Finally, you go through the process of researching a potential auditor who seems to align with your strategy. You click on the SOC 2 pricing page and then…

BOOM – you’re hit with the message “Thank you – we’ll contact you to set up a call for more information.” 

Only, that call is probably only an intro call that will lead to a scoping call that will finally lead to a sales call where they share their pricing. At this rate, it takes several weeks just to complete a simple product comparison! 

Why do companies do this? And why did we decide to post our pricing publicly when almost nobody in the SOC 2 industry does? (Go ahead, google “SOC 2 pricing” – what you’ll get is results from GRC tools posting traditional price ranges to show why their tools are better). 

Why Companies ‘Gate’ Pricing:

Reason #1: it’s easier to convert a prospect into a paying customer if they call you. 

Mark Peacock (author of Pricing for Success) makes a clear case for it in this article by saying “For businesses with customized, complex or bespoke products and services, it is generally not helpful to put your prices on your website.” 

He goes on to explain “This would have the undesired effect of anchoring your value at a low price point in the mind of the customer, and encouraging them to think of your service as a cost rather than an investment.” 

While he notes that there are some exceptions to the rule, he makes a good general case. 

Reason #2: You can charge more for your services if you can feel out the other party first. 

This is Negotiation 101 – we all know you’re supposed to let the other party name their price first, as Andy LaCivita spells out in this video.   

Audit firms are no different than individuals here – many firms assess the prospect’s budget before naming their prices. We hide this effort behind “scoping questions” but at the end of the day, we are often ‘scoping out’ the depth of your pockets. 

This is not necessarily dishonest; it’s a byproduct of a free market where negotiation decides – at the end of the day, the prospect can always walk away and if you’ve misjudged their budget, in which case you’ve lost the fish. 

Why did Render Compliance decide to Post SOC 2 Pricing? 

Reason #1: Respect for your time.

If we can save you one week of pointless searches and sales calls by posting our prices and by allowing you to get to know us directly on our website, that is worth it to us, even if you end up selecting another auditor.   

Reason #2: We believe you get what you pay for.  

If we were afraid that you would choose someone else based solely on prices, it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference whether that conversation was over the phone or on our website. 

In fact, if price is your primary differentiator, posting our prices saves us an unprofitable sales call. It “weeds out bargain shoppers” as Pia Silva points out in this Forbes article. 

At Render Compliance we believe that by working with us you will actually land more customers, by: 

• Saving your teams significant # hours in an extremely complex process,  
• Making compliance something your team doesn’t dread 
• Delivering a SOC 2 report that functions as a brilliant marketing document 

Reason #3: We want to charge a fair price for our services. 

We realize that we hand over a fair bit of negotiation leverage by proactively messaging our fee expectations. 

If we obtained your budget first, then named a price, we could squeeze more out of some of you. 

That’s ok. We would rather you trust us. 

We would rather avoid that adversarial relationship right from the get-go. 

To us, the dollar value that we miss out on is worth so much less than your trust in an audit partner who wants to help you. If you do end up speaking with us, you’ll enter in prepared, knowing where you stand based on comparing your business against our Pricing Profiles, you won’t walk away afraid that you missed out by not pushing hard enough.

So go ahead, check out our Pricing Page, and if you know of someone who’s shopping, pass this on to gift them with one less headache as they navigate their vendor search. 

Looking for an auditor who can help guide you through the SOC 2 process? –  Contact Render