Against the software
Vanta, Drata, Secureframe — tools you operate. This is what changes when the work is done for you.
Against a consultant
The other way to not do this yourself is to hire someone. Here is what changes.
Every day, not in bursts
A fractional CCO shows up a few hours a week. Your officer runs the program daily — checks evidence, chases tasks, adjusts the plan.
$990, not $3,000–$10,000
Consultant budgets buy you a person's spare capacity. The same money here runs the whole program, evidence collection included.
The record stays
When a consultant leaves, the knowledge leaves with them. Here every decision, draft, and approval is in your program — cited and hashed.
And nothing gets installed
The software tools want monitoring agents on your endpoints. Four things about that nobody puts on the pricing page.
Continuous Monitoring
They watch everything, always. Customer data and source code included.
Security Attack Surface
Every monitoring agent is another way in.
Performance Impact
They eat resources. On production boxes that shows up.
Privilege Requirements
Most want root. Compromise the monitoring agent, compromise the host.
How the officer works
Read-only where it can be, human-approved where it must be.
Evidence, collected for you
Scoped, read-only connections to AWS, GitHub, Google Workspace and Okta run continuous checks and file the results as evidence. The few things only a human can do become tasks with owners and due dates.
Policies, written for you
Your policy set is drafted against your actual stack — including documenting honestly what you don't run — reviewed internally, then approved by a named person on your side.
A record auditors trust
Every artifact is SHA-256 hashed, every AI action logged with its citations, and your auditor reviews it all through one secure link. Nothing attests without a named human approval.
Who this suits
Teams that need the certification and don't have — or want — a compliance function.
No compliance hire
Nobody on the team owns compliance, and hiring for it makes no sense at your size.
First audit, real deadline
A customer wants SOC 2 and the deal won't wait for you to learn the framework.
Nothing installable
Healthcare, legal, finance. Third-party software on your boxes is a non-starter.
Consultant-priced out
You were quoted $5,000 a month for a few hours a week of someone's attention.
We do the work
Software still leaves the work with you. We do the work. And we won't quote you a date a Type II observation window makes impossible, however much you want to hear it.
Common questions
Do I still need a compliance person?
No — that is the point. Certivar scopes the program, writes the policies, collects the evidence, and tracks the timeline. Your team is pulled in only for the things no one else can do: approving what attests, and the handful of tasks that need a human with access.
How is evidence collected without agents?
Through scoped, read-only connections — a cross-account role into AWS, OAuth into GitHub, Google Workspace and Okta. Checks run continuously and file their results as evidence. Nothing is installed on your machines, and nothing has write access.
Will auditors accept AI-run compliance?
Auditors accept evidence they can verify. Every artifact here is SHA-256 hashed, every AI action is logged with the sources it relied on, and anything that attests carries a named human approval bound to the exact document hash. That is a stronger record than most human-run programs produce.
Why not just hire a fractional CCO?
If you can get a good one for what they cost — $3,000 to $10,000 a month — they bring real judgment a few hours a week. Certivar runs your program every day for $990, and the whole record stays in your program instead of leaving when they do.