SOC 2 & ISO 27001 Automation for Indian SaaS

Quick answer: Compliance automation SaaS for ISO 27001 and SOC 2, such as Vanta, Drata, Secureframe and Scrut Automation connect to your cloud, code, identity and HR tools, collect evidence, and keep SOC 2 or ISO 27001 controls tested between audits. They do not issue the report: an independent auditor or certification body does. Their pricing pages show plan tiers but, as checked in October 2026, no prices, so budget for a quote. Choose by the frameworks your buyers ask for.

How we researched this: We read vendor product and pricing pages for Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, Scrut, Hyperproof, Thoropass and Sprinto, security and compliance pages from Zoho, CleverTap, Keka, BrowserStack and Sauce Labs, AICPA's SOC pages, the NABCB (India's accreditation body for certification bodies) site, and the DPDP Act and Rules on meity.gov.in. Facts are as checked in October 2026. Where a page was blocked or gave no figure we say so rather than guess.

Which certificate are your buyers really asking for?

Start from the sales conversation, not the tool. A US mid-market buyer's security questionnaire usually names SOC 2. An Indian bank, insurer or large enterprise often names ISO 27001. A European customer may mention both plus GDPR. Pick the framework that unblocks your next deal, then add the second one later.

SOC 2. The AICPA, which owns the standard, describes SOC reports as assurance reports issued by CPAs that give information needed "to assess and address the risks associated with outsourcing services". The trust services categories named in its guide are security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. Zoho's compliance page describes SOC 2 as "an evaluation of the design and operating effectiveness of controls". Vanta's SOC 2 page explains the two report types in its FAQ: "Type I checks if the right controls are in place as of a specific time" and "Type II checks if those controls work effectively over a period of time", recommending Type I for speed and Type II when customers want ongoing assurance. Because Type II covers a period, read the dates: Zoho notes that its own SOC audit period runs December to November and that the final report typically arrives about three months after the period ends. So a report can be several months old by the time you receive it.

ISO 27001. Zoho's compliance page describes ISO/IEC 27001 as an internationally recognised security standard and says the certificate is awarded to organisations that comply with it. The certificate comes from a certification body, not from a software vendor. In India, the National Accreditation Board for Certification Bodies (NABCB) states on its site that it accredits management systems certification bodies as per ISO/IEC 17021-1:2015, so ask any certifier you shortlist for its accreditation.

What the law says. We searched the English text of both the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the DPDP Rules, 2025 (G.S.R. 846(E)) on meity.gov.in and neither names SOC 2 or ISO 27001. (Regulated customers such as banks may set their own expectations, so ask what they require.) What Rule 6 requires of a Data Fiduciary is "reasonable security safeguards", with minimum measures that include encryption, obfuscation, masking or virtual tokens; access controls; logging and monitoring; backups; retaining logs and personal data for one year; and appropriate contract terms with processors. Failure to take reasonable security safeguards may attract a penalty of up to ₹250 crore under the Act's Schedule. A SOC 2 or ISO 27001 programme produces much of the evidence you would need to show those safeguards exist, but it is evidence, not a legal exemption. See our guide to DPDP Act compliance software for the full duty list, and CERT-In rules for Indian SaaS firms for incident reporting.

What the automation platforms actually automate

Vendors describe the same core loop, and it is worth separating the part that saves time from the part that does not.

• Evidence collection. Scrut says its agents pull evidence "from AWS, GitHub, Okta, and 150+ integrations, validates freshness, and flags gaps for review". Vanta's FAQ says it connects read-only to cloud, identity, code and device tools, pulls evidence, maps it to controls and runs "1,200+ tests hourly". Drata says it will "collect evidence automatically, monitor controls continuously, and stay audit-ready across your stack". These are vendor claims, so test them on your own stack in a trial.
• Policies and questionnaires. Scrut says it generates audit-ready policy drafts and drafts security questionnaire answers from your live compliance state. Vanta's plan table lists questionnaire automation, with 25 questionnaires a year on the Plus plan and 144 on Professional.
• A trust centre. Vanta, Drata and Secureframe each list a trust centre, a page where buyers can review your posture and request documents, which cuts the number of emailed questionnaires.

What stays manual: deciding scope, choosing the auditor, running a penetration test, onboarding and offboarding staff on time, security awareness training, and fixing the failing controls the platform shows. Thoropass takes a different approach on its site, stating that it "is a licensed auditor that delivers audits, supported by purpose built software", which combines the tool and the audit under one vendor. If your team is two people, that bundle may save coordination; if you already have an auditor, it may be unnecessary.

Platforms side by side

None of the following pages we read showed a price. The table lists what each vendor's own site says about plan structure and scope.

Two buying notes follow from the table. First, "one framework included" is common, so a company that needs SOC 2 and ISO 27001 should ask for the price of both in the same quote and ask how overlapping controls are handled; Hyperproof, for example, cites a "66% reduction in duplicative controls" on its own site. Second, because prices are by quote, ask for the first-year and renewal price in writing, and ask what changes if headcount doubles.

Vendor risk management: the other half of the job

Vendor risk management (VRM) software covers two jobs, and mixing them up wastes money. The first is automating the questionnaires your customers send you. The second is assessing the suppliers you rely on, from your cloud host to your payroll tool. Drata says it can "assess third-party risk across the ecosystem with one click" with AI agents that run criteria-based vendor assessments and follow up with vendors, Scrut describes agents that discover vendors, send questionnaires, validate responses and monitor for breaches, Secureframe lists advanced third-party risk management on its Complete plan, and Hyperproof lists a Third-Party Risk offering.

Whichever tool you use, read vendors' claims carefully. These examples from official pages show how different the wording can be:

• Zoho's compliance page lists ISO/IEC 27001 certification for applications, systems, people, technology and processes, and says it is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, applicable to all cloud services and on-premise products of Zoho, ManageEngine, Qntrl and TrainerCentral. See Zoho One.
• CleverTap says on its security page that compliance is assessed by independent third-party auditors and that it is currently compliant with GDPR, CCPA, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and HIPAA.
• BrowserStack states on its security page that it is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, covering its data centres and platform. Sauce Labs lists SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, ISO 27701, ISO 42001 and CSA STAR Level 1 on its pricing page, with reports in its Trust Center.
• Keka HR says its products are hosted with cloud providers that hold SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certifications, and that it "conducts regular external audits and certification". The first half is about the hosting provider; the second does not name a standard on that page. When a vendor certifies its host rather than itself, ask for its own report or certificate.

Your due-diligence checklist for any SaaS supplier should therefore ask: whose certificate is it, which products does it cover, what period does it cover, and can we see the report under NDA? Our guides to SaaS spend and shadow IT tools and the software demo checklist for Indian buyers include similar questions.

Three realistic paths for Indian SaaS firms

A 12-person Bengaluru B2B SaaS selling to US mid-market accounts. Its prospects ask for SOC 2. The practical sequence is a Type I first (to unblock deals quickly) and a Type II after a few months of evidence. One framework in a platform's first plan is enough. Budget engineer time for fixing failing controls, because a tool can only report them.

A 30-person Pune HR-tech firm selling to Indian banks and NBFCs. Its buyers are more likely to ask about ISO 27001, data residency and DPDP readiness. It should price both frameworks together, and read our notes on India data residency before choosing a hosting region. Its customers' own obligations as Data Fiduciaries flow down to it as a Data Processor through the contract terms Rule 6(1)(f) requires.

A five-person agency building websites. It handles client data rarely and has no enterprise buyers asking for reports. A platform subscription is likely overkill; strong basics (a business password manager, multi-factor authentication, laptop encryption, a backup routine and a short written security policy) answer most questionnaires. Read our guide to cybersecurity for Indian SMEs first.

A 90-day plan to be audit-ready

1. Days 1 to 10: scope. Write down the systems, the data they hold and the customers asking. Choose the framework and decide Type I or Type II. List the controls you already have (SSO, MFA, endpoint management).
2. Days 10 to 30: tool and auditor. Run trials of two platforms against the same stack. Check that the integrations you need (AWS, GitHub, Okta or JumpCloud, your HRMS) are supported. Request auditor quotes in parallel; do not let the platform vendor be your only route.
3. Days 30 to 60: fix. Work through failing tests: offboarding, access reviews, endpoint encryption, vulnerability scans, vendor inventory. A good practice is to assign each control an owner and a weekly time slot.
4. Days 60 to 90: evidence and readiness. Freeze the policy set, run the access review, complete security training, and hold a mock audit. For Type II, the observation window starts when controls are operating.

When a platform is the wrong purchase

• Fewer than a handful of enterprise buyers are asking, and none has set a deadline.
• Your team cannot dedicate someone to own the controls: a platform will show red tests that nobody fixes.
• You need only the cookie-banner and privacy-notice layer, which is a different category.

In those cases, build the basics from the cybersecurity category, keep a spreadsheet of controls, and revisit when a signed deal depends on a report. For monitoring and logging, see our guide to uptime monitoring and status page tools.

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