Security reviews – reviewing security requests from potential prospects and customers - have become a full time job for many infosec and presales teams. Today, instead of completing all of the tasks related to security reviews manually like sending over NDAs so you can share a SOC 2 or completing a security questionnaire, teams now have many different software types to choose from when it comes to sharing information about their security posture in an automated way.
There’s your all-in-one compliance software, RFP software (that we know you are trying to use for security questionnaires), your newer security review software vendors who typically have a trust center and some automation for answering security questionnaires, and other compliance solutions that also offer security questionnaire answering as part of its offering.
In this article, we’ll talk about the different types of software on the market, break down features, pricing, integrations and more to help you make the best decision for your team.
Vanta, Drata, and Conveyor: what kind of software tools are they?
Here’s a quick overview of what problems each type of software helps with.
Conveyor is security review automation software
Conveyor is security review software which is designed to automate the process of sharing your company's security posture and documentation with customers during the sales process.
There is typically a trust center component where companies can showcase their security, privacy and compliance certifications, FAQs, and more. This also allows customers quick access to download the documents they need for their review like a SOC 2, penetration test, and more. Since part of the security review is answering customer security questionnaires, there is also a part of the platform that generates AI answers to security questionnaire questions using the latest AI.
Security review software is usually managed by information security teams or presales teams to speed up the security review process during the sales cycle.
Vanta and Drata are all-in-one compliance automation software solutions
Vanta and Drata are in the category of compliance software. They're designed to simplify the compliance process for companies of all sizes like automating the work needed to get a SOC 2 certification or monitor their controls. Both platforms help businesses oversee their security programs, assess risks, and comply with regulations like SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR.
Both solutions provide businesses with better visibility into their compliance, automate evidence collection, and simplify the audit process, helping them build trust with customers and stakeholders.
These vendors have also expanded into areas of compliance like vendor risk management and the security review process. Both Vanta and Drata offer a trust center and security questionnaire answering but these have been newer additions to the core part of their product offering in the last year or two. Drata’s security questionnaire response offering is currently available only in beta.
Compliance software is usually managed by governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) teams and information security teams looking to automate their processes around achieving and maintaining compliance certifications.
Looking for a tool to help your team spend less time on the mindless task of answering the same questionnaire questions over and over again? Get started with a free 1-week proof of concept to speed questionnaire completion by over 90%.
Conveyor vs. Vanta vs. Drata Features
Let’s take an in-depth look at what features each of these platforms offer:
Conveyor Features
Information security teams and presales teams typically choose Conveyor if they’re looking for this set of features:
- AI can read from every source for 95%+ answer accuracy which means low maintenance of Q&A pairs
- Teams can auto-import any questionnaire file format for instant processing
- A browser extension that can auto-complete portals
- Collaboration features so they can easily tag in team members for help
- Integrations with Slack and Salesforce to automate questionnaire submission, follow-ups, and more
Now, let’s dive into what these features actually do.
AI can read from any source to generate 95%+ accurate answers
Conveyor’s AI can generate accurate answers to security questionnaires because it can read from any source you link it to, not just the question and answer knowledge bank. Yes, that means everything from gated company wiki sites like Confluence to sales slides or your support website, security documents, and so much more. All of this gives Conveyor more than enough information to provide you the right answers the first time—no rewrites required.
Sources are cited so you can feel confident in the answers generated.
Because AI can read from multiple sources, this means you have less question and answer pairs to maintain in a knowledge base. Conveyor customers typically only need 200-400 question and answer pairs in their knowledge base. Why? Because of all the sources ConveyorAI can use to answer questions are already maintained by other teams, meaning fewer Q&A pairs to include in the knowledge base for AI which means less time spent on Q&A maintenance.
Teams can auto-import any questionnaire file format for instant processing
In Conveyor, when you’re uploading your customer security questionnaire, you don’t need to manipulate the file before importing. Conveyor can handle word documents, complicated excels (we mean the ones with all the tabs, images, drop downs etc.) and even PDFs. Many other solutions on the market don’t allow you to upload more than excel files and/or will require you to manipulate it into a format compatible with their software before you’re able to upload.
Conveyor allows you to drag and drop security questionnaire files easily into the software for instant processing without manipulating them.
A browser extension can auto-complete portal-based questionnaires
Portal-based security questionnaires in OneTrust, ProcessUnity, ServiceNow, and other portals are on the rise. They typically account for at least 28% of all security questionnaires received by vendors today. To solve this, Conveyor has an auto-fill feature for portals in its Chrome browser extension. Any team member completing a security questionnaire can pop it open and Conveyor can automate answering questions in the portal questionnaire in two ways:
- For any portal, you can click ‘Import Questions’, and Conveyor’s browser extension will pull in every question from the portal-based questionnaire automatically and generate AI answers for them.
- For a subset of portals, Conveyor will generate the AI answers, but then will go a step beyond. It will auto-scroll and auto-fill in reviewed answers into the portal, all without you touching the keyboard.
Teams can also easily use the browser extension to answer one-off questions for customers.
The only software with an SME Hub so your subject matter experts can see everything they need to review in one place
A challenge many teams face is ensuring that facts are up to date and getting timely help from subject matter experts on security questionnaire questions they are unable to answer. Conveyor has a ‘collaboration hub’ designed specifically for subject matter experts. It makes it easy for them to come to one place, answer all the questions someone has tagged them in so teams can get quick responses with limited distraction for the SME.
The collaboration hub is easily accessible from Slack and by clicking a button, that person will be dropped into a screen with only the questions they are needed for.
Slack and Salesforce integrations
Infosec and presales teams already have processes built out in other tools so Conveyor offers several integrations to ensure a smooth and automated workflow for team members across different departments.
For example, sales teams can upload questionnaires directly from Salesforce. They can also track customer activity and see questionnaire status. The same teams can use Slack to ask any question and get an instant AI generated answer (that can be approved by a designated person before its released).
In terms of collaboration on a security questionnaire, team members can access the collaboration hub directly from Slack.
With the Salesforce integration, infosec and presales teams can get even more insights and analytics about questionnaire insights, time to completion, business impact, and AI accuracy directly in the Conveyor dashboard.
Vanta Features
Vanta is an all-in-one compliance platform that helps companies achieve compliance with different frameworks in an automated way and maintain that compliance. They also offer a simple solution for answering security questionnaires which might be sufficient for teams that don’t see enough questionnaire volume each month. Their questionnaire automation is just one small part of their GRC platform.
Here are some ways it differs from Conveyor:
- Vanta’s AI will auto-generate answers to questionnaires but this feature is limited to Excel files under 2MB without dropdowns.
- Vanta uses a question and answer bank to generate AI answers, and doesn’t read from docs, past answers, or public/private sources.
- Vanta has a browser extension but no auto-complete or auto-import capabilities.
- For collaboration, Vanta’s security questionnaire automation works well for the person working on the questionnaire itself, but there isn’t an ability to tag other users and SMEs for help
- There is limited information about their Slack and Salesforce integrations.
Drata Features
Like Vanta, Drata also offers an all in-one compliance management solution. They primarily help teams prepare for audits but they do have security questionnaire capabilities. Their security questionnaire feature set is in beta.
There is not much information about Drata’s security questionnaire automation features as it is tagged as 'new' to the platform. It appears that they can generate answers using AI, but we would recommend trying out a proof of concept if you’re considering Drata. Typically, newer tools don’t offer the level of detailed features like dealing with formats, accessing easy to maintain external sources, and collaboration to completely automate the security questionnaire process for teams which results in more manual work.
Conveyor vs. Vanta vs. Drata Pricing
We know that having the right features is one thing but having the budget for a tool is a different story altogether. There isn't clear pricing listed on Vanta and Drata's websites but we did add in detail of what we found below.
Conveyor’s Pricing
Conveyor has two plans - a Free plan and a Professional Plan. Conveyor’s security questionnaire automation is only available on the Professional Plan starting at $4,800.
Pricing is based on the number of questionnaires processed through Conveyor. In the Professional Plan, you get access to everything Conveyor’s platform has to offer around questionnaire automation like the browser extension for auto-fill, all our integrations from Slack to Salesforce, and our best in class support. The base version of this plan offers 10 questionnaire credits and one credit equals 100 questions.
Helpful hint: every company you do a questionnaire for can also access your trust center hosted on Conveyor, and there are volume discounts.
Vanta’s Pricing
Vanta offers three different tiers of plans: Core, Collaborate, and Scale.
The security questionnaire automation part of the platform is only available on the mid-tier and highest tier plans. The Collaborate plan includes 12 questionnaires per month and the Scale plan includes 24 questionnaires per month. They do not publicly list their prices for any of these plans.
Drata’s Pricing
Drata does not publicly share their pricing but seem to offer a similar three-tiered approach for solutions based on business size. This ranges from “Startups”, “Growth”, and “Enterprise.”
Though they don’t list their actual pricing per package, the security questionnaires module is available in all plans.
Conclusion: Conveyor vs. Vanta vs. Drata for security questionnaire automation
At the end of the day, choosing the right software for security questionnaire automation really depends on your use case. Some teams that might not see enough questionnaire volume to purchase a separate tool might find it easier to stick to the options that Vanta or Drata have provided. For those teams with more volume, more formats, and more complex workflows, we recommend testing any of these solutions in a proof of concept before you purchase.
Look for at least these basic feature requirements:
- Instant and accurate AI answers
- Ease of import/export
- A browser extension for portals
- Low maintenance knowledge sources for the AI
There are many security questionnaire software options available on the market. Figuring out your workflow requirements and testing the tool with a variety of questionnaire formats will help you determine which is the best fit for your company.
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