9 Best PwC Competitors for SOC 2 & ISO 27001 Readiness (2026)

The proposal on your desk has two line items. The first is a readiness assessment: a scoped engagement that will tell you how far you are from a SOC 2 report or an ISO 27001 certificate. The second is the examination itself, priced separately and often scheduled months later.

Nothing on the page says who closes the gap between them, and that gap is where the deal in procurement is waiting.

That is the situation most searches for PwC competitors start from.

PwC publishes more about how it runs SOC work than most of its peers: a readiness assessment aligned to the attestation framework, gap identification and improvement recommendations, then a SOC 1, SOC 2 or SOC 3 report, with SOC 2+ variants that fold NIST, HITRUST or GDPR criteria into one examination.

That transparency is useful, because it lets a buyer see the shape of the engagement before signing. This guide uses that same shape to compare every alternative.

Every provider here answers four questions differently. What does the readiness assessment produce, and what does it cost. Who performs the remediation the assessment calls for. Who signs the report or issues the certificate, and how independence between the two is documented. And whether anyone puts a fee behind the date.

The firms answer those questions one way; one provider on this list answers them another way entirely.

The delivery models on this page:

1. Advisory and attestation firms assess, recommend, and, as licensed CPA firms, examine the result and sign the report. The work between the two engagements is yours.

2. Accredited certification bodies do the equivalent for ISO 27001, and accreditation rules bar them from building the ISMS they certify.

3. A service performs the work itself: the policies, the controls, the evidence, the auditor coordination, with your team reviewing and signing rather than executing.

Nine providers made the list, all confirmed from their own published material: three Big Four assurance practices, a national CPA firm, three specialist assessment firms, a global certification body, and EasyAudit.

Where a fact about a named firm could not be sourced to that firm, it appears here as a question for you to put to them, and every one of those questions is worth putting to PwC as well.

We built EasyAudit, so read our entry knowing that. The scoring below is published, and we scored ourselves on the same seven criteria as everyone else.

The verdict in a nutshell: EasyAudit is the best overall pick for regulated companies that want the readiness assessment done free, the remediation performed rather than recommended, and a date with a fee behind it. The Compliance Simulation runs on your real environment, takes about 75 minutes of scheduled time across two calls, and the report is yours either way.

Among the firms, A-LIGN offers the most complete single-provider path from readiness to signed report, Schellman is the pick when SOC 2 and ISO 27001 must run concurrently under one accredited name, BDO is the CPA firm that will give you an estimate before a proposal, and EY leads the Big Four alternatives because it operates a dedicated global ISO certification body, EY CertifyPoint.

PwC Competitors for SOC 2 and ISO 27001 Readiness: Comparison Chart

Delivery model: Service means the provider's people perform the recurring compliance work. Advisory and attestation means the firm assesses readiness and, as a licensed CPA firm, examines and signs the SOC report; remediation in between is the customer's. Advisory and certification means the same structure for ISO 27001 through an accredited certification body.

Data current as of September 2026. No firm here publishes a rate for readiness or attestation work. Every firm description comes from that firm's own published service pages; where a fact could not be sourced there, the entry poses it as a question for the buyer to ask.

Why Look for Alternatives to PwC?

Three reasons, each starting from what PwC says about its own offering. PwC's SOC reporting page describes a readiness assessment that identifies gaps and recommends improvements before the examination, and a SOC report the organization can share, including SOC 2+ reports that fold NIST, HITRUST or GDPR criteria into one examination.

It recommends starting with the controls that matter most to customers and expanding scope over time. Read plainly, that is a diagnosis, an opinion, and a scope that grows. Here is what follows.

The readiness assessment is a paid diagnosis, and the remediation it prescribes is yours

PwC's own description of the readiness assessment is gap identification and improvement recommendations. That is valuable, and it is also the whole deliverable: a list of what is wrong and advice on fixing it. The fixing is a separate matter, performed by your team or scoped as further engagement.

If your reason for buying is that nobody internal wants to run the program, ask before you approve the assessment: after the recommendations land, who writes the policies, who closes the findings, who collects the evidence, and who talks to the examination team?

Two engagements, one independence question, and it has to be answered in writing

Under the AICPA Code's independence and nonattest-services rules, a firm that designs and implements controls generally cannot attest to those same controls where doing so impairs its independence. PwC's own ISO 27001 material makes the point for it: certification through its accredited entity is offered "depending on the applicable independence requirements." That is the right posture.

It also means the buyer should ask first whether the same firm can prepare and sign, and get the conclusion in writing. A provider that never signs the opinion has removed the question.

The engagement is built for enterprise scale, and scope is designed to expand

This is a fit problem, not a quality problem. PwC's assurance practice sits inside its audit business and is organized around large clients, and its own guidance to start with a limited control set and expand the reporting scope over time describes a multi-year relationship.

A 200-person insurer or a regional data center operator that needs one report by one date is buying a model shaped for something larger and longer. Ask how the team is staffed at your size, what the second year costs when scope expands, and whether the Big Four letterhead is a customer requirement or a procurement habit.

None of this argues against PwC. SOC 2+ combined reporting is a real strength, brand comfort in procurement is real, and a buyer whose financial auditor is already PwC has a sound reason to consolidate. The rest of this guide is for the buyer who wants to compare on what the assessment costs, who performs the fix, and whether anyone commits to the date.

How We Evaluated These PwC Alternatives

Seven criteria, scored one to ten and weighted, with the weights published so the arithmetic is yours to check. The weights follow what buyers ask about before they sign a readiness engagement: who performs the work, what it costs and on what terms, whether a date is committed, and how the examination is handled.

They are the same seven criteria and the same weights used on every page of this series, and every provider carries identical scores on every page it appears on.

Our Scoring Methodology

Work performed carries the heaviest weight because it is the criterion a readiness assessment cannot satisfy on its own. An assessment tells you where you stand. It is the weeks after it, when the gap list has owners on your side and the examination is booked, that decide whether the date holds.

Weighted totals are rounded to one decimal. The score on each provider entry, the score in the comparison chart, and this table reconcile. Ties are broken on the first criterion, then the second. Every provider carries identical scores on every page of this series; the one exception is EasyAudit's timeline score on the NIST CSF page, explained there, because no fee is at risk on CSF itself.

9 Best PwC Alternatives in 2026 Reviewed

Each entry below is organized around the readiness assessment, because that is the purchase decision in front of you. What the assessment produces, what it costs, who performs what it recommends, who signs the result, and where the model fits. Ranked by the score above.

1. EasyAudit

Best for: regulated companies that want the readiness assessment done free, the remediation performed rather than recommended, and a date with a fee behind it.

Compliance Service Score: 9.3/10

Service Overview

EasyAudit is a compliance service built for organizations that have to be compliant and do not want to run compliance. Your engagement is led from start to finish by a named human compliance expert, the recurring work is executed by the AI Compliance Officer, and the platform is the shared foundation and memory the two work from.

One service, not three products. Our founder came out of Big Four risk advisory, which is why we know exactly how a readiness assessment is scoped and priced, and why we give ours away.

If the proposal in front of you prices a diagnosis before anyone commits to a fix, and the people who would carry that fix are your security, engineering and legal staff, we built it for you, and we built it for regulated companies: the ones whose customers, regulators, insurers or contracts require proof, in whatever industry that pressure arrives.

Two things set us apart in this guide:

1. The diagnosis is free. The Compliance Simulation runs on your real environment and returns readiness per framework, every material gap prioritized, the work required, a dated timeline and the investment, before you sign anything.

2. The remediation is performed, not recommended, and the date is locked at signature with our fee behind it.

The 3 Readiness Problems We Built EasyAudit to Solve

You pay to find out how far from ready you are

The readiness assessment is the first invoice in every advisory engagement on this page. It is scoped, staffed and priced before a single control is fixed, and its output is a gap list. A buyer approves tens of thousands of dollars to learn the size of the next purchase.

The Compliance Simulation does that job at no charge. Two 30-minute calls, about 75 minutes of scheduled time, read-only connections to your real systems, and a report that scores your readiness, prioritizes your gaps, prices the program and dates it. The report is yours either way. Diagnose first, commit second.

The recommendations land on your team

Gap identification and improvement recommendations, in PwC's own words, is the deliverable. Someone still has to write the access control policy, close the failing configuration, collect the evidence the examination will test, and answer the auditor. In an advisory model that someone is you, or a further scope of hours.

We perform the recommendations. Our AI Compliance Officer drafts the policies from your environment, collects the evidence, and prescribes the exact fix for every gap. Our named compliance expert reviews every piece of work and coordinates your auditor directly. Your team reviews and signs.

After the first audit, 3,950+ continuous monitoring checks keep the program true between examinations, which no readiness engagement does once it closes.

Nobody's fee depends on your date

Assessment fees are earned when the assessment is delivered. Examination fees are earned when the examination is performed. Whether the organization was ready on the date the deal needed is not part of either invoice.

Ours is. Audit-ready and submitted to an independent auditor or accredited certification body by the date committed at signature, or you do not pay. The Audit-Ready Guarantee applies to eligible engagements and covers readiness and submission; the auditor or certification body alone determines the result, and we say that every time we say the first part.

Frameworks Covered

SOC 1, SOC 2, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, ISO 9001, NIST CSF 2.0 and CMMC, on one control library. A control implemented once satisfies up to seven frameworks, one evidence set covers all mappings, and the program carries 60 to 70 percent fewer controls than running frameworks in parallel.

Where an advisory engagement scopes the second framework as a second project, here it is the same controls with another mapping.

Pricing and Engagement Model

No readiness assessment fee, no rate card, no scope that expands after the gap list arrives. The Simulation Report is the proposal: readiness per framework, gaps, the work, the timeline, the investment, and a written recommendation from the expert who ran it. The investment is fixed at signature. For a directional figure before the Simulation, use the cost calculator.

Compare it to the whole advisory line: the assessment fee, the hours during remediation, and the internal time between engagements. We replace all three. Auditor and certification body fees stay separate, because an independent auditor issues the result. We are not the lowest-priced option here, and the Tradeoffs section says so.

The Audit-Ready Guarantee

Audit-ready and submitted to an independent auditor or accredited certification body by the committed date, or you do not pay, for eligible engagements. It covers readiness and submission, never the opinion or the certificate, which no provider can promise.

It is possible because of the order of operations: the Simulation scores your readiness on your real environment before we commit, so the date is calculated rather than estimated. Read the guarantee.

What Stays On Your Team

Business knowledge, review of key decisions, and signatures where your authority is required. Under ten hours a year in steady state, because the recurring work transfers to us instead of shrinking on your calendar. We write the policies; your team reviews and signs. Controls are accepted in one click, with who approved and when recorded.

A 15-minute meeting closes three to four evidence items. Signed-statement templates mean you never hit a dead end.

Setup

A mutual NDA the same day. Documents dropped into a workspace without cleanup. A scoping questionnaire. Read-only connections, using temporary credentials and OAuth, live on the first 30-minute call. The environment is pre-built before your decision-makers join the second call, where they see readiness per framework, gaps, scope, price, and the committed date on their own data. About 75 minutes of scheduled time in total.

Tradeoffs

If your customers require a Big Four letterhead, or your financial auditor is already PwC and consolidation matters, those are legitimate reasons to choose PwC, and we compete on the date and the economics rather than on brand. Licensed CPA firms here can sign the SOC 2 opinion and accredited bodies can issue the ISO certificate; we never issue either.

A buyer who needs strategy, technology implementation or tax alongside readiness has a reason to consolidate with a large firm. A GRC team that wants to run the program itself with outside advice is better served by an advisory engagement. We are not built for a 1 to 10 person company chasing a single framework with no external pressure.

We cost more than a software seat, and the guarantee covers readiness and submission by the committed date for eligible engagements, not the result.

Support

One named compliance expert owns your engagement end to end: sets the plan, checks every piece of work, deals with your auditor or certification body directly, and checks in with you every two days. Where controls require it, they attend your facility. Data center floors, contact center floors and FDA-regulated manufacturing are in scope. You never have to log in; you always can.

Mini Case Study

Alignd's co-founder had already sat through demos from larger platforms and weighed the cost of hiring consultants before choosing neither. A self-funded company with three full-time employees, Alignd needed SOC 2 without weeks of tagging risks, editing templates or briefing an advisory team.

We onboarded the company in a single short session, generated the risk register and the controls for its stack, wrote the policies with no prior documentation to start from, and attached the evidence for the CPA firm to review. In the customer's own words: no consultants, no back-and-forth.

Read the Alignd story

2. A-LIGN

Best for: buyers who want one provider to run the readiness assessment, host the evidence and sign the report or certificate.

Compliance Service Score: 7.7/10

A-LIGN sells the readiness assessment, the evidence platform and the signed result as one relationship, which is the most complete single-provider version of the two-engagement model on this page. Its own site claims the top SOC 2 issuer position worldwide, more than 3,500 SOC 2 assessments, over 100 SOC 2 auditors, and accreditation as an ISO 27001, ISO 27701 and ISO 22301 certification body.

Service Overview

The readiness assessment, which A-LIGN recommends for first-time candidates, identifies high-risk control gaps and gives the organization time to remediate. Evidence and audit requests then run through A-SCEND, A-LIGN's own platform, where submissions can be reused across frameworks. The SOC 2 examination or the ISO 27001 certification audit follows, performed by A-LIGN. Customers can bring their own compliance tooling; A-LIGN partners with the major platforms.

Pricing and Engagement Model

Quote only. A-LIGN publishes no rates for the assessment or the audit. What it does publish is a free tier of A-SCEND for automation and audit-readiness features, so the platform cost can be zero while the readiness assessment and the audit are priced by engagement. Ask what the assessment produces beyond the gap list and how the audit is priced across a three-year ISO cycle.

What Stays On Your Team

The gaps the assessment finds. A-LIGN identifies them and later tests whether they were closed; your team, or a separate provider, closes them. A-SCEND organizes the evidence; it does not produce it.

Who Signs the Report

A-LIGN itself, as a licensed CPA firm for SOC reports and an accredited body for ISO certificates. Because the same firm assesses and attests, ask for the independence conclusion in writing for your combination of services. Accreditation and AICPA rules require A-LIGN to be able to produce it.

Tradeoffs

The reason to choose A-LIGN is continuity: one provider from the first gap list to the signed report, with a free evidence platform in between, and FedRAMP or HITRUST available from the same firm.

The reason to look further is the same as with every advisory model here: the remediation is yours, and the assessment is the start of a bill rather than the end of one. Published reviews split on billing; a Gartner Peer Insights reviewer called pricing reasonable, another criticized billing on a disputed audit date.

3. Coalfire

Best for: organizations that want a mock audit by the certification body's own staff between the readiness assessment and the real one, particularly cloud service providers and multi-standard ISO programs.

Compliance Service Score: 7.5/10

Coalfire adds a step the other firms do not describe: a mock audit conducted by certification body staff between the readiness assessment and the real one. It delivers more than 500 SOC reports a year through Coalfire Controls, a licensed CPA affiliate, and certifies management systems through Coalfire Certification, accredited by ANAB since 2015 and UKAS since 2019.

By its own figures, three quarters of its SOC work is for cloud service providers.

Service Overview

For SOC 2, Coalfire's readiness assessment identifies and documents controls, determines gaps and recommends remediation ahead of a Type I or Type II report. For ISO 27001, a lead auditor facilitates the readiness assessment and the mock audit before Stage 1 and Stage 2.

Its Compliance Essentials platform coordinates evidence across 80-plus frameworks, and combined reports such as SOC 2 with HIPAA or CSA STAR reduce repeat testing.

Pricing and Engagement Model

Quote only, and Coalfire's AWS Marketplace listings for SOC and ISO readiness require a quote as well. Ask for the readiness assessment and the mock audit as separate prices, and for the three-year ISO lifecycle priced in full.

What Stays On Your Team

Everything between assessments. Coalfire documents, recommends and rehearses; the customer implements. One published customer account describes engaging a separate firm for the ISO risk assessment and internal audit before Coalfire's certification audit, which is the impartiality rule operating as designed.

Who Signs the Report

Coalfire Controls, a licensed CPA firm, for SOC reports; Coalfire Certification, an accredited body, for ISO certificates. Ask which entity signs and how independence is documented where the same organization advises and attests.

Tradeoffs

Coalfire fits a cloud service provider or an organization certifying to several ISO standards at once, and the mock audit is a genuine advantage for a first-time candidate. For a mid-market insurer or data center operator the depth costs more than the buyer may need, the model is advisory, and the certifying arm is barred from closing the gaps its readiness work finds.

4. Schellman

Best for: organizations that need SOC 2 and ISO 27001 examined concurrently by one accredited name, with independence handled by corporate structure.

Compliance Service Score: 7.4/10

Schellman answers the independence question with corporate structure rather than engagement scoping. Schellman Compliance performs non-attest readiness and advisory; Schellman & Company performs attestation and ISO certification. The firm issues more than 2,000 SOC reports a year and holds ANAB and UKAS accreditation for ISO 27001, with ANAB accreditation across ISO 27701, 20000-1, 9001 and 22301 and first-mover accreditation for ISO 42001.

Service Overview

The readiness assessment, delivered through the non-attest entity, identifies gaps and recommends remediation. The attest entity then performs the SOC 2 examination, or Stage 1 and Stage 2 for ISO 27001, and issues the result. A single-assessor approach lets one organization take SOC 2 and ISO 27001 through concurrently. Schellman sells no platform and works with all the major ones.

Pricing and Engagement Model

Quote only, scoped to the criteria, the report type and the size of the environment. Schellman publishes no rates. Ask for readiness, examination and, for ISO, both surveillance audits and recertification priced together.

What Stays On Your Team

All of it. The readiness entity advises; the attest entity examines. Implementation, policies and evidence collection between the two are performed by your team or a third party.

Who Signs the Report

Schellman & Company, as a licensed CPA firm and an accredited certification body. The split between the two Schellman entities is the firm's independence documentation; ask for it as it applies to your engagement.

Tradeoffs

Schellman is the pick when SOC 2 and ISO 27001 must run at the same time under one name your customers will recognize, and when ISO 42001 sits alongside. It is not a readiness service in the performing sense, there is no committed readiness date, and the assessment fee buys advice. Peak Q4 and Q1 scheduling deserves early planning.

5. BSI

Best for: organizations that need the ISO 27001 certificate from the body enterprise procurement recognizes first, with readiness bought separately from a walled-off consulting practice.

Compliance Service Score: 6.8/10

BSI approaches readiness from the other end of the engagement. It is first a certification body, the name on the ISO certificate that enterprise procurement teams recognize before any other, and its readiness and implementation help is sold by a separate consulting practice kept apart so the certifying arm never advises on an ISMS it certifies.

Deloitte's own announcements name BSI as the certifier of its ISMS in several regions.

Service Overview

BSI Assurance performs Stage 1, Stage 2 and the surveillance and recertification audits across ISO 27001, ISO 27701, ISO 22301, ISO 9001 and ISO 42001. BSI's consulting practice, per its own service pages, offers ISMS development and enhancement, risk assessment, governance and policy creation, internal audits for certification readiness, and SOC 2 readiness aligned to the AICPA Trust Services Criteria with pre-assessment and audit-readiness support.

Pricing and Engagement Model

Quote only for both practices. BSI publishes no rates. Ask for the full three-year ISO cycle from the certifying arm and, separately, the consulting scope if you want implementation help, because they arrive as two engagements and two invoices.

What Stays On Your Team

With BSI Assurance alone, everything but the audit. With BSI Consulting engaged as well, implementation can be scoped, staffed separately from the certifying arm to protect impartiality.

Who Signs the Report

BSI Assurance, for ISO certificates. BSI is not a CPA firm and does not issue SOC 2 reports; its SOC 2 work is readiness, with the report coming from a licensed auditor you appoint.

Tradeoffs

BSI is the right choice when the certificate's issuer is what your customers care about and you either have an ISMS or will build one with a separate provider. The certifying arm cannot close gaps, by design, the consulting arm is its own scope and cost, and no readiness date is committed.

6. BDO

Best for: organizations that want a national CPA firm to give them an estimate before a proposal and a readiness assessment before the report.

Compliance Service Score: 6.6/10

BDO is the one CPA firm on this page whose own pages put a free step before the paid one: a compliance consultation and a SOC 2 report estimate, then the readiness assessment, then the report.

It issues SOC 1, 2, 2+ and 3 reports under SSAE 18 and its Canadian equivalent, and it is the national firm a mid-market buyer can most easily get a conversation with.

Service Overview

Per BDO, the practice evaluates the systems involved in processing data, including cloud platforms, SaaS, infrastructure, software, data streams and financial systems, across security, privacy, confidentiality, availability and processing integrity. The readiness assessment identifies gaps and helps the organization plan to rectify them before the examination.

Pricing and Engagement Model

Quote only, but with a free initial consultation and a report estimate offered before scoping, which is more transparency than most of the firms here publish. Ask what the readiness assessment costs beyond the consultation and how the Type II observation period is priced.

What Stays On Your Team

The rectification the assessment plans. BDO identifies gaps and helps plan the fixes; your team performs them.

Who Signs the Report

BDO, as a licensed CPA firm. Ask how the assessment and the examination are staffed and how independence is documented where both come from BDO.

Tradeoffs

BDO fits an organization that wants a national CPA name without Big Four scale and a number before a proposal. The structure is still advisory and attest: the work stays with your team, and no readiness date is committed. BDO's pages reviewed do not describe an ISO 27001 certification offering, so ISO buyers should confirm scope directly.

7. Deloitte

Best for: organizations whose procurement asks for the Deloitte name, or whose financial auditor is Deloitte, with FedRAMP or HITRUST alongside SOC 2.

Compliance Service Score: 6.4/10

Deloitte is PwC's closest structural peer on this page: a Big Four assurance practice offering readiness services ahead of SOC 1 and SOC 2 attestation engagements, with FedRAMP and HITRUST assessments alongside. Its own third-party assurance page describes the offering as advising on control effectiveness and performing attestation engagements, in less detail than PwC publishes about its equivalent.

Service Overview

Per Deloitte, third-party attestation and readiness services help organizations demonstrate the design and effectiveness of controls to customers, business partners and regulators. Readiness advises on control effectiveness before the examination; the attestation engagement produces the report. Deloitte positions SOC reporting as one component of a broader compliance and conformance program. Its ISO 27001 advisory offering appears on regional member-firm pages rather than its US site.

Pricing and Engagement Model

Quote only, scoped by engagement. Deloitte publishes no rates. Ask what the readiness engagement costs, what deliverables it produces, and how the attestation is scoped and priced separately.

What Stays On Your Team

All of it. Readiness advises; attestation examines. Remediation, policies, evidence and the program between engagements are performed by your team or a separate provider.

Who Signs the Report

Deloitte, as a licensed CPA firm, for SOC reports. ISO certificates come from a separate accredited body. Ask for the independence conclusion in writing where the same firm performs readiness and attestation.

Tradeoffs

Deloitte is the letterhead procurement-heavy organizations name unprompted, and choosing it for that reason is legitimate, especially where Deloitte already audits your financials or FedRAMP and HITRUST accompany SOC 2. The practice is built for enterprise engagements, the work stays with your team, and no readiness date is committed.

Ask how the team is staffed at your scale and what the engagement economics look like there.

8. KPMG

Best for: regulated financial services and insurance organizations that want a workshop-based readiness roadmap from a firm the board knows.

Compliance Service Score: 6.3/10

KPMG's readiness review is the most fully described of any Big Four offering we could find, and the description makes the division of labor explicit: the firm explains, assesses, provides samples and reviews the client's control proposal; the client proposes and implements the controls. Its IT attestation practice then performs SOC 1, SOC 2 and SOC 3 examinations.

Service Overview

Per the published engagement description from one KPMG member firm, the readiness review runs as workshops on the Trust Services Criteria, interviews and documentation review to assess current readiness, sample controls and design examples for the client's environment, a mapping of control objectives to ISO 27001, a review of the client's control proposal, and a management report with a roadmap.

Attestation follows, testing design and operating effectiveness. KPMG member firms also publish ISO 27001 implementation and certification-preparation services.

Pricing and Engagement Model

Quote only, scoped by engagement. KPMG publishes no rates. Ask what the workshop-based review costs, what the roadmap contains, and how the attestation is scoped and priced separately.

What Stays On Your Team

The controls themselves. KPMG's own description has the client proposing, implementing and evidencing them; the firm reviews the proposal and later tests the result.

Who Signs the Report

KPMG, as a licensed CPA firm, for SOC reports. ISO certificates come from a separate accredited body. Ask for the independence conclusion in writing where readiness and attestation come from the same firm.

Tradeoffs

KPMG fits regulated financial services and insurance organizations that want a workshop-based roadmap and the examination from a firm the board already knows, with ISO 27001 mapping included in the readiness work. The roadmap is the deliverable; the road is yours to build. No readiness date is committed, and the engagement is designed for enterprise scale.

9. EY

Best for: organizations that want a Big Four readiness assessment and an ISO certificate from the same firm's dedicated global certification body.

Compliance Service Score: 6.2/10

EY pairs a Big Four readiness assessment with something the other three do not offer on their global pages: a dedicated, globally accredited ISO certification body, EY CertifyPoint. By its own figures EY issues more than 3,000 SOC reports to more than 900 clients a year, so SOC attestation and ISO certification can be coordinated through one firm across two practices.

Service Overview

Per EY, the readiness assessment typically includes a review of existing controls, a gap analysis, documentation evaluation and actionable recommendations before a SOC examination. The attestation practice then examines controls against SOC 1, SOC 2 or ISAE 3402 and issues the report. EY CertifyPoint performs ISO management system certification, with surveillance audits across the three-year cycle.

Pricing and Engagement Model

Quote only, scoped by engagement. EY publishes no rates. Ask what the readiness assessment costs, what its recommendations document contains, and how CertifyPoint certification is priced and scheduled separately across the cycle.

What Stays On Your Team

The gaps the analysis finds. EY reviews, analyzes and recommends; your team implements, documents and produces the evidence, and accreditation rules keep CertifyPoint from advising on the ISMS it certifies.

Who Signs the Report

EY, as a licensed CPA firm, for SOC reports; EY CertifyPoint, a dedicated accredited body, for ISO certificates. Ask how independence between the readiness practice and the attesting or certifying entity is documented for your engagement.

Tradeoffs

EY fits an organization that wants SOC attestation and ISO 27001 certification coordinated through one Big Four firm, and one whose customers or board expect the name. The readiness deliverable is a gap analysis with recommendations, not a program, no readiness date is committed, and the model is built for enterprise engagements.

How We Built This Guide

The starting point was the proposal: a readiness assessment priced before any remediation, an examination priced separately, and a gap in the middle that nobody on the page owns. Everything on this page is organized to fill that gap for the reader. What the assessment produces. What it costs. Who performs what it recommends. Who signs. Whether a date is committed.

The sources are the firms' own SOC and ISO 27001 pages and accreditation announcements, read in September 2026. No firm publishes rates, so no rates are attributed to any firm; the market ranges in the pricing section come from third-party guides and are labeled as such. Anything about a named firm that could not be sourced to that firm was turned into a question rather than stated. Firms named as PwC alternatives in third-party guides whose SOC 2 or ISO 27001 readiness offering could not be confirmed from their own sites are not on this page.

EasyAudit was scored on the same seven criteria and the same weights as every other provider, and every provider carries the same scores on every page of this series.

How To Choose Between PwC Alternatives

Six questions, in the order a readiness engagement raises them, each one worth asking PwC too.

Step 1: Ask What the Readiness Assessment Produces and What It Costs

Get the deliverable described in writing before you approve the fee. A gap list with owners on your side is a different product from a plan the provider will execute, and the two can carry the same price.

Ask whether the assessment is reusable if you choose a different firm for the examination, and what a re-assessment costs a year later. Then compare it to the one option on this page that does the same diagnostic work free, on your real environment, with the report yours either way.

Step 2: Get the Split of Work in Writing

Who writes the policies, who maps the controls, who fixes a failing control, who collects the evidence, who talks to the examination team. Ask for named owners on the provider's side and hours per week expected from yours in month two. An advisory firm will describe recommendations and a roadmap; neither is the work.

If "who fixes it" resolves to your engineer, that engineer is part of the price.

Step 3: Settle Who Signs Before You Settle Who Prepares

SOC 2 reports are signed by licensed CPA firms under AICPA standards; ISO 27001 certificates are issued by accredited certification bodies. If the firm preparing you also plans to sign, the independence conclusion for that combination of services must be documented, and you should have it before scoping, not after.

Some firms solve this by structure, as Schellman does; some scope the readiness narrowly; one provider here never signs at all.

Step 4: Count the Frameworks Coming in the Next Two Years

SOC 2 for the enterprise deal now, ISO 27001 for the international tenant next year, ISO 42001 if you ship AI features, NIST CSF 2.0 or CMMC for government-adjacent work. Ask each firm whether the second framework is a second readiness assessment and a second examination, and what carries over.

Most advisory engagements scope each framework separately while the evidence overlaps 60 to 80 percent. One control library that satisfies up to seven frameworks changes the arithmetic on everything after the first.

Step 5: Ask What Happens in Month Seven

Readiness engagements close. Examinations describe a period and end. Ask who is accountable for the program between this examination and the next one, who detects a failing control in month seven, and who redoes the readiness work when the next framework arrives. If the answer is your team, the assessment fee bought a snapshot, and the months between snapshots are yours to cover.

Step 6: Ask for the Date and the Consequence in the Contract

A committed readiness date, and what the provider forfeits if it slips. Advisory firms decline both, because their fees are earned on delivery of the assessment and the examination regardless of your outcome.

EasyAudit locks the date at signature and forfeits its fee if the date is missed, with the boundary stated beside it: readiness and submission are guaranteed, and the independent auditor or certification body determines the result.

SOC 2 and ISO 27001 Readiness Pricing and Engagement Models in 2026

Readiness is priced three ways on this page, and the readiness assessment line item is the fastest way to tell them apart.

A paid assessment, then a separately priced examination. PwC, Deloitte, EY, KPMG, BDO, Schellman, A-LIGN and Coalfire all scope the assessment as its own engagement.

Third-party guides put an external SOC 2 readiness assessment at $10,000 to $40,000 depending on size, remediation help at $150 to $300 an hour, and the Type II examination at $15,000 to $50,000 or more; Vanta's own SOC 2 cost guide notes that large enterprises working with a Big Four firm can pay low six figures for the audit alone.

ISO 27001 adds Stage 1, Stage 2, two surveillance audits and recertification over three years. The remediation between assessment and examination is a further scope or your team's time.

Certification priced by one practice, readiness by another. BSI Assurance quotes the certification audits; BSI's consulting practice quotes implementation and readiness separately, and the two are kept apart to protect impartiality. Two scopes, two contracts.

No assessment fee, a fixed investment, a fee at risk. EasyAudit runs the Compliance Simulation free on your own environment, fixes the investment and the readiness date at signature, and forfeits its fee if the date is missed. No rate card. Auditor and certification body fees remain separate, because an independent auditor issues the result.

The questions buyers ask about the assessment, answered

"Is the readiness assessment worth paying for?" It is worth having. Whether it is worth paying for depends on whether the same diagnosis is available free, on your real environment, with the report yours regardless. The Simulation exists to make that comparison possible before you spend anything.

"Our financial auditor is a Big Four firm. Should we just use them?" Ask them first what the readiness engagement includes, who performs the remediation, and whether they can also sign given the independence rules. Then compare the answers with the date and the total cost, including your team's hours, from a provider that performs the work.

"How long will it take and what will it cost?" In an advisory model, the readiness assessment answers the first half after you have paid for it, and the second half arrives as a further scope. The Simulation answers both on your own data before you sign, in about 75 minutes of scheduled time.

"We need SOC 2 and ISO 27001. Is that two assessments?" With most firms, yes, or one engagement with two scopes. With one control library, one evidence set maps to both, and the program carries 60 to 70 percent fewer controls.

"What happens after the engagement ends?" With an advisory firm, the program returns to your team until the next engagement. With EasyAudit, after the first audit, 3,950+ continuous monitoring checks keep the program true between examinations, and the named expert stays accountable.

Engagement Model Comparison

As of September 2026. No firm in this comparison publishes rates; the market ranges above are attributed to third-party guides. "Add-on" means the capability is available through a separate practice, entity or partner. "Named expert leads" means a named person owns the engagement outcome, not a rotating engagement team. EasyAudit is not an audit firm or a certification body: it never signs, issues or attests to any report or certificate, and no cell in this table should be read otherwise. An independent CPA auditor or accredited certification body issues the result in every EasyAudit engagement.

Key Capabilities to Look for in a SOC 2 and ISO 27001 Readiness Provider

1. A Diagnosis You Can See Before You Commit

If the first thing a provider asks for is a purchase order for the assessment, you are buying the diagnosis blind. Look for readiness scored on your real environment, gaps prioritized, and a price and a date attached, before the contract. A paid assessment can do this; a free one that produces the same report removes the reason to pay.

2. Remediation Performed, Not Recommended

If the deliverable is a recommendations document, the work is still ahead of you. Look for a provider whose people write the policies from your environment, prescribe and track the fix for every gap, collect the evidence, and coordinate the auditor, with your team reviewing and signing.

Ask to see a policy the provider produced for a company with your stack; a template with the company name swapped in is the tell.

3. One Control Library Across Frameworks

If the second framework arrives as a second assessment, the provider is copying controls rather than mapping them. Look for one library that every framework maps into, so a control implemented once satisfies SOC 2, ISO 27001, ISO 42001 and NIST CSF 2.0 wherever they ask for it.

Ask for the percentage of controls and evidence that carry over; in EasyAudit's program the reduction is 60 to 70 percent against parallel frameworks.

4. Accountability That Survives the Engagement

If the engagement team disbands at the examination, month seven has no owner. Look for a named person who owns the program between examinations, checks every piece of work, and answers to a date, with monitoring that detects a failing control the day it fails rather than at the next assessment.

5. Auditor-Grade Evidence With a Clean Separation

If the auditor rejects the evidence, the date moves. Look for approvals recorded with who and when, a trail enforced below the application layer so it cannot be bypassed, evidence traceable to source systems rather than screenshots, and a read-only auditor view so the examiner looks through but cannot touch. Ask whether independent CPA auditors helped design the evidence standards.

6. A Fee That Depends on Your Date

If the provider is paid on delivery of the assessment and the examination whether or not you were ready when the deal needed you to be, the timeline is advisory too.

Look for a readiness date locked at signature and a stated consequence for missing it, with the boundary beside it: no one can promise the opinion or the certificate, and a provider that claims to should be questioned.

Which Option Is Right for Your Organization?

If you want the readiness assessment and the signed result from one specialist firm, and you have a team to perform what the assessment recommends, A-LIGN, Coalfire or

Schellman, with Schellman when SOC 2 and ISO 27001 must run together and Coalfire when a mock audit before the real one matters. BDO if you want an estimate before a proposal from a national CPA firm.

If your customers require a Big Four name or your financial auditor is one, ask PwC, Deloitte, EY or KPMG the six questions above and compare the answers.

PwC publishes the clearest SOC 2+ combined reporting and, per its member-firm material, certifies ISO 27001 through an accredited PwC entity in some regions where independence allows; EY operates a dedicated global certification body, EY CertifyPoint; KPMG publishes the most detailed readiness review. If the ISO certificate's issuer is what your customers check, BSI.

If the proposal in front of you prices a diagnosis before anyone commits to a fix, and nobody internal wants to own the fix, choose the provider that runs the diagnosis free, performs the remediation, and puts its fee behind the date. That is EasyAudit. Request a Demo and compare on your own numbers.

Is EasyAudit Worth It?

Measured against a single readiness assessment, only if you intend to act on it. If a gap list and a roadmap are what you want and your team will carry the rest, an advisory engagement is the rational purchase and a paid assessment is a fair price for expert judgment.

Measured against the whole engagement, the answer changes. Add the assessment fee. Add the hours during remediation, whether the firm's or your engineers'. Add the second framework scoped as a second assessment. Add the months between examinations when the engagement has closed and the program is yours again, and the deal that waits while your team catches up.

Consultants and human-centric tools cost ten to a hundred times more manual hours than Autonomous Compliance, and none of them puts a fee at risk on your date.

EasyAudit is the right purchase when the outcome is what you are buying and the work is what you want to stop doing. The Simulation lets you check that on your own environment before spending a dollar, which is what a readiness assessment was always supposed to do. Compliance runs on someone's time. We changed whose.

"I've been in software long enough to know how slow and inefficient most of these processes are. EasyAudit gave me exactly what I wanted: fast, clean, and simple." Adam Bouchard, Co-Founder, Alignd, EasyAudit customer.

FAQs

What does a SOC 2 readiness assessment actually produce?

A gap list. PwC describes its version as gap identification and improvement recommendations aligned to the attestation framework; other firms describe roadmaps and management reports. None of them produces the remediation itself. EasyAudit's Compliance Simulation produces the same diagnosis free, on your real environment, and the work is then performed rather than recommended.

Can PwC or a similar firm both prepare us and sign the report?

Within limits. A firm that designs and implements controls generally cannot attest to those same controls where doing so impairs its independence under AICPA rules, so the readiness scope must be bounded and the conclusion documented. PwC's own ISO 27001 material conditions certification on independence. Ask for the written conclusion first.

How much do PwC competitors charge for readiness work?

None publishes rates. Third-party guides put an external SOC 2 readiness assessment at $10,000 to $40,000 depending on size, remediation help at $150 to $300 an hour, and the examination at $15,000 to $50,000 or more, with Big Four audits for large enterprises reaching low six figures. EasyAudit charges nothing for the Simulation.

How long does readiness take with a firm versus a service?

With a firm, the assessment is scoped in weeks and remediation runs at your team's pace, followed by a Type II observation window of three to twelve months or ISO Stage 1 and Stage 2. With EasyAudit, the Simulation produces a dated timeline before you sign, and that date is locked at signature.

Is there any provider that guarantees we pass?

No, and any provider implying it should be questioned. The independent CPA auditor or accredited certification body alone determines the result, for every provider on this page. What EasyAudit guarantees is readiness: audit-ready and submitted by the committed date, or you do not pay, for eligible engagements.

What happens to the program once a readiness engagement closes?

It returns to your team. Recommendations, roadmaps and reports stay; the recurring work of policies, evidence, remediation and auditor liaison is yours between examinations. Ask each firm who is accountable in month seven. EasyAudit keeps the program after the first audit, with continuous monitoring and a named expert.