For a small business trying to get ISO 27001 certified, meet Cyber Essentials requirements, or get compliance in order before a big customer audit — that's not a realistic number.
This guide is for organisations who've looked at Vanta, felt the price, and want to understand what the alternatives actually look like.
What Does Vanta Cost?
Vanta doesn't publish its pricing publicly — you need to book a sales call to get a quote. Based on widely reported figures from G2, Capterra, Vendr, and other sources:
| Plan | Reported Cost |
|---|---|
| Core (1 framework) | ~$10,000–$11,500/year |
| Plus (multiple frameworks) | ~$15,000–$30,000/year |
| Growth | ~$30,000+/year |
| Scale/Enterprise | $50,000–$80,000+/year |
| Add-ons (Trust Centre, Vendor Risk) | $6,000–$11,000+/year each |
That's before you factor in your external audit costs, which Vanta doesn't cover. ISO 27001 certification with an accredited body typically costs £3,000–£8,000 on top for an SMB.
For a 20-person UK company trying to get ISO 27001 certified, you could easily be looking at £12,000–£20,000 in year one between Vanta and the audit — for compliance software that was largely built for US SaaS companies pursuing SOC 2.
There's also the contract structure. Vanta pushes multi-year agreements, and real user reviews on Capterra are blunt about what happens when things change: "The contract terms are extremely rigid and not startup-friendly. We were locked into a two-year agreement, and when our financial situation changed, Vanta refused to work with us or allow an early exit."
Who Vanta Is Actually Built For
Vanta started as a SOC 2 automation tool for US-based SaaS companies and has grown from there. That heritage shapes the product in ways that matter if you're a UK SMB:
US-first framework coverage — Vanta is strongest on SOC 2, HIPAA, and FedRAMP. ISO 27001 is supported, but Cyber Essentials — the UK government-backed scheme most UK SMBs and MSPs need — has limited native support.
Integration-heavy automation — Vanta's biggest selling point is continuous monitoring through integrations with AWS, GitHub, Google Workspace, and similar tools. If your IT environment is less cloud-native, you get less value from the platform.
Enterprise sales model — custom pricing, sales calls required, multi-year contracts, and account management that scales with deal size. If you're a 15-person business, you're not the customer they optimise for.
None of this makes Vanta a bad product. It makes it the wrong product for a lot of small businesses.
What Small Businesses Actually Need from Compliance Software
Before looking at alternatives, it's worth being clear on what you actually need. Most small businesses pursuing compliance need:
- A way to document and track controls against their chosen framework (ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, SOC 2, GDPR)
- A risk register to identify and track risks
- Policy management — storing policies, distributing them to staff, tracking acknowledgments
- Evidence storage — somewhere to keep the documentation auditors will ask for
- Supplier/vendor risk management — assessing third parties you rely on
- A gap analysis to understand where you stand before an audit
What most small businesses don't need, at least initially:
- Continuous automated monitoring via 300+ integrations
- AI agents and advanced automation features
- Trust centres and public-facing security pages
- Enterprise-grade user management and multi-workspace configuration
Paying for the second list when you only need the first is where Vanta's pricing stops making sense for smaller organisations.
SnapGRC: A UK-Built Alternative
SnapGRC is a compliance management platform built specifically for small and mid-sized businesses and MSPs — the organisations that need compliance outcomes but can't justify enterprise pricing.
What it covers:
- ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, SOC 2, GDPR, NIS2, DORA, and 40+ other frameworks — pre-mapped so you're not building from scratch
- Risk register with owner assignment and treatment tracking
- Policy management with automated distribution and staff attestation tracking
- Supplier risk assessments
- Compliance gap analysis with real-time status across frameworks
- Auto Questionnaire — AI-powered responses to supplier security questionnaires using your existing documentation
- Multi-tenant architecture for MSPs managing compliance across multiple clients
The key differences from Vanta:
| Vanta | SnapGRC | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ~$10,000–$30,000+/year | Fraction of enterprise pricing |
| Target market | Mid-market and enterprise SaaS | SMBs and MSPs (1–250 users) |
| UK framework focus | US-first (SOC 2, HIPAA) | UK-first (ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, GDPR) |
| Contract terms | Multi-year, rigid | Flexible |
| MSP support | Limited | Multi-tenant, built for MSPs |
| Setup complexity | High (integration-heavy) | Low |
What About Drata and ISMS.online?
Drata is Vanta's closest competitor and has similar pricing — typically $10,000–$25,000/year for SMBs. It's arguably stronger on SOC 2 automation and audit readiness for US-focused SaaS companies, but has the same US-centric heritage and pricing model issues as Vanta for UK SMBs.
ISMS.online is UK-based and ISO 27001-focused, which makes it more relevant for UK organisations than Vanta or Drata. It's a reasonable option, though its pricing and feature depth tend to be positioned above what most small businesses need, and the MSP use case isn't a core focus.
For a UK SMB or MSP that primarily needs ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, and GDPR compliance at a price that doesn't require a board sign-off, neither of these is optimised for your situation.
Questions to Ask Before Choosing Any Compliance Platform
What frameworks do you actually need? Don't pay for a platform's SOC 2 automation if your customers are asking for ISO 27001 or Cyber Essentials.
Is the pricing transparent? If you need a sales call to find out what it costs, expect the number to be higher than you'd like and the contract to be longer than you want.
Does it support your geography? UK-specific frameworks like Cyber Essentials and UK GDPR have nuances that US-first platforms don't always handle well.
Are you an MSP managing multiple clients? Most compliance tools are built for a single organisation. If you're managing compliance for clients, you need multi-tenant architecture — otherwise you're buying separate instances per client or compromising on data separation.
What's the contract structure? Annual flexibility matters, especially for a growing business where your compliance needs will change.
The Bottom Line
Vanta is excellent if you're a US-based SaaS company scaling towards SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification and have the budget to match. For that use case, the continuous monitoring, integrations, and audit automation genuinely save significant time.
For a UK SMB or MSP trying to get compliant without spending more on the software than on the audit itself, it's the wrong fit. The pricing model, US-first framework focus, and enterprise sales approach all work against smaller organisations.
The compliance outcomes — a working ISMS, documented controls, tracked risks, audit-ready evidence — are achievable at a fraction of the cost. The tool you use to get there should reflect the size of your business, not the size of Vanta's enterprise customer base.
SnapGRC is a compliance management platform for SMBs and MSPs. ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, SOC 2, GDPR, NIS2 and 40+ frameworks — without the enterprise price tag. Learn more →
