How to Get SOC 2 Certification a Practical Guide

Achieving SOC 2 certification isn’t a one-and-done task. It’s a journey that involves defining your audit scope, hunting down and fixing security gaps, and ultimately, working with a licensed CPA firm to validate your efforts. The end goal is a SOC 2 Type 1 or Type 2 report that proves your security posture to skeptical customers and partners.

Your Roadmap to SOC 2 Certification

For any service organization—especially in SaaS, FinTech, and HealthTech—getting SOC 2 certified is a rite of passage. Think of it less as a compliance headache and more as the key that unlocks enterprise deals. Customer trust is built on it.

The whole process can be broken down into a few core phases.

As you can see, it all flows from planning and prep work into the formal audit and the final report. Mess up the first part, and the rest becomes a nightmare.

Understanding the Trust Services Criteria

At the very heart of SOC 2 are the Trust Services Criteria (TSC), a set of principles from the AICPA. These are the standards your controls will be judged against. For a deeper dive, check out our guide on what is SOC 2 compliance.

Your first real task is figuring out which of these criteria actually apply to the services you sell and the promises you make to customers.

• Security (Common Criteria): This one’s non-negotiable; every SOC 2 audit includes it. It’s all about protecting systems and information from unauthorized access and other nastiness.
• Availability: Do you guarantee uptime in your SLAs? If customers rely on your system being online, you’ll need to add this one.
• Processing Integrity: If your service crunches numbers or processes transactions for clients, this one’s for you. It ensures data is processed completely, accurately, and on time.
• Confidentiality: This is for protecting sensitive information that’s specifically designated as confidential, like trade secrets or business plans.
• Privacy: This one is all about personal information (PII). It covers how you collect, use, retain, and dispose of it, aligning with frameworks like GDPR and CCPA.

Expert Tip: Choosing your TSCs is a strategic call. Don’t just throw all five in thinking it looks better. An auditor will hold your feet to the fire on every single criterion you include, so only pick what’s truly relevant to your business promises.

Type 1 vs Type 2 Reports

Next up, you have to decide between a Type 1 and a Type 2 report. This choice has big implications for your timeline and budget.

A Type 1 report is basically a snapshot. It assesses if your controls are designed properly at a single point in time. A Type 2 report, on the other hand, is more like a movie. It evaluates both the design and the operating effectiveness of your controls over a period of time, usually 6 to 12 months.

Need a quick way to compare? This table breaks it down.

SOC 2 Type 1 vs Type 2 At a Glance

Attribute	SOC 2 Type 1	SOC 2 Type 2
Focus	Design of controls at a point in time	Design & operating effectiveness over time
Timeline	Faster (weeks to a few months)	Slower (requires a 3-12 month observation period)
Effort	Lower	Higher (ongoing evidence collection)
Customer Value	Good (shows intent)	Gold Standard (proves effectiveness)
Best For	Early-stage startups needing a quick win	Enterprise sales, mature security programs

While a Type 1 can be a good starting point, the market has spoken: enterprise customers and savvy buyers almost always demand a Type 2 report. It’s the real proof that your security isn’t just theory.

In fact, with cyber threats constantly on the rise, a striking 72% of organizations that completed a Type 2 audit said it significantly improved their market position. It’s a powerful trust signal. For a more detailed breakdown of the entire process, check out this complete guide to SOC 2 certification.

Preparing For Your Audit With A Readiness Assessment

Jumping straight into a formal SOC 2 audit without doing your homework is a recipe for disaster. Think of it like trying to run a marathon without any training—you’re going to have a bad time. The most successful, painless audits are won long before the auditor ever walks through the door (or logs into Zoom). This phase is all about meticulous planning.

This proactive work kicks off with a readiness assessment, often called a gap analysis. It’s essentially a full dress rehearsal for the main event, giving you the chance to find and fix vulnerabilities on your own terms and timeline. This isn’t just a box-checking exercise; it’s a critical strategic move.

Frankly, the SOC 2 process can be intimidating. A staggering 62% of small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) admit they struggle just to understand the requirements. But here’s the flip side: companies that invest in a proper readiness assessment see a 40% higher first-attempt success rate. That alone should tell you everything you need to know.

Defining Your Audit Scope

First things first: you need to draw a clear, unambiguous boundary around what the audit will cover. This is your audit scope. You have to pinpoint exactly which systems, data, processes, and people are involved in delivering your services to customers.

Get granular and think through the entire lifecycle of customer data in your organization.

• Systems: Which servers, databases, and applications actually touch sensitive client information?
• People: Which teams or specific roles have access? Don’t just think about engineering—include your customer support and operations teams.
• Processes: What are the real-world workflows for things like user access reviews, change management, and incident response?

Getting the scope wrong is a classic, costly mistake. If it’s too narrow, the final report won’t give your customers the assurance they need. If it’s too broad, you’ll burn countless hours and cash gathering evidence for systems that don’t even matter.

Conducting The Gap Analysis

Once your scope is locked in, you can dive into the gap analysis. The goal is simple: compare your current security controls against the specific requirements of your chosen Trust Services Criteria. This process systematically uncovers every gap between what you actually do and what SOC 2 requires you to do.

To get a deeper understanding of this crucial first step, check out this detailed guide on the SOC 2 readiness assessment.

A readiness assessment forces you to be brutally honest with yourself. It’s far better to discover a weak password policy or an inconsistent employee offboarding process now, where you can fix it quietly, than to have an auditor flag it as an official exception in your final report.

To help you get started, this comprehensive Cybersecurity Audit Checklist can guide you through the essential areas and make sure nothing critical gets missed.

Here are some of the key areas you’ll want to dig into during your analysis.

Key Focus Areas for Your Readiness Assessment

Control Category	Example Control to Verify	Common Gap to Address
Access Control	Are terminated employees removed from all systems within 24 hours?	Offboarding process is manual and inconsistent, leaving old accounts active.
Change Management	Does all code go through a peer review and testing before deployment?	Developers sometimes push “hotfixes” directly to production without review.
Risk Assessment	Is there a formal risk assessment conducted and reviewed annually?	No documented risk assessment exists, or it’s several years out of date.
Security Monitoring	Are logs from critical systems collected and reviewed for anomalies?	Logging is enabled but no one is actively monitoring or alerting on the logs.
Vendor Management	Do you perform security reviews on critical third-party vendors?	No formal process for vetting the security posture of new software vendors.

This is just a starting point, of course, but it highlights the kind of tough questions you need to ask before the auditor does.

Mapping Controls and Documenting Everything

As you identify your existing controls, you need to map them directly to the SOC 2 criteria. For instance, your documented process for quarterly user access reviews directly supports the Security criterion related to logical access. This mapping exercise becomes a foundational part of your evidence package.

Documentation is your absolute best friend here. Auditors can’t just take your word for it—they need to see proof. Start documenting everything, from high-level information security policies to the nitty-gritty procedural documents that your teams follow every day.

Ultimately, your readiness assessment will produce a clear, actionable punch list. This isn’t a theoretical exercise. It’s about creating a tangible remediation plan to close every single gap you found, whether that means writing new policies, implementing a new security tool, or training your team on updated procedures.

Choosing the Right Auditor for Your Business

Picking the right audit firm is probably the single most important decision you’ll make on your path to SOC 2 certification. This isn’t just about finding the lowest price; it’s about choosing a partner who will dig deep into your security program. Their final report becomes the face of your company to your biggest and most important customers.

This one choice impacts everything: your costs, your timeline, and the sanity of your team. The right auditor is a professional guide. The wrong one can turn the whole process into a painful, expensive mess.

Big Four Firms vs. Boutique Specialists

Your first big choice is whether to go with a massive, well-known firm (like the “Big Four”) or a smaller, specialized CPA firm. There are real pros and cons to each, and the right answer depends entirely on where your company is at.

A Big Four firm brings instant brand recognition. For certain enterprise clients, seeing a familiar logo on your audit report can add an extra layer of trust. But that prestige comes with a hefty price tag and, often, a more rigid, less personal audit process.

Boutique firms, on the other hand, usually focus on companies of a certain size or in a specific niche, like SaaS or FinTech. They tend to be more flexible, faster, and more affordable, offering a true partnership. For most startups and mid-market companies, that kind of focused attention is way more valuable than a big brand name. To really understand the landscape, you can compare different types of firms to find the right SOC 2 audit firm that fits your specific situation.

Choosing an auditor is like hiring a key team member for a critical project. You need to evaluate their experience, communication style, and cultural fit—not just their price. A cheaper audit that produces a low-quality report is a waste of money.

Key Questions to Ask Potential Auditors

Once you have a shortlist of a few firms, it’s time to do some real digging. Your goal is to figure out not just what they do, but how they do it. The quality of their answers will tell you everything you need to know about the kind of experience you’re in for.

Don’t just show up and listen to their sales pitch. Come armed with specific, probing questions.

• Industry Experience: “How many SaaS/FinTech/HealthTech companies our size have you audited in the last year?” You need to know they understand your business model and its unique risks.
• Audit Team: “Who will be our day-to-day contact? What’s their experience level?” The last thing you want is to be handed off to a junior associate right after you sign the contract.
• Process and Tools: “What does your evidence collection process look like? What platform or tools do you use?” A firm still stuck using endless email threads and spreadsheets is going to create a massive headache for your team.
• Communication: “What’s your communication cadence? How do you handle disagreements or potential findings during the audit?” This question helps set clear expectations for a smooth, transparent process.

These questions move the conversation beyond a simple price comparison to a much deeper evaluation of partnership quality.

Decoding Cost and Timeline Benchmarks

Getting a handle on the time and money involved is absolutely essential for planning. Prices and timelines can swing wildly depending on the audit’s scope, your company’s size, and the firm you select.

The timeline to SOC 2 certification can literally make or break a startup’s sales plans. A Type 1 report usually takes 3-6 months from start to finish. A Type 2 report, which requires a 6-12 month observation period, can push the total timeline out to 6-15 months.

With budgets that can range from $15K for a lean startup to over $400K for a complex audit with a Big Four firm, it pays to do your homework. Using a platform to compare auditors based on real client feedback and responsiveness can save you from a costly mismatch.

Here’s a general breakdown of what a mid-sized SaaS company can expect:

Factor	SOC 2 Type 1	SOC 2 Type 2 (First Year)
Typical Cost Range	$15,000 - $35,000	$25,000 - $60,000+
Typical Timeline	3 - 6 months	9 - 15 months (including observation)
Team Effort	Moderate (focused sprint)	High (sustained effort)

Just remember, these are benchmarks. Things like adding multiple Trust Services Criteria or having a complex system will push your numbers toward the higher end of these ranges. The only way to get a real number for your business is to get multiple, detailed quotes.

Navigating the Audit and Evidence Collection

You’ve done the hard work: the readiness assessment is done, the gaps are closed, and you’ve picked your auditor. Now for the main event. This is where all that preparation pays off, turning what could be a frantic scramble into a structured, manageable project.

The audit fieldwork phase is all about one thing: evidence. Your auditor’s job is to verify that the controls you described on paper are actually working in the real world. They can’t just take your word for it—they need to see tangible proof for everything you claim.

What Auditors Really Want to See

“Evidence collection” can sound intimidating, but auditors are really just looking for three types of proof. If you understand these categories, you can anticipate their requests and get your documentation organized ahead of time. This is the secret to a smooth audit.

• Documentation: This is your foundation. Think information security policies, procedures for onboarding new hires and offboarding departing employees, your incident response plan, and system architecture diagrams.
• System Configurations: This is where the rubber meets the road. Auditors will ask for screenshots or configuration exports from your live systems. They’ll want to see your actual AWS security group settings, the password policy you’ve configured in Okta, or your branch protection rules in GitHub.
• Demonstrations and Interviews: Here, the auditor watches your processes in action. They’ll schedule “walkthroughs” where a team member shares their screen and demonstrates a key process, like deploying new code or deprovisioning a user account. They also interview key people to confirm they actually understand and follow the policies.

An auditor’s primary goal is to gain reasonable assurance that your controls are effective. They aren’t trying to trick you. If you are organized, transparent, and can provide clear evidence that connects your policies to your practices, the process will be far more collaborative than confrontational.

This stage is exactly why trying to manage a SOC 2 audit with spreadsheets is a recipe for chaos. Juggling hundreds of evidence requests via email and shared folders is a nightmare. This is where modern compliance automation platforms like Vanta or Drata shine; they connect directly to your tech stack (AWS, GitHub, HR systems) to automatically gather most of this evidence for you, saving hundreds of hours of manual work.

Preparing Your Team for Audit Interviews

Your people are a critical form of evidence. Auditors will want to talk to engineers, HR staff, and managers to make sure the procedures you’ve written down are what people actually do. Getting your team ready for these conversations is a huge part of a successful audit.

The goal is to make them feel prepared, not scared.

1. Set Expectations: First, explain why the audit is happening and what the auditor’s role is. Frame it as a verification process, not an interrogation. Let them know it’s a normal part of doing business for a company at your stage.
2. Review Key Processes: Right before an interview, do a quick refresher on the relevant policy with that team member. For an engineer, you might quickly review the change management process. For an HR person, you might review the onboarding checklist.
3. Encourage Honesty: This is the big one. Tell your team to answer questions truthfully and directly. It is perfectly fine to say, “I’m not sure, but I can find out,” or “Let me pull up the documentation for that.” Guessing or making things up is the worst thing you can do.

Trust me, auditors talk to dozens of companies a year. They can spot when someone is fumbling, unprepared, or trying to hide something. Authenticity and a clear understanding of their role will leave a much better impression.

Responding to these inquiries with confidence comes from being organized. When an auditor asks for proof of your last security awareness training, you should be able to instantly pull a report from your training platform showing who completed it and when. That level of readiness shows you have a mature security program, and it builds immense trust with your auditor—paving the way for a clean final report.

So You Got Your SOC 2 Report. Now What?

That SOC 2 report has finally landed on your desk. It’s a huge milestone, and you should absolutely celebrate it. But don’t mistake the finish line for the end of the race. Your SOC 2 report is just a snapshot in time—proof that your controls were working during the observation period.

The real work isn’t just about passing an audit. It’s about building a durable, year-round security culture that protects your customers and makes every future audit a non-event.

This isn’t just a philosophy; it’s a market expectation. SOC 2 is no longer seen as a one-time project but as a continuous business function. In fact, a staggering 92% of organizations now go through two or more compliance audits every year, and 58% are juggling four or more. The days of cramming for the final exam are over. For more on this shift, check out this beginner’s guide to the SOC 2 landscape.

First Things First: Decode Your Audit Report

Your first job is to sit down and actually read the final report. Pay close attention to the auditor’s opinion. What you’re hoping for is an unqualified opinion. This is the gold standard—it means your controls are designed and operating effectively, with no major red flags.

But what if the report lists exceptions or gives a qualified opinion? Don’t panic. These are just documented cases where a control didn’t work exactly as planned. Maybe a former employee’s access wasn’t revoked within the 24-hour window your policy requires. This isn’t a failure; it’s incredibly valuable, actionable feedback.

Think of your auditor’s exceptions as a gift. They hand you a clear, third-party validated roadmap showing exactly where to focus your security efforts. Tackle them transparently and methodically.

Building a Culture of “Always-On” Compliance

The only way to get off the audit hamster wheel is to embed compliance into your day-to-day operations. This means you stop “cramming for the test” a month before the auditors show up and instead build systems that ensure your controls are always working.

This breaks down into a few key activities:

• Automate Your Evidence Collection: Use tools that continuously grab evidence from your cloud provider, code repos, and HR systems. This is how you kill the last-minute scramble for screenshots and log files.
• Run Your Own Mini-Audits: Don’t wait for your auditor to find problems. Set up your own quarterly reviews for things like user access, security configurations, and vendor security. Catch issues before they become findings.
• Make Security Everyone’s Job: Your controls are only as strong as the people operating them. Regular, engaging training on phishing, data handling, and incident response keeps your team sharp and your defenses strong.

Your Post-Audit Checklist for Continuous Compliance

Once the dust settles, use this simple checklist to build a rhythm of continuous compliance. These steps will not only keep you secure but will also make your next audit feel less like a major disruption and more like a routine check-up.

• Fix Every Single Finding: The first thing your auditor will look at next year is how you addressed this year’s findings. Create a detailed plan to fix every exception, assign owners, set deadlines, and document the remediation.
• Get Next Year on the Calendar Now: While it’s fresh in your mind, schedule your big annual tasks for next year. This includes your formal risk assessment, penetration test, and policy reviews. Don’t let them sneak up on you.
• Keep Your Vendors in Check: Your security is only as strong as your weakest vendor. Set up a process to review the security of new vendors before you sign a contract and to re-evaluate your critical vendors every year.
• Share the Good News: You worked hard for this. Share your successful SOC 2 report with customers, prospects, and your own team. It’s a powerful tool for building trust and a great way to celebrate a huge team effort.

When you embrace this ongoing approach, SOC 2 stops being a periodic burden and becomes what it was always meant to be: a strategic asset that actually improves your security and helps you win more business.

Common SOC 2 Questions Answered

Getting into SOC 2 can feel like learning a new language. The terms are confusing, the stakes are high, and everyone seems to have a slightly different take. Let’s cut through the noise and tackle the questions that come up most often, especially for companies going through this for the first time.

Is SOC 2 a Certification or an Attestation?

This one trips up a lot of people, mostly because everyone—even auditors sometimes—casually says “SOC 2 certified.” But technically, that’s not quite right. SOC 2 is an attestation report, not a certification.

What’s the difference? A certification is usually a pass/fail situation against a rigid checklist. An attestation, on the other hand, is a formal opinion from a licensed CPA firm. They’re not giving you a gold star; they’re “attesting” that your description of your security systems and controls is fair and accurate. In short, an independent expert is validating your security claims.

While “SOC 2 certified” is the common shorthand, just know that what you actually walk away with is a detailed report with an auditor’s professional opinion.

Do I Need to Cover All Five Trust Services Criteria?

Absolutely not. In fact, trying to boil the ocean by tackling all five is one of the biggest (and most expensive) mistakes you can make.

The only mandatory criterion is Security, also known as the Common Criteria. This is the foundation of every single SOC 2 audit. Everything else is optional. You should only add the other criteria—Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy—if they directly map to promises you make to your customers.

A good rule of thumb:

• Availability: Add this only if your contracts have specific uptime SLAs (e.g., 99.9% uptime).
• Confidentiality: Include this if you handle highly sensitive, non-public data like trade secrets or M&A information.
• Processing Integrity: This is for you if your system does critical financial calculations or transaction processing where accuracy is paramount.
• Privacy: This one’s for when you manage your customers’ Personally Identifiable Information (PII).

Don’t over-scope your audit “just in case.” Each criterion you add brings more controls, more evidence, and a higher price tag. Be strategic and stick to what’s truly relevant to your service commitments.

What Happens If the Auditor Finds an Issue?

First off, don’t panic. Finding an “exception” or a control failure is incredibly common, especially on a first audit. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed. An exception is just a documented case where a control didn’t work the way it was supposed to during the audit period.

A real-world example: Your policy says all terminated employee access is revoked within 24 hours, but the auditor finds one instance where it took 48 hours. That’s an exception.

The impact depends on how severe and frequent these issues are. A couple of minor exceptions will be noted in the report but probably won’t change the outcome. However, a pattern of significant failures could lead to a qualified opinion, which is a red flag for customers that suggests material weaknesses. The key is to respond to any findings quickly, document your fix, and show the auditor you have a solid plan to prevent it from happening again.

How Often Do I Need to Get a SOC 2 Report?

A SOC 2 report isn’t a one-and-done trophy you hang on the wall. It has a shelf life. Your customers and prospects will want to see a recent report, which means getting audited is a recurring event.

The industry standard is an annual renewal for a SOC 2 Type 2 report. This means every year you’ll have a new observation period (usually the last 12 months) followed by a new audit. This continuous cycle proves that you’re not just secure on one given day, but that you’re committed to maintaining those security controls over the long haul. It’s why continuous compliance monitoring has become so critical.

Why is SOC 2 So Important for Business Growth?

Let’s be clear: SOC 2 is much more than a security checklist. It’s a powerful commercial tool, especially for any B2B company. Think of it as the universal language of trust. It lets you skip the back-and-forth on security questionnaires and prove to skeptical enterprise buyers that you take their data seriously.

The market demand is undeniable. According to A-LIGN, a major cybersecurity and compliance firm, SOC 2 consistently ranks as one of the top three most requested frameworks across tech, healthcare, and finance. You can read more about the widespread demand for SOC 2 on scrut.io. Its prevalence makes it a non-negotiable benchmark for any serious vendor.

At the end of the day, a SOC 2 report helps you:

• Speed up sales cycles by answering security questions before they’re even asked.
• Unlock enterprise deals that are otherwise gated by strict vendor security policies.
• Stand out from competitors who haven’t made the investment in security.
• Build lasting customer trust by showing, not just telling, them that their data is safe.

It’s an investment that pays for itself by opening doors to bigger deals and more mature customers.

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Finding the right auditor is the most critical step in your SOC 2 journey. SOC2Auditors makes it simple by providing verified data on 90+ firms, so you can compare real costs, timelines, and client satisfaction scores. Stop the endless sales calls and get three data-driven auditor matches tailored to your business in just 24 hours at https://soc2auditors.org.