Solutions for startups
Get to SOC 2 and ISO 27001 before you can afford a compliance team.
Your first enterprise buyer wants a report you do not have. Compliance as a Service from Nank.ai gives you a dedicated compliance manager and a platform that does the work. Your engineers stay on the product and the deal stops waiting.
Free gap analysis and project plan. No obligation. Past the startup stage? See compliance for SMEs or compliance for enterprise.
CA$7.11M
Average Canadian data breach in 2026, a record
CA$9.02M
Average in the technology sector
205 days
From breach to containment, up six percent
No floor
PIPEDA sets no headcount or revenue threshold
IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026, Canadian findings. Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada on the scope of PIPEDA.
The startup problem
Three problems, and none of them is the audit
Startups rarely fail a SOC 2 audit. They lose months getting to one, and the months come out of runway. Read how the plans differ or start with what SOC 2 is.
The questionnaire arrives mid deal
The security review lands after the demo and before the contract. Nobody on your team has seen one. Your buyer asks for a SOC 2 report, a policy set and a subprocessor list. The deal sits while you work out what those are.
A compliance hire costs more than the certificate
A compliance lead is a salary you carry every month after the certificate arrives. Your first certification is a project, not a permanent function. Hiring for it buys the wrong shape of thing.
Engineers pay for it in roadmap
Policy drafting, evidence screenshots, access reviews, vendor lists. Every hour there is an hour off the product you raised money to build. Your best engineers are the ones who get pulled.
Budget
Compliance on a startup budget is a scoping problem
Nothing about SOC 2 or ISO 27001 sets a price. Scope does, and a startup has a small one. Here is where the money goes and how we keep each part small. We wrote up the full breakdown in what a SOC 2 Type 2 report costs.
01
Scope, set once and held
Cost tracks scope, not ambition. One product, one cloud account and twelve people is a small scope. We fix it during the free gap analysis. Frameworks you do not need yet stay out.
02
Rent the expertise, do not hire it
Compliance as a Service rents you a dedicated compliance manager for the length of the project. You get someone who has done this many times. You stop paying for it when the certificate arrives.
03
One control library, twelve frameworks
Write a control once and it satisfies every framework that asks for it. Your second certification costs a fraction of your first. Adding ISO 27001 after SOC 2 is not a second project from scratch.
04
Evidence comes from your systems
The platform reads your cloud, identity, code and device management tools. Control status reflects what is set today, not what somebody recorded last quarter. Nobody on your team takes screenshots.
05
Skip what the criteria do not ask for
SOC 2 does not require a penetration test. CC4.1 names it as one example of a monitoring activity. A seed stage quote that bundles one in is selling you something the criteria never asked for.
Choose
Pick the shortest path to the thing your buyer asked for
Startups often ask for the wrong report because a buyer used a loose phrase. These are the three real options and what each one buys you. The detail sits in SOC 2 Type 1 vs Type 2 and in how long a SOC 2 Type 2 takes.
SOC 2 Type 1
The fast one
What it proves
Your control design met the criteria on one date
Your control design met the criteria on one date
Earliest you can show a buyer
Weeks after you are ready
Weeks after you are ready
Who asks for it
United States buyers who need something now
United States buyers who need something now
Renewal
None, it is a snapshot
None, it is a snapshot
Sensible first move
When a deal is waiting on you
When a deal is waiting on you
SOC 2 Type 2
The one buyers mean
What it proves
Your controls worked over a period of time
Your controls worked over a period of time
Earliest you can show a buyer
A window of at least three months, then fieldwork
A window of at least three months, then fieldwork
Who asks for it
United States enterprise buyers, and renewals
United States enterprise buyers, and renewals
Renewal
Every year
Every year
Sensible first move
When you have runway and no deal blocked
When you have runway and no deal blocked
ISO 27001
The international one
What it proves
Your whole security management system meets the standard
Your whole security management system meets the standard
Earliest you can show a buyer
After a Stage 1 and a Stage 2 audit
After a Stage 1 and a Stage 2 audit
Who asks for it
Buyers in the United Kingdom, Europe and the public sector
Buyers in the United Kingdom, Europe and the public sector
Renewal
Three year certificate with annual surveillance
Three year certificate with annual surveillance
Sensible first move
When your buyers sit outside the United States
When your buyers sit outside the United States
A Type 1 is not a lesser Type 2. It is a different report. It is the honest answer when a buyer needs evidence this quarter, and most startups run one first while the Type 2 window starts behind it.
How it runs
What the engagement looks like from your side
Compliance as a Service covers all five phases. Your team shows up for the parts only your team can do, and the compliance manager carries the rest. Most clients are audit ready in about three months. For a SOC 2 Type 2 the report comes later, because the observation window has to elapse.
Design
Your compliance manager sets the scope, picks the framework and lists what is missing. You get the gap list and a project plan before you commit.
Implement
Tasks land on the people who own the systems. Policies get drafted for your environment, not handed over as a template pack.
Operate
Access reviews, approvals, scans and training get scheduled and recorded as they happen. The evidence exists before anyone asks.
Verify
Your compliance manager runs a full internal audit before the external auditor arrives, so findings surface while there is time to fix them.
Audit
The auditor gets a scoped workspace with evidence already attached. Your compliance manager sits in the audit with you.
Framework coverage
Write a control once. Satisfy every framework that asks for it.
One control library covers all twelve. A startup that starts with SOC 2 finds ISO 27001 costs a fraction of the first certification, and the mappings stay current as the standards change. See the difference between ISO 27001 and ISO 27002, or browse the compliance library.
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 for startups in Toronto, Ontario and across Canada
We work from Toronto, in your time zone. Canadian startups sell into hospitals, banks, insurers and government departments. Those buyers ask questions a United States compliance vendor is not set up to answer.
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. We handle the residency answer in your system description and in your ISO 27001 supplier and transfer controls.
PIPEDA at the federal level, with no headcount or revenue threshold to grow into. PHIPA if you touch Ontario health information. Quebec’s Law 25. Provincial privacy law in Alberta and British Columbia. OSFI’s B-13 and B-10, which your financial services buyers push down to you as a vendor.
Where startups usually start
- SOC 2 Type 1, when a deal is waiting
- SOC 2 Type 2, once the window can run
- ISO 27001, for buyers outside the US
- ISO 42001, if you ship an AI product
- PHIPA, if you touch Ontario health data
- PCI DSS, if you take card payments
Compliance services Canada
Compliance services Canada wide, from a Toronto team: certification work, ongoing program management, and privacy and security advisory. See our SOC 2 compliance service and ISO 27001 certification service.
“Attackers are increasingly targeting sectors where disruption creates real operational and economic consequences, while also looking for the weakest link in the supply chain.”
Chris Sicard, IBM Canada Security Leader, on the 2026 Cost of a Data Breach findings
For a startup selling into an enterprise, that last clause is the whole point. You are the supply chain. The security review is not a formality your buyer invented. It is how they check whether you are the weak link.
Funding is tighter too. Canadian venture capital closed 2025 at CAD 8.0 billion across 571 deals, with deal count down twelve percent on the year. Money spent on compliance is money not spent on the product. That is why the scope conversation matters more for a startup than for anyone else.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Scope decides the price, and a startup scope is small. We quote after the free gap analysis. The analysis costs you nothing and ends with a written gap list and a project plan you can budget against. See the plans for what each level of service covers.
A SOC 2 Type 1 is the fastest real answer, because it reports on one date rather than a period. Most clients are audit ready in about three months. A Type 2 needs a window of at least three months on top of that, then fieldwork and drafting.
No. Nothing in the Trust Services Criteria sets a minimum size. A small company is easier to certify than a large one, because the scope is smaller. What changes with size is who does the work, which is the problem this service exists to solve.
Not for SOC 2. CC4.1 lists penetration testing as one example of a monitoring activity. Some buyers ask for one in their own security review, which is a different question. We tell you which it is before you spend the money.
Follow your buyers. SOC 2 if they are in the United States. ISO 27001 if they are in the United Kingdom, Europe or the public sector. One control library covers both, so the second one is far cheaper than the first and the order matters less than starting.
Only if a deal or an investor is asking. Compliance work done ahead of a real requirement is runway spent on nothing. The gap analysis will tell you whether you are early.
In the country your company resides in. For Canadian startups 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.