If you’ve been evaluating compliance automation tools, Vanta has likely made it into your list. It’s one of the most recognized platforms in security compliance, offering support for SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and more. Known for its clean UI and quick time-to-value, Vanta promises a smoother path to audit-readiness. And it does deliver—to a point.
But for all its brand strength and startup friendliness, Vanta has trade-offs that don’t always show up in demos: lack of automation depth, reliance on manual effort, and limited scalability when your compliance needs mature.
So here’s an honest, no-fluff review of Vanta based on real user feedback, product comparisons, and industry benchmarks, including where it shines and where it stumbles.
Quick overview
Vanta is a modern compliance automation platform built for companies of all sizes, designed to simplify audits and certifications across 30+ frameworks through integrations, templates, and guided workflows.
It’s often preferred for its ease of use, auditor network, and fast time-to-audit. However, as organizations mature and multi-framework requirements emerge, some teams outgrow a checklist-driven approach and limited customization options.
Verdict (7/10)
Vanta earns a solid 7 for its intuitive UX, fast implementation, and strong brand trust, especially for companies tackling compliance for the first time. But it loses points for its hands-off onboarding, shallow automation, and growing friction as companies scale. It’s efficient when you start, but costly and effort-intensive over time.
Key features
- With preloaded policy templates and checklists, Vanta offers out-of-the-box support for SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and more.
- The light-touch UI makes it accessible to teams without dedicated GRC resources.
- It integrates with major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), HR systems, and identity providers to streamline evidence collection.
- The platform provides a centralized dashboard to track audit tasks, user progress, and framework completion status.
- Vanta includes an approved auditor network to fast-track the audit process.
- The tool also offers built-in employee security training and policy acknowledgement workflows.
Pros
- Vanta can be managed with minimal technical lift and doesn’t require heavy engineering involvement.
- It offers a suite of AI tools that can automate tasks and accelerate compliance.
- Vanta’s continuous monitoring and scanning capabilities offer high accuracy.
- The platform offers a wide range of out-of-the-box integrations that cover CRMs, cloud providers, HRIS, etc.
Cons
- Vanta paints a low-definition picture of compliance because it’s over-indexed for simplicity and speed and lacks customizations or the ability to track edge cases.
- It has high renewal costs and upcharges for additional frameworks, users, or features.
- Vanta offers a one-size-fits-all and self-serve support, which is not ideal for all types of companies.
- Lacks depth in risk management, policy customization, and control-level flexibility.
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Vanta pricing
Vanta uses a quote-based pricing model that varies based on your company size, chosen frameworks, number of employees, and required features or support. Pricing is billed annually, and volume-based discounts are available on request.
Vanta offers a ‘Core’ and ‘Plus’ plan for startups, and ‘Growth’, ‘Scale’, and ‘Enterprise’ plans for medium to large-scale businesses.
Based on publicly shared deals and review forums, the pricing estimates are as follows:
- For startups and small businesses, the usual range is between $10,000 to $15,000 a year.
- For scale and enterprise plans, customers pay anywhere from $30,000 to $80,000+ annually.
- As per Vendr Marketplace, the median contract value is $19,750.
Pricing Verdict: 6/10
Vanta feels affordable upfront, but many teams experience cost creep at renewal, especially when scaling frameworks or needing additional features and premium support. It’s competitively priced to start, but not always transparent or predictable as you grow.
Vanta usability and interface
Vanta’s interface is clean, minimal, and optimized for fast onboarding. It prioritizes simplicity over depth, which makes it approachable for non-technical teams but lacks the configurability and workflow depth expected by more mature teams.
Where it stands out:
- Intuitive layout: A minimal, clean interface makes it easier for first-time users to navigate compliance tasks without overwhelm.
- Checklist-driven workflows: Ideal for teams that benefit from structured, step-by-step guidance through certification requirements.
- Status clarity: The platform clearly displays what’s complete, what’s pending, and what needs immediate attention, helping teams prioritize work effectively.
- Unified dashboard: A central view combines automated and manual controls, offering better visibility across frameworks.
Where it lags:
- Limited customization: Dashboards and workflows can’t be tailored by role or business unit.
- Navigation friction: Switching between tasks, frameworks, and modules isn’t as seamless.
- Basic reporting tools: Doesn’t support in-depth analytics or export-ready reports
- Difficult to perform bulk actions: The platform lags when performing repetitive tasks or bulk actions, making things tedious.
Usability Verdict: 7/10
Vanta is easy to use and quick to deploy, with an interface that makes first-time compliance straightforward. But its simplicity comes at the cost of flexibility —limiting navigation efficiency, report depth, and the ability to tailor workflows to unique compliance needs.
Exploring Vanta’s core functionalities
Vanta covers key areas across risk, compliance, and audit but the depth and flexibility of each module vary. Here’s a breakdown of its core capabilities, what they do well, and where they fall short:
1. Risk management
Vanta includes a basic risk register that allows you to document risks, link controls, and assign ownership. However, it lacks dynamic scoring or contextual risk modeling, and risk assessments do not feel deeply embedded in workflows.
Verdict: 6.5/10 – Covers the checklist, but lacks sophistication.
2. Compliance management
Vanta centralizes framework tracking, task assignments, and evidence collection in one place. It uses integrations to pull system data and automates reminders for audit timelines and compliance gaps.
Verdict: 7/10 – Functional and fast for standard frameworks, but rigid beyond the basics.
3. Audit management
The platform helps organize audit documentation and task tracking. You can connect with auditors from Vanta’s network and share progress via dashboards. Evidence collection is semi-automated, but some tasks still require manual uploads and confirmations.
Verdict: 7/10 – Makes audit prep smoother, but automation gaps slow you down at scale.
4. Policy management
Vanta offers templated policies and basic employee attestation flows. You can publish, share, gain organization-wide acknowledgments, and track them within a single interface.
Verdict: 7/10 – Gets the job done, but lacks flexibility for unique org needs.
5. Third-party risk management
Vanta supports automatic vendor discovery and helps categorize critical vendors based on the types of data handled. It also features AI-powered security reviews and questionnaires for vendor communication.
Verdict: 6/10 – Present but underdeveloped compared to more mature platforms.
6. Analytics and reporting
The platform provides basic dashboards to track framework completion and task status. However, reporting is largely pre-set with limited ability to customize, export, or build reports for internal or auditor-facing use.
Verdict: 6.5/10 – Sufficient for progress tracking, but lacks reporting power and flexibility.
7. Integration capabilities
Vanta integrates with key cloud and HR tools, but lacks support for multiple instances of the same platform and deeper customization. Some edge cases require manual handling, and integration docs can lag behind updates.
Verdict: 6.5/10 – Strong roster of integrations, but limited depth and extensibility.
8. Control monitoring
Vanta monitors some technical controls automatically through integrations with cloud infrastructure and identity providers. This feature usually has overwhelmingly positive feedback as it helps users identify risks proactively.
Verdict: 8/10 – The monitoring and scanning capabilities offer high accuracy.
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Vanta rating on popular review sites
Before investing in a compliance automation platform, it’s essential to understand how real users experience the product. Here’s what major review platforms reveal about Vanta:
G2 Rating: 4.6/5 based on 1,818 reviews
Users praise Vanta’s ease of use, intuitive interface, and time-saving automation features. Common criticisms include pricing concerns, onboarding experience and limitations in integration flexibility.
Gartner Peer Insights rating: 4.4 based on 25 ratings
Users appreciate features like continuous control monitoring and vendor security questionnaires, but many of them raise concerns about support and customization issues.
Trust Radius: 1/10 based on 13 reviews
Trust Radius users have expressed concerns about pricing and contracts with Vanta.
Capterra: 4.3 based on 28 reviews
Most of the feedback here is dated. However, users generally have positive sentiments about tool simplicity and suggestions for improvement in integrations.
Overall sentiment
Vanta is recognized as a strong compliance automation tool with a clean UI and straightforward implementation. However, users should know that they are largely responsible for making the platform fit for their use case. There will be instances when they’ll find themselves doing more manual work with less automation support.
Sprinto: The best Vanta alternative
If Vanta is built for simplicity, Sprinto is built for scale, speed, and serious automation. Where Vanta offers a checklist-driven path to compliance, Sprinto delivers deep control monitoring, smart automation, and frictionless audit workflows—all across 30+ frameworks.
- Faster time to value: Go live in weeks and not months. Sprinto slashes setup time by up to 80% with hands-on onboarding.
- Automation-first: Automates up to 99% of compliance checks with real-time monitoring and built-in evidence capture.
- Deep control coverage: Continuously monitors manual and automated controls, with tiered alerts for drift.
- Integrated risk management: Pre-mapped risk libraries and flexible scoring make risk workflows actionable.
- Audit-ready by design: Consolidates evidence, logs, and collaboration into a single audit dashboard.
- Full-spectrum vendor risk: Track, score, and remediate third-party risks in a unified console.
- 300+ native integrations: Connects to infra, HR, code, and device tools with no engineering lift.
- Predictable pricing: No surprise charges for frameworks, integrations, or support — just one transparent plan.
Read about how DNIF achieved audit-readiness for SOC 2 and ISO 27001 in 14 days!
If you want a compliance engine that scales with your business and not the one you outgrow, Sprinto is the right choice.
Payal Wadhwa
Payal is your friendly neighborhood compliance whiz who is also ISC2 certified! She turns perplexing compliance lingo into actionable advice about keeping your digital business safe and savvy. When she isn’t saving virtual worlds, she’s penning down poetic musings or lighting up local open mics. Cyber savvy by day, poet by night!
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