Preparing your workspace
Preparing your workspace
Consultants get you audit-ready. SimpleAudit keeps you audit-ready — for 12 months straight, at a fraction of the cost.
Last verified: May 17, 2026
| Feature | SimpleAudit | Compliance Consultants |
|---|---|---|
| AI Policy Generation | Templates requiring customization | |
| Conversational AI Interface | ||
| Ongoing Compliance Cadence | ||
| Gap Assessment | ||
| Risk Register | Spreadsheet-based | |
| Vendor Management | Manual process | |
| Access Review Reminders | ||
| Available 24/7 | ||
| Startup-Friendly Pricing |
Teams choose SimpleAudit over consultants when they want ongoing compliance guidance year-round, not a one-time readiness engagement that leaves them on their own for the hardest part.
You pay $10-15K for templates, a gap assessment, and advice — but the hard work of cross-functional coordination, stakeholder management, and evidence collection is still on you.
Source: Industry pricing estimates, author experience
Consultants deliver templates and a gap assessment, then move on. They don't maintain your compliance cadence for the 12-month audit period — the part where startups actually fail.
Source: Author experience across multiple SOC 2 cycles
Outsourcing compliance means you can't answer auditor questions, explain management responses to clients, or adapt when infrastructure changes. You'll need to re-hire every year.
Source: Founder experience
The #1 problem consultants don't solve: remembering quarterly access reviews, monthly vulnerability scans, and semi-annual policy reviews for 12 months straight. For seed-stage teams without a dedicated compliance owner, this is the gap that causes findings.
When your auditor asks questions, you'll know the answers. When clients dig into your report, you can speak intelligently. You own the knowledge instead of renting it.
Starting at $199/mo vs a five-figure consulting engagement. You don't need to be a CTO — or hire one. The AI is the expert. You're the decision-maker.
A consultant is the right call if you're regulated (HIPAA/PCI overlap), have a complex multi-region architecture, or need someone to physically attend audit kickoff meetings on your behalf.
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