SOC 2 Type II — Without Stalling Your Roadmap
Enterprise buyers won't sign without it. Series-B and Series-C SaaS companies use PlatOps to get SOC 2-ready while their engineers stay focused on shipping product.
Compliance Frameworks
Our SaaS Security solutions are designed to satisfy all relevant compliance requirements for your industry.
SOC 2 for SaaS is a third-party attestation that your product handles customer data against the AICPA Trust Services Criteria — Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy. For B2B SaaS founders, Type II is the version enterprise procurement actually accepts: it covers a 3–12 month observation window where an auditor verifies controls were operating, not just designed. Without it, deals stall in security review.
The Challenges SaaS Companies Face
Compliance & Certification gaps create real risk for saas organizations. Here is what we hear from clients before they work with us.
Enterprise deals stall in security review without a Type II report — Type I is no longer enough for Fortune 500 procurement
Security questionnaires consume 40+ engineering hours per deal when you don't have a SOC 2 to attach
DIY programs miss exceptions during the observation window and fail audit, costing the team another 6 months
Vanta or Drata alone is a tool — not a program. Engineering still has to design controls, remediate gaps, manage the auditor, and build evidence workflows
What PlatOps Delivers for SaaS
Concrete deliverables, scoped for your stack and operating model — not a list of generic service features.
SOC 2 gap assessment + scope definition
Two-week deep dive: map your AWS/GCP/Azure environment, your SDLC, and your customer-data flow against the five Trust Services Criteria. Output is a written gap analysis with prioritized remediation, a control matrix, and a defensible scope (which entities, which products, which subservice organizations).
Policy authoring and management
Twelve required policies — acceptable use, access control, change management, incident response, vendor management, BCP/DR, encryption, secure SDLC, asset management, risk assessment, code of conduct, data retention — written for your specific stack and operating model, then loaded into Vanta or Drata for review/sign-off workflows.
Evidence-collection automation
We configure the GRC platform of your choice (Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, or audit-direct via spreadsheet for budget-conscious teams) and set up the integrations that matter: AWS, GitHub, Okta, Jira, your alerting stack. Evidence flows automatically; engineers don't manually screenshot anything.
Control remediation
The 15–30 findings that surface during the gap assessment — missing MFA, over-permissive IAM, unencrypted backups, undocumented change-management approvals — get fixed by our team. Your engineers review and approve; they don't grind through Terraform diffs.
Auditor selection and management
We work with a vetted shortlist of mid-tier audit firms ($15k–$30k for Type I + Type II combo) and run all communication, evidence packaging, and exception responses through the engagement. You join the kickoff and the report-out call; we handle the rest.
Post-audit continuous compliance
Type II isn't a one-and-done — controls must operate for the next observation period. We run quarterly reviews, manage user-access certifications, respond to inevitable mid-period exceptions, and keep your evidence current so renewal is a 30-day exercise, not 90.
Why SaaS Companies Reach Out
Most SaaS founders hit SOC 2 at the same moment: a Series-B round closes, the sales team starts opening enterprise pipeline, and the third inbound from a Fortune 500 procurement team arrives with a 200-question security questionnaire that ends with "please attach your SOC 2 Type II report." The deal pauses. Engineering wants to ship the next quarter's roadmap. The CTO Googles "SOC 2 in 90 days," lands on a Drata or Vanta marketing page, signs up, and discovers ten weeks later that a tool isn't a program — they still need policies written, controls designed, evidence collected, exceptions remediated, an auditor selected, and someone with the patience to coordinate it all.
The honest timeline: six months is the fastest realistic path from kickoff to Type II report (about three months to audit-ready, plus the 90-day observation window minimum). Most engagements land in that window. But complex environments — large tech stacks, multiple subsidiaries on different infrastructure, organizations with no prior controls discipline, or teams balancing SOC 2 work against active product roadmaps — routinely take 9 to 12 months. The right pacing is whatever lets you ship a clean report rather than rushing one that doesn't survive procurement scrutiny.
PlatOps runs the program end-to-end while your team builds. We start with a two-week gap assessment against the SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria mapped to your actual stack — AWS or GCP, your CI/CD, your identity provider, your customer-data flow. We write the policies (acceptable use, change management, incident response, vendor management, BCP/DR — twelve in total) so you don't burn an engineering week on legal templates. We wire Vanta or Drata into your environment for continuous evidence collection, configure the integrations that actually work (and disable the ones that misfire), and remediate the gaps that always show up: missing MFA on a CI service account, an S3 bucket with public list ACLs, a customer-support tool with shared logins. By the time you're audit-ready, the program is operating cleanly; the Type II observation window runs naturally on top.
The difference between SOC 2 done well and SOC 2 done barely is whether the report holds up under enterprise procurement scrutiny — and whether you can answer the inevitable follow-up questionnaire in a day instead of three weeks.
Typical engagement
Series-B SaaS, 25–60 employees, no full-time security hire
Industry averages we plan around: gap assessment surfaces 20–35 findings depending on stack maturity, with half typically remediated by PlatOps and half by the customer's existing engineers in their normal capacity. Type I report lands at week 12–14. After the 90-day observation window the Type II report is in hand at week 24–28 (audit-firm dependent). All-in first-cycle program cost: $55k–$95k (auditor + GRC platform + consulting). Enterprise procurement reviews that were waiting on the report typically unblock within 30 days of receipt; year-two renewal runs $5k–$8k/month for ongoing compliance management.
Composite profile based on industry benchmarks. Specific outcomes vary by environment, scope, and current security posture.
What You Get with PlatOps
Specific, measurable outcomes for saas organizations.
Type I report in ~12 weeks, Type II report in ~24 weeks from kickoff — the fastest defensible timeline
Twelve audit-ready policies authored for your stack (not generic templates) so engineers don't burn weeks on legal copy
Vanta/Drata configured and integrated, with the integrations that actually work and the ones that misfire disabled
Pre-answered enterprise security questionnaire library — respond in hours instead of three weeks
Quarterly compliance management after the report ships so renewal is a 30-day exercise, not 90
Compliance Frameworks, In Detail
What each framework requires and what PlatOps does about it — not just a badge wall.
SOC 2 Type II
The version enterprise buyers require. Covers a 3–12 month observation window. Type I (point-in-time, controls designed) is acceptable as a stepping stone but not a substitute. Mid-tier auditor cost: $20k–$30k. We recommend starting with a 3-month observation for the first cycle, then extending to 12 months for renewal.
ISO 27001
International equivalent; required for European enterprise customers and overlapping ~70% with SOC 2 controls. If you have ISO 27001 demand and SOC 2 demand, we run them together — the marginal cost of adding ISO is ~30% of the SOC 2 program, not 100%.
GDPR
Applies if you process personal data of EU residents. Not a certification but a regulatory regime. We map your DPA, ROPA, and DPIA processes during the SOC 2 program so a GDPR audit (if you face one) is a non-event.
CCPA / CPRA
California's privacy regime, similar shape to GDPR but with different breach-notification thresholds and consumer-rights workflows. We generate the privacy policy, opt-out endpoint, and SAR (subject access request) handling alongside your SOC 2 build.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does SOC 2 Type II actually take?
Six months is the fastest realistic path: ~12 weeks to audit-ready (Type I in hand, Type II observation window started), then 90 days minimum for the observation window before the Type II report is issued. That's the floor. Complex environments — large tech stacks, multiple subsidiaries, no prior controls discipline, or organizations balancing the work against active product roadmaps — routinely extend to 9–12 months. Anyone promising 30 days is either selling a Type I (which enterprise buyers will reject) or compressing your observation window in ways the auditor won't accept.
What does SOC 2 cost end-to-end?
Three line items: GRC platform ($15k–$25k/year for Vanta or Drata), audit firm ($20k–$30k for combined Type I + Type II from a mid-tier firm), and consulting ($30k–$60k for the SOC 2 program engagement, which is 3–6 months of active work followed by ongoing operation). Total first-year: $65k–$115k. Year-two renewal drops to $35k–$50k once the program is operating. Complex environments running 9–12 months extend the consulting line proportionally.
Vanta vs Drata vs Secureframe — does it matter?
All three do roughly the same job. Vanta has the broadest integration catalog; Drata has cleaner UX and better policy-management workflows; Secureframe is cheaper and acceptable for under-50-employee orgs. We'll recommend based on your stack and budget. None of the three replace the work of designing controls, remediating findings, and managing the auditor — that's where the program stands or falls.
Can we do SOC 2 without hiring a full-time security person?
Yes — that's specifically who we work with. Most SaaS companies under 75 engineers don't have a dedicated CISO yet. PlatOps acts as your fractional security team during the SOC 2 program and stays on for ongoing compliance management at $5k–$8k/month. You hire a full-time CISO when revenue or regulatory complexity justifies it; until then, we're the answer.
What if we already use Drata or Vanta and just need help finishing?
Common scenario. We do mid-program rescue engagements: gap-assess where you actually are vs. where the dashboard says you are, prioritize the 10–20 things that will actually fail an audit, and get you to audit-ready in 6–8 weeks. Cost is typically $20k–$35k vs. the full $50k+ for a from-scratch program.
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