearsay with a decimal point attached.
So this comparison does something different. Everything below comes from what the vendors themselves publish, checked in August 2026, and where the answer is "they don't say," it says that. That turns out to be more useful than invented precision, because once you accept that every number is negotiated, the useful question stops being "which is cheapest" and becomes "what am I actually buying, and what will drive my quote."
The honest pricing picture
We checked all five pricing pages in August 2026. Here is what is actually published.
| Platform | Published tiers | Published price | Audit relationship |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vanta | Essentials, Plus, Professional, Enterprise | None — "Request a free demo today to discuss your business needs and get personalized pricing" | Does not state that it delivers audits itself |
| Drata | Foundation, Advanced, Enterprise on /plans; Startup, Growth, Enterprise on /pricing | None — "Get Personalized Pricing" | Does not state that it delivers audits itself |
| Secureframe | Fundamentals, Complete, Defense | None — "Get a quote" on all three | Does not state that it delivers audits itself |
| Sprinto | Foundation and Growth plus enterprise modules, per its docs | None published | Does not state that it delivers audits itself |
| Thoropass | No tier names published | None — "tailored quote" | Delivers the audit itself (see below) |
Two notes on that table. Drata publishes two different tier vocabularies on two different pages, so confirm which set your quote refers to. And the audit column is deliberately worded as a negative: Thoropass positively states that it delivers audits, while the other four simply make no such claim on their sites — we have not confirmed the specific structure of their auditor relationships, and neither should you assume it from a comparison article.
Thoropass states the reason for its own variability plainly: pricing "varies based on factors such as the frameworks pursued, audit scope, company size, and required services." That sentence is a fair description of how all five price, and it is why cross-vendor price comparison only works if you define one scope and put it to everyone.
What actually moves your number: employee headcount (the most common primary meter), how many frameworks are in scope, which modules you turn on beyond core compliance — risk management, vendor risk, trust center, questionnaire automation — contract term and prepayment, and whether you are buying at a quarter end. Multi-framework packages cost more in absolute terms and less per framework, because the underlying evidence is shared.
Before you take any demo, size the work: our SOC 2 Type II gap analysis tool scores your readiness across all five Trust Services Criteria and produces a prioritised remediation list. Walking into a sales call knowing your own gaps is the difference between being sold a tier and buying one.
The one genuine structural difference
Thoropass is the only one of the five that claims on its own site to deliver the audit itself, and this is the most consequential distinction in the market.
Thoropass's site states that "Thoropass is a licensed auditor that delivers audits, supported by purpose built software," and identifies its audit entity as Laika Compliance, LLC dba Thoropass Assurance, "a licensed certified public accounting firm registered with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)." It further states that its pricing "typically reflects both components" — software and audit — and, in a December 2025 release, that Thoropass Assurance received the highest rating on AICPA peer review.
None of the other four makes any comparable claim, so their audit fees reach you separately. We are deliberately stating that as an absence rather than asserting a specific partner-network structure on their behalf, because none of them publishes one.
Practically, that means a Thoropass quote and a Vanta quote are not measuring the same thing. One includes the audit; the other is software, with an audit fee arriving separately from a firm you engage independently. Buyers routinely compare these numbers head to head and reach a wrong conclusion in both directions — Thoropass looking expensive against software-only pricing, or software-only pricing looking complete when it is not.
One thing not to misread while comparing: Secureframe states it has "more than 30 in-house compliance experts and former auditors." That is compliance staff supporting your program, not an in-house audit firm, and it is a different claim from Thoropass's.
The trade-off is a real one and worth stating neutrally. A single vendor relationship covering platform and audit removes coordination overhead, gives you one throat to choke, and makes total cost predictable up front. Separating them gives you a free hand to choose an audit firm with specific sector credibility, more leverage on the audit fee, and a clean structural separation between the party preparing evidence and the party attesting to it. Which matters more depends on your customers and your risk appetite, not on which is objectively better.
Framework coverage as published
Coverage claims are where marketing pages and order forms most often diverge. These lists are as each vendor publishes them.
| Platform | Frameworks listed on the vendor's own pages |
|---|---|
| Vanta | SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, HITRUST CSF, USDP, ISO 42001, PCI DSS, NIST CSF 2.0, FedRAMP, FedRAMP 20x, CMMC 2.0, DORA, ISO 27701, Cyber Essentials, NIST 800-53, NIST 800-171, EU AI Act, NIS 2, NIST AI RMF, ISO 27017/27018/22301, AWS FTR, MVSP, CIS v8.1, CPS 234, CJIS, 23 NYCRR 500, TISAX, Microsoft SSPA, ISO 9001, Essential Eight, CRI Profile, SOX ITGC, BSI C5, custom frameworks |
| Drata | SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, CMMC, PCI DSS, FedRAMP, HITRUST, TISAX, NIST AI RMF, NIS 2, CCM, CIS, CCPA, Cyber Essentials, DORA, Essential Eight, ISO 27701/27017/27018/42001, Microsoft SSPA, NIST 800-171, NIST 800-53, NIST CSF 2.0, NYDFS, FFIEC, COBIT, SOX ITGC, Cyber Fundamentals, CPS 230, AIUC-1, custom frameworks |
| Secureframe | Commercial: SOC 2, ISO 27001:2022, PCI DSS, Cyber Essentials, NYDFS NYCRR 500, FTC Safeguards Rule, ISO 27017, Microsoft SSPA, NIS2, Essential Eight, CIS, SOX ITGC, EU DORA, C5, TISAX, MVSP. Federal: CMMC 2.0, NIST 800-53, NIST 800-171, NIST CSF 2.0, FedRAMP, GovRAMP, CJIS, TX-RAMP. Privacy: HIPAA, ISO 27701, GDPR, CCPA, CPRA. AI: NIST AI RMF, ISO 42001, EU AI Act |
| Thoropass | SOC 1, SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, PCI DSS, HIPAA, HITRUST (e1, i1, r2), CMMC Level 1, NIST CSF 2.0, Cyber Essentials |
| Sprinto | Claims "200+ Compliance Frameworks" but names only SOC 2, ISO, HIPAA and GDPR on that page |
Four things worth pulling out of that table.
Vanta and Drata publish the broadest lists, both now including AI governance frameworks (ISO 42001, NIST AI RMF, and in Vanta's case the EU AI Act) alongside financial-sector frameworks like DORA and NIS 2. If AI governance is on your roadmap — as it increasingly is for B2B software companies — both are credible; neither publishes a total count you should rely on.
Secureframe owns the federal niche. It is the only one of the five publishing both TX-RAMP and GovRAMP, and the only one selling a dedicated CMMC tier — "Defense" — built around artifacts like the SPRS Score Tracker, System Security Plan and POA&M. If you are in the defense industrial base, that is a specific reason to shortlist Secureframe rather than a general one.
Thoropass's list is markedly shorter than the others. That is the trade-off against its bundled audit: fewer frameworks covered, delivered end to end. If your roadmap includes anything outside that ten-item list, check availability before you commit.
Sprinto's "200+ frameworks" claim is the least substantiated on public evidence. The claim is real and prominently published; the naming behind it is not, with only four frameworks listed on the page carrying the headline. That is a disclosure observation rather than a product criticism — but it does mean you should get your specific framework confirmed in writing rather than inferred from the number.
A general caution: Vanta and Secureframe both currently ship unfilled template placeholders on live pages where counts should appear. Any article quoting a precise framework count for those vendors is not reading it off those pages.
Confirm your framework and its version on the order form. "Supports ISO 27001" and "supports ISO 27001:2022 with the Annex A control mapping you need" are different commitments.
What these platforms actually automate
It is worth being precise about this, because it sets expectations for what you are buying.
| Task | Automates well | Still human work |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud configuration evidence | Continuous API collection and re-testing | Deciding which accounts are in scope |
| Access reviews | Pulling user lists, routing reviews, recording sign-off | Judging whether access is appropriate |
| Onboarding and offboarding | HRIS sync, training and policy acceptance tracking | Exception handling when process breaks |
| Policy management | Templates, versioning, distribution, attestation | Making policies match what you actually do |
| Vendor risk | Questionnaire workflow, document collection | Assessing whether a vendor's answer is acceptable |
| Risk assessment | Register structure, tracking, reporting | The assessment itself |
| Audit prep | Evidence room, auditor access, export | Answering the auditor's follow-up questions |
The pattern: automation is strong wherever a system has a good API and the correct answer is mechanical, and absent wherever the answer requires judgment. A platform will not compensate for controls you have not designed. This is also why the honest answer to "does this replace a compliance hire" is that it lets one person do a job that would otherwise need two or three, not that it needs nobody.
For the policy layer specifically, our security policy generator produces framework-aligned policy documents you can bring into any of these platforms — useful if you want to arrive with drafts rather than accept vendor templates wholesale.
Who should pick which
Stated as trade-offs, because these products are close enough that a ranking would be dishonest.
Vanta — the broadest published framework list, spanning AI governance (ISO 42001, NIST AI RMF, EU AI Act), financial-sector regimes (DORA, CPS 234, 23 NYCRR 500) and federal (FedRAMP, FedRAMP 20x, CMMC 2.0). It states it pulls data from "400+ tools." The four-tier structure means capability is gated by tier — Essentials covers a single framework, and security questionnaire volume is explicitly tiered — so read what falls into Essentials versus Professional before assuming a headline feature is included. Strongest fit when you expect to add frameworks over time and want one platform to grow into.
Drata — framework coverage is comparable in breadth to Vanta's, with a distinct lean toward financial services (FFIEC, NYDFS, CPS 230, COBIT). It publishes no integration count, describing "hundreds of tools," so validate connector coverage yourself rather than comparing a number. Note the two published tier vocabularies. Strongest fit when you are past your first audit, scaling a program, and your framework roadmap runs through financial-sector regimes.
Secureframe — the only vendor here with a purpose-built CMMC tier addressing SPRS, SSP and POA&M requirements, and the only one publishing TX-RAMP and GovRAMP. It states "300+ integrations." Strongest fit for defense and public-sector-adjacent companies. For a purely commercial SOC 2 or ISO 27001 program, its coverage is more than adequate but the federal depth you are paying attention to is wasted.
Sprinto — positions itself as an "autonomous trust platform" covering first audit through enterprise GRC, with TPRM, risk management and trust management modules. Public disclosure is the thinnest of the five: tier names differ between its documentation and its blog, the framework claim is largely unnamed, and we could not verify an integration count. Treat it as needing more diligence in the demo than the others — a comment on transparency, not on product quality.
Thoropass — the licensed CPA firm model. Buy it if a single predictable number covering platform and audit is worth more to you than choosing your own auditor. Do not buy it if your customers or board care about the identity of the attesting firm, or if you want to shop the audit fee separately.
Consider skipping all of them if you are under about 25 people, on a simple stack, doing one first-time SOC 2 Type I. The auditor fee dominates either way, and a disciplined team with good documentation can get there without adding software. Revisit the moment you need a second framework, continuous Type II evidence, or you are fielding customer security questionnaires regularly.
To filter a wider field than these five — including Hyperproof, AuditBoard, OneTrust, Anecdotes and Strike Graph — against your own constraints on budget, company size, framework coverage and integration breadth, use our compliance platform selector. If your driver is specifically HIPAA rather than SOC 2, start with the HIPAA quick assessment.
Running the evaluation
Because published pricing does not exist, the evaluation process carries the weight that a price comparison would normally carry.
Define one scope and hold it constant. Employee count, exact frameworks and versions, systems in scope, and modules required. Send the identical scope to every vendor. Quotes built on different assumptions cannot be compared, and vendors will happily scope differently.
Ask for total first-year and steady-state cost. First year includes implementation and the audit; year two often looks very different. Ask specifically what triggers an uplift at renewal — headcount bands are the usual mechanism, and growing companies get caught by them.
Make them connect your systems live. Bring your ten highest-evidence-volume systems to the demo and watch each connector authenticate and pull data. A logo on an integrations page tells you nothing about connector depth.
Establish where the audit fee sits. Inside the number (Thoropass) or outside it (everyone else). Get the outside number too, from an actual audit firm, before you compare.
Ask what leaving looks like. Whether policies, evidence and control mappings export in a usable form is a question worth asking while you still have leverage.
Get tier contents in writing on the order form. Tier boundaries and add-on definitions are where quotes most often diverge from expectations, and a marketing page is not a contract.
The bottom line
These five platforms are more similar than their marketing suggests, and the differences that matter are structural rather than featural: Thoropass delivers the audit itself and covers fewer frameworks; Secureframe owns the federal and defense niche; Vanta has the widest published framework list and the most explicitly tiered packaging; Drata matches Vanta on breadth with a financial-services lean; Sprinto discloses the least publicly.
None of them publishes a price, so the discipline that saves you money is not picking the "cheapest" platform from a comparison table — it is defining one scope, putting it to three vendors, and getting the answers in writing.
For the frameworks themselves rather than the tooling, see our compliance frameworks complete guide, the SOC 2 compliance guide, and the continuous compliance monitoring guide.
Vendor tiers, framework lists and pricing disclosure were verified against each vendor's own published pages in August 2026. Vendors change packaging frequently — confirm current details directly before making a purchase decision.