What Vanta costs, from the figures Vanta publishes

So the honest answer to what Vanta costs has three parts. There is the software, which Vanta prices on AWS. There is the audit, which a CPA firm charges for separately. And there is the number you will actually be quoted, which depends on your headcount and on what you negotiate. This page takes them in that order and uses only what each party published.

What the AWS Marketplace listing shows

AWS Marketplace lets a vendor sell a contract that is billed through the buyer’s AWS account. Vanta is the seller on this listing, so its figures are Vanta’s own. Every line is a 12-month contract.

• The same Vanta listing prices the Professional package at a starting cost of $23,000 and the Plus package at $21,500, each for 12 months and 1 to 20 employees. Source, read 2026-10-02.
• The Vanta listing also prices add-on modules on separate lines, including Trust Center, Questionnaire Automation, Third Party Risk Management and an AWS FTR module. Source, read 2026-10-02.
• None of the ten lines on the Vanta listing is an audit or an auditor fee, and its overview states that pricing is tiered by company size and program complexity. Source, read 2026-10-02.

Two words on that listing carry most of the meaning. “Starting” means the figure is a floor. “1 to 20 employees” means it is the floor for the smallest band. A company of forty people is not buying at that price, and the listing does not say what the next band costs.

What the audit adds

A SOC 2 report is issued by a licensed CPA firm.¹ That firm must be independent of the company it examines,² which is why the audit is a separate engagement on most platforms. Vanta connects you to firms rather than pricing one:

• Vanta’s pricing page lists access to Vanta’s auditor network and the ability to bring your own auditor among its plan features, and names no auditor fee. Source, read 2026-10-02.
• Vanta states that a SOC 2 audit fee usually runs between $10,000 and $50,000, and that the all-in cost of a first SOC 2 lands somewhere between $10,000 and $80,000 or more. Source, read 2026-10-02.

Put those two together and you have a first year on figures from one company. Add the low end of that audit range to the Essentials starting cost and a first year begins at $24,000. Add the high end and it reaches $64,000. Both are before any add-on module, and both assume the smallest employee band.

That is arithmetic, not a quote. Your auditor sets the audit fee, and the auditor fee guide explains what moves it.

What buyers report paying

Vanta’s figures are list prices. Contracts are negotiated, and one purchasing service publishes what its own customers paid:

• Vendr, a software buying service, reports that the median buyer pays $20,000 for Vanta, based on data from 373 purchases. Source, read 2026-10-02.

Treat that as Vendr’s data about Vanta, not as a Vanta price. It covers purchases Vendr handled, in whatever mix of plans and headcounts those buyers had. It is useful as a sanity check on a quote. It is not a number Vanta has agreed to.

When Vanta is the better buy

Some situations are worth the larger contract. These are the ones we would point to.

• You need several frameworks at once. Vanta’s AWS Marketplace listing describes automated evidence collection across 35+ frameworks, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS and GDPR. Source, read 2026-10-02. We cover SOC 2 and ISO 27001.
• Your team is past the smallest bands. Access reviews, onboarding records and vendor reviews grow with headcount, and a larger platform carries that weight.
• Your evidence lives in many tools. If your controls run through systems we do not connect to, a long integration list is worth paying for. Check our integrations before you decide.
• Your buyer asks for the brand. Recognition on a vendor review can carry weight in a deal, and we cannot supply it.

The Vanta comparison covers the same question from the product side. If you already run Vanta and want out, read how to leave a compliance platform before your renewal date.

What Polara Labs publishes

Our prices sit on our own site, next to the plan they belong to. Entry is one payment: $2,000 one time to onboard, or $4,000 one time with the SOC 2 Type 1 examination and the fee for the independent partner auditor inside it. Type 2 is $600 a month on a 12-month term, and your first SOC 2 Type 2 audit is included in the term.

A first year on the onboarding entry comes to $9,200, with that audit inside it. We scope Security only and support two frameworks, which is the trade for a smaller number. Every other published price we could find is in the SOC 2 software pricing index, with a CSV.