Finally SOC 2 Certified as a Solo Founder

I still remember where I was when I first thought: maybe SOC 2 isn’t just for big companies. I’d spent years pushing it aside — too costly, too vague, too “enterprise checkbox.” But this October, DocsBot is now SOC 2 Type II certified. You can see the announcement here: DocsBot is Now SOC 2 Type II Certified.

Here’s how we got there — the mistakes, the hacks, the surprises — from my POV.

The shadow of SOC 2

For a long time, SOC 2 was something whispered about in venture circles or huge SaaS orgs. It sounded like a standard for the security-obsessed, not for a scrappy solo founder or indie hacker.

I understood it should be about security. But it came from CPAs, not builders. In practice, it reads like a laundry list of “controls” — suggested security best practices — and the audit is about showing you did those things over time. Some controls feel outdated. Others are pure theater: checkboxes that don’t meaningfully improve security. You can even “modify” or weaken them if your context justifies it.

So I postponed. For years.

When I pitched to bigger clients, some didn’t care about security frameworks. They just asked me to fill out a Vendor Security Assessment / Questionnaire (VSA / VQA). Others wanted SOC 2 or walked away. I lost deals over “no SOC 2” more than once. But the cost of doing it often seemed bigger than the value.

Then our sales pipeline started growing. We got interest from enterprise-grade prospects. It was time to stop treating SOC 2 as an “optional extra.”

Choosing a path: Sprinto vs OneLeet

In my past life at WPMU DEV, I’d worked with Vanta. It’s polished but expensive and infamous for steep renewals. I didn’t want to get locked into that kind of surprise pricing.

I evaluated OneLeet (YC-founded, used by many early-stage startups) and Sprinto. OneLeet’s quote (after discounts) was around $6–8K/year. They said they’d hold prices flat for a few years. Reasonable, but still heavy on a lean budget.

Sprinto was cheaper ($4–6K). Less slick in UI and automations, sometimes quirky, likely managed from India. But their support approach is what sold me: whenever I hit a bump, they’d do a screenshare and walk me through the fix. That hands-on help is gold in compliance.

So I went with Sprinto.

Building from inside: roles, hacks, shortcuts

I wanted to avoid reinventing the wheel doing stuff by myself. So I enlisted my college-age son (studying business) to own policy writing, vendor agreements, training, subprocessor docs. He’s detail-oriented; I handled the tech, architecture, monitoring, tooling.

Because our team is small (a few employees plus contractors), adoption was manageable:

Everyone signed policies, did annual training, installed device monitoring.
Background checks: we had one new hire mid-process so I paid $29 for their check. For overseas or contractor roles, we set exclusions in policy where checks were unworkable.
Many controls default to “manual pen test.” That’s expensive. Rather than skip, I used Astra’s Pentest-as-a-Service (a few hundred dollars). Not perfect, but it gave me a report I could show in sales conversations and satisfy part of the requirement.

Infra side:

We rely heavily on IaaS (Vercel, Firebase). That means a lot of infrastructure security is outsourced.
I use GCP’s built-in security and monitoring tools, GitHub Dependabot, cloud logging, etc.
I’m the technical gatekeeper (I approve all code). That control is odd for SOC 2, which expects peer reviews. Instead of hacking out the control, I set up AI-based code review (OpenAI Codex + Cursor). I documented screenshots, the logic, the process. Auditor accepted it. Yes — AI reviewed my own code.

The timeline, audit, and surprises

March 2025: I started planning and asking around.
June: signed with Sprinto and kicked off.
By end-August: controls mostly in place.
To get Type II, you need at least a 90-day monitoring window.
I solicited two auditor quotes. One was a better communicator, simpler process, far cheaper. We ended up paying $1,200.
Audit began. Auditor got access to Sprinto, asked ~6 clarifying questions or asked for more screenshots, and within weeks finished the review. Because we had some controls in place earlier, they even backdated them.

What I thought would drag to end of year finished early.

The moment of triumph

When they told me “you’re certified,” I felt weirdly relieved. It wasn’t just validation. It was removing a barrier I’d loathed for years.

Now we’re live: DocsBot has a trust center (hosted by Sprinto), where clients can sign NDAs and access audit reports and security artifacts. You can read the official announcement here: DocsBot is Now SOC 2 Type II Certified.

Ongoing cost will probably settle around $5–6K/year (Sprinto + auditor renewal). That’s a price I’m comfortable paying for sales confidence.

Reflections (what worked, what I’d do differently)

What worked

Choosing a compliance partner who helps you instead of leaving you lost in checkboxes.
Delegating policy and paperwork to someone else (in my case, my son).
Using mid-tier hacks (Astra pentest, AI code review) to satisfy controls without going full “enterprise budget.”
Automating monitoring through platform tools (GCP, Dependabot, etc.) so less manual overhead.

What’s weird / still murky

Some controls feel like theater (you’ll do them because they’re on the list, not because they’re threat-driven).
You can argue or modify control severity in your context. The control framework isn’t absolute.
Auditors vary hugely in style and price. The right auditor can drastically reduce friction.
Renewal pricing is a gamble. That’s where many compliance platforms squeeze you.