Drata alternative for small teams: Drata vs doing it yourself

Small teams weighing SOC 2 often land on two options: buy a large platform like Drata, or do it yourself with documents and spreadsheets. Both work. Both have costs that are easy to underestimate. This guide compares them honestly, walks through what doing it yourself actually involves, and explains when a Drata alternative that sits between the two makes more sense.

What Drata costs

Drata does not publish its price. Drata lists its plans, Foundation, Advanced and Enterprise, on a plans page with no dollar figure, and each plan button leads to a demo request or a contact-sales form (Drata, checked October 2, 2026).

The best evidence of what buyers pay comes from completed purchases. Vendr, a software buying service, reports that the median buyer pays $25,000 per year for Drata, based on data from 235 purchases (Vendr, checked July 30, 2026). That is a median across buyers of every size, so a small team may be quoted differently.

The audit is separate. Drata's own guide is clear about the market: Drata estimates the audit fee for a SOC 2 Type 1 at $7,500 to $15,000 and for a Type 2 at $12,000 to $20,000 for small to midsize companies, and puts the total first-year cost at $25,000 for a small startup (Drata, checked October 2, 2026).

What doing it yourself really means

Doing SOC 2 yourself means running the whole program without a platform. Nothing in the AICPA framework requires software. Here is the work.

Scoping

Decide which systems, data and criteria are in scope. Security is always in. Write a system description that explains what your service does and how it is built.

Policies

Write a set of policies that describe how you actually operate: information security, access control, change management, incident response, business continuity, vendor management, risk assessment, data classification and acceptable use are the usual core. Have them approved and acknowledged by staff.

Controls

Put the controls in place: MFA, least-privilege access, quarterly access reviews, code review, encrypted storage, logging, backups, vulnerability scanning, onboarding and offboarding steps, security training.

Evidence

Collect proof that each control exists and, for a Type 2, that it ran across the period. Screenshots, exports, tickets, signed acknowledgments, meeting notes. Keep them organized by criteria so the auditor can find them.

Finding an auditor

Contact licensed CPA firms, compare scope and price, check references, and schedule fieldwork.

Keeping it running

Access reviews, training and risk assessments repeat. A Type 2 needs the evidence to keep arriving on schedule for the whole observation period, usually three to twelve months.

Side by side

| | Drata | Doing it yourself | cybersoftware | |---|---|---|---| | Price | Not published | No software fee | $2,000 onboarding, then $600 a month for Type 2 | | Policies | Templates in the platform | You write them | Written from your answers | | Evidence | In the platform | Manual screenshots and exports | Collected from your tools and mapped | | Gap list | In the platform | You build it | Free readiness assessment | | The audit | Separate CPA firm, billed separately | Separate CPA firm, billed separately | First Type 2 audit included in the term | | Your time | Lower | Highest | Lower | | Contract | Quoted | None | 12-month Type 2 term, refundable within 7 days of the first charge |

The Drata column reflects Drata's plans page as checked October 2, 2026. For more detail on the two ends of this table, see cybersoftware vs Drata and SOC 2 without a platform.

Where doing it yourself goes wrong

Doing it yourself is realistic for a team with a disciplined engineer and some time. The usual problems are not about skill.

• Templates that do not match reality. A downloaded policy that says you do something you do not do is a finding waiting to happen.
• Evidence gaps discovered late. For a Type 2, a missed access review in month two cannot be fixed in month six.
• No one owns it. Compliance work slips behind product work, and the audit date moves.
• The auditor search takes longer than expected. Scoping calls and quotes add weeks.

Where a large platform is more than you need

A platform like Drata is built for companies with many systems and, often, several frameworks. For a small team that needs only SOC 2, much of that breadth goes unused, and a quoted annual contract is a big commitment for a first report.

The middle path: a Drata alternative built for small teams

A Drata alternative for a small team should do the work that makes doing it yourself hard, without the price of a platform built for larger companies. That is what we built cybersoftware to be.

• A free readiness assessment that gives you a score, every gap category counted and your first findings written out.
• Policies written from your real setup, approved by you.
• Evidence mapped to the criteria, collected from the tools you already run, with a package ready for the auditor.
• Onboarding: $2,000 one time to get audit-ready, or $4,000 one time with the SOC 2 Type 1 examination and report, the CPA firm's fee included.
• Type 2: $600 a month on a 12-month term, or $6,600 up front for the first 12 months. Your first SOC 2 Type 2 audit is included in the term, so there is no auditor to find and no separate invoice. A first year comes to $9,200 all in. The full list is on our pricing page.

cybersoftware is not a CPA firm. SOC 2 examinations are performed by independent licensed U.S. CPA firms.

Frequently asked questions

Is doing SOC 2 yourself realistic?

Yes, for a small cloud-based team with one person who can own it. Expect it to take more of that person's time than a tool would.

Is Drata a good choice for small teams?

It can be, especially if you need several frameworks or a lot of automation. For SOC 2 alone on a small budget, a lower-cost Drata alternative is often a better fit.

Can we start doing it ourselves and add software later?

Yes. Policies and evidence you create yourself can be brought into a tool later. Starting with a readiness assessment makes either route faster.

Does the choice affect the report?

No. The report is issued by an independent CPA firm either way. The tool changes how much work it takes to get there.

Start with a free readiness assessment. It takes about fifteen minutes and needs no card.