Solutions for SMEs
Your buyers keep adding frameworks. Run one program, not four.
SOC 2 for the American accounts. ISO 27001 for the European ones. PCI DSS when you started taking cards. Compliance as a Service from Nank.ai maps them onto one control library and gives you a compliance manager who owns the whole thing.
Free gap analysis and project plan. No obligation. Toronto based, working across Canada. Earlier stage? See compliance for startups. Larger? See compliance for enterprise.
99.7%
Share of Canadian employer businesses that are small or medium sized
63.6%
Share of private sector employment they account for
Second
Rank of supply chain compromise among breach entry points in 2026
36%
Share of organizations using security automation across the full lifecycle
Key Small Business Statistics 2025, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026.
Where the budget goes
An SME does not overpay for compliance. It pays three times for the same work.
The cost is not the audit fee. It is the same activity run as three separate projects, and a program that goes quiet between them. We put numbers on the audit side in what a SOC 2 Type 2 report costs.
The same control, written three times
Your ISO 27001 access review and your SOC 2 access review are the same activity. Run as separate projects they get separate policies, separate evidence and separate audit prep. That is where the second and third framework stop being cheap.
Scope nobody decided to grow
A product you acquired. A subsidiary with its own cloud account. An office that opened in another province. Scope grows one reasonable decision at a time, and the audit fee follows it. Almost nobody goes back and draws the boundary.
Compliance as twenty percent of a job
It lands on the head of IT or a senior engineer. They do it well for six weeks before each audit and not at all in between. Drift builds up in the gap, and the scramble comes back every year.
Savings
Five things that take real cost out of an SME program
The savings do not come from buying less. They come from doing each piece of work once and keeping it current between audits.
01
Map the controls once
One control library sits under every framework you hold. Write the access review once and it answers ISO 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA and PCI DSS together. Your second certificate stops costing what the first one did.
02
Draw the scope boundary on purpose
Your compliance manager works out what belongs in scope and what does not, and writes down why. Systems that carry no customer data come out. The audit gets smaller and the evidence gets easier.
03
Monitor between audits, not before them
The platform watches control status all year and flags drift the day it starts. There is no six week scramble, and your auditor sees a year of evidence rather than a fortnight of it.
04
Answer questionnaires from one evidence set
Buyers send security questionnaires all year. When the answers come from the same control library that feeds your audits, filling one in stops being a research project for your engineers.
05
Find the gaps before the auditor does
Your compliance manager runs a full internal audit ahead of the external one. Findings surface while there is still time to fix them, which is cheaper than a qualified report and a remediation round.
Staffing
Three ways an SME staffs compliance, and when each is right
We will tell you when hiring is the better answer, because for some SMEs it is. Here is the honest comparison, from a firm that provides compliance services Canada wide. The plan detail sits on the pricing page.
Hire a compliance lead
The permanent option
What it covers
One person’s judgment and time, and the internal relationships that come with being on staff.
One person’s judgment and time, and the internal relationships that come with being on staff.
What it costs you
A permanent salary, plus the tooling they will ask for in month two.
A permanent salary, plus the tooling they will ask for in month two.
When they leave
The program stops. Knowledge walks out with them.
The program stops. Knowledge walks out with them.
Time to first certificate
A search, then a ramp. Six months before real work starts is common.
A search, then a ramp. Six months before real work starts is common.
Right when
Compliance is a standing part of your product and you can keep one person busy all year.
Compliance is a standing part of your product and you can keep one person busy all year.
Platform and your own team
The tooling option
What it covers
Tooling, evidence collection and monitoring. Your people still make the decisions.
Tooling, evidence collection and monitoring. Your people still make the decisions.
What it costs you
A subscription, plus the hours your team spends inside it.
A subscription, plus the hours your team spends inside it.
When they leave
The evidence and policies stay. The judgment does not.
The evidence and policies stay. The judgment does not.
Time to first certificate
Fast if you already know what to do. Slow if you do not.
Fast if you already know what to do. Slow if you do not.
Right when
You have compliance capability in-house and want to stop doing it by hand.
You have compliance capability in-house and want to stop doing it by hand.
Compliance as a Service
The run-it-for-you option
What it covers
A dedicated compliance manager, the platform, and access to principal consultants with decades in information security.
A dedicated compliance manager, the platform, and access to principal consultants with decades in information security.
What it costs you
A project cost you can scope, not a permanent line on payroll.
A project cost you can scope, not a permanent line on payroll.
When they leave
They do not. Continuity is our problem, not yours.
They do not. Continuity is our problem, not yours.
Time to first certificate
Most clients are audit ready in about three months.
Most clients are audit ready in about three months.
Right when
You need the program to run now and you cannot wait out a hiring cycle.
You need the program to run now and you cannot wait out a hiring cycle.
Overlap
One control, every framework that asks for it
This is the part SMEs pay for twice. The frameworks ask for the same things in different words. ISO 27001:2022 lists 93 Annex A controls across four themes, and SOC 2 uses the 2017 Trust Services Criteria with the 2022 revised points of focus. Read more on ISO 27001 and ISO 27002, or start with what SOC 2 is.
Review who has access to what
ISO 27001:2022
A.5.15 and A.5.18
A.5.15 and A.5.18
SOC 2
CC6
CC6
Also satisfies
HIPAA, PCI DSS, NIST CSF
HIPAA, PCI DSS, NIST CSF
Approve and track production changes
ISO 27001:2022
A.8.32
A.8.32
SOC 2
CC8
CC8
Also satisfies
PCI DSS, NIST 800-53
PCI DSS, NIST 800-53
Assess and monitor your vendors
ISO 27001:2022
A.5.19 to A.5.22
A.5.19 to A.5.22
SOC 2
CC9
CC9
Also satisfies
GDPR, OSFI B-10
GDPR, OSFI B-10
Detect, triage and report incidents
ISO 27001:2022
A.5.24 to A.5.28
A.5.24 to A.5.28
SOC 2
CC7
CC7
Also satisfies
PIPEDA, HIPAA, GDPR
PIPEDA, HIPAA, GDPR
Monitor controls and act on findings
ISO 27001:2022
A.8.16
A.8.16
SOC 2
CC4
CC4
Also satisfies
NIST CSF, CSA CCM
NIST CSF, CSA CCM
Write each of these once, evidence it once, and it answers every framework in the row. Run them as separate projects and you pay for the same work again each time.
How it runs
What the engagement looks like from your side
Most SME clients come in mid cycle rather than at the start. Your compliance manager works from Toronto, in your time zone, and takes what you already have rather than starting again. Most clients are audit ready in about three months, and for a SOC 2 Type 2 the report comes later, because the observation window has to elapse. We set out the stages in how long a SOC 2 Type 2 takes.
Design
Your compliance manager maps your existing controls onto the library, sets the scope boundary and lists what is missing, rather than what a template says should be there.
Implement
Tasks land on the people who own the systems. Policies get drafted for your environment, and anything you already have gets kept rather than replaced.
Operate
Access reviews, approvals, scans and training get scheduled and recorded as they happen, so evidence accumulates through the year instead of before the audit.
Verify
A full internal audit with documented sampling. Findings route to an owner and retesting runs to closure.
Audit
The auditor gets a scoped workspace with evidence attached, and your compliance manager sits in the audit with your team.
Framework coverage
Twelve frameworks, one control library
Add a framework and you add the controls it asks for that you do not already run. You do not start again. The mappings stay current as the standards change, which matters when a buyer adds a requirement mid contract. Browse the compliance library for the detail.
ISO 27001
ISO 27701
ISO 42001
SOC 2
HIPAA
GDPR
PCI DSS
NIST CSF
NIST 800-53
CSA CCM
CMMC
FedRAMP
Built for Canada
SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certification for Canadian SMEs in Toronto, Ontario and beyond
Small and medium-sized businesses are 99.7 percent of Canadian employer businesses and 63.6 percent of private sector employment. In practice that means they are the supply chain, and enterprise buyers audit the supply chain.
Canadian data residency compliance is a separate question from SOC 2. Nothing in the Trust Services Criteria asks where your data sits, so a clean report tells a Canadian buyer nothing about residency. We host your data in the country your company resides in, and we handle the residency answer in your system description and in your ISO 27001 supplier and transfer controls.
PIPEDA at the federal level. PHIPA for Ontario health information. Quebec’s Law 25. Provincial privacy law in Alberta and British Columbia. OSFI’s B-13 and B-10, which reach you as a vendor as soon as one of your customers is a federally regulated financial institution.
What SMEs usually come to us with
- A SOC 2 report and a new ISO 27001 ask
- A certificate and drift since the last audit
- Scope that grew through acquisitions
- Questionnaires piling up on one engineer
- A compliance lead who just resigned
- A qualified finding to remediate
Compliance services Canada
Certification work, ongoing program management, and privacy and security advisory. See our SOC 2 compliance service and ISO 27001 certification service.
“As the utilization of third-party arrangements has expanded, so too have the attendant risks.”
Peter Routledge, Superintendent of Financial Institutions, announcing OSFI’s third-party risk guideline
That is a regulator telling your customers to look harder at you. Supply chain compromise was the second most common way attackers got in during 2026, so the scrutiny is not theatre.
The tooling gap is real too. Organizations using security automation across the full lifecycle saved an average of USD 1.93 million per breach and cut 65 days off the lifecycle. Only 36 percent of them use it that way. Most SMEs are in the other 64 percent.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Far less than the first one, because the controls overlap. The work is the gap between what you already run and what the standard adds, plus the Stage 1 and Stage 2 audits. The gap analysis puts a number on it before you commit.
Sometimes yes. If compliance is a standing part of your product and you can keep someone busy all year, hire. If you need a program running now, or the work comes in waves, a dedicated compliance manager gets you there without a search and a ramp.
Yes. Most of our SME clients come in mid cycle. Your compliance manager maps what you have onto the control library, finds the drift since the last audit, and takes the surveillance or Type 2 renewal from there.
Often. Scope grows by accident and almost nobody revisits it. We work out what handles customer data and what we can exclude with a defensible reason, then write that reason down for the auditor.
The vCCO plan includes questionnaire handling, and Compliance as a Service covers it on request. The answers come from the same control library that feeds your audits, so they stay consistent with what you told your auditor.
No. We keep what works and rewrite what does not match your environment. Replacing a policy set your team already follows creates change for its own sake.
In the country your company resides in. For Canadian clients that means Canada.
Start with the gap analysis
It is free, it takes days rather than weeks, and it ends with a written plan you can budget against. Compliance as a service, from a Toronto team, with your data in your own country.