You Shouldn't Have to Choose Between Speed, Cost, and Quality in Your SOC 2 Audit

I recently spoke with a prospective customer who ultimately chose not to work with Thoropass because another auditor offered a significantly lower price. Our team explained what was different about our approach: experienced auditors, thorough evidence review, and technology that helps us deliver a more robust report. Their response was refreshingly honest: "We just need a SOC 2 report so we can check the box."

I suspect many founders feel the same way, and frankly, there's nothing wrong with that. SOC 2 is often driven by customer demand rather than intrinsic motivation. A large prospect asks for it during procurement, an enterprise customer makes it a contractual requirement, or an investor expects to see it before a financing event. If your immediate goal is to unblock revenue, optimizing for speed and cost is a perfectly rational decision.

The good news is that founders shouldn't have to make the tradeoff they did five years ago. Historically, audit quality, speed, and cost were tightly linked because audits relied heavily on manual work. A more rigorous audit meant more hours spent collecting evidence, reviewing documentation, interviewing control owners, and testing controls. Today, AI fundamentally changes that equation. By automating much of the repetitive work involved in evidence collection, organization, and initial review, auditors can spend WAY less time on administrative tasks and more time applying professional judgment where it actually matters. The result should be an audit that’s faster, less expensive, and more rigorous – not one that sacrifices quality in the pursuit of efficiency.

This is an important consideration, because the intrinsic value of a SOC 2 audit has never been the report itself – it’s simply the output of an independent assessment. What customers, investors, and management teams are really buying is confidence that someone with expertise has challenged assumptions, evaluated whether controls actually operate as intended, and identified weaknesses before they become business problems. AI can dramatically improve how efficiently that work gets done, but it shouldn't replace the professional skepticism and judgment that make an audit valuable in the first place.

Learn more: Everyone Is Talking About AI in Audit. I Think We're Asking the Wrong Question.

A rigorous audit also creates value that extends well beyond satisfying procurement. Strong auditors frequently uncover issues that management didn't realize existed: inconsistent access reviews, incomplete offboarding processes, vendor management gaps, or controls that exist in policy but aren't consistently followed in practice. Finding these issues shouldn't be viewed as a failure. In fact, it's often the most valuable outcome of the engagement because it gives the company an opportunity to improve before those weaknesses are discovered by a customer, regulator, or, worse, an attacker.

The credibility of the audit firm matters for the same reason. While many procurement teams initially verify that a SOC 2 report exists, more sophisticated buyers often go much deeper. They review the scope of the engagement, the testing period, the auditor's opinion, exceptions, complementary user entity controls, and the reputation of the audit firm itself. A report produced through a rigorous process provides confidence during those conversations. One built primarily to satisfy a compliance checklist may still get you through the first gate, but it can create additional questions when larger customers begin conducting deeper diligence.

This is where I believe AI has the opportunity to improve the industry rather than simply reduce costs. If automation only makes audits cheaper by reducing the amount of work performed, we've missed the point. The real opportunity is to eliminate repetitive manual effort so experienced auditors can spend more time investigating exceptions, understanding customer environments, and exercising judgment. In other words, AI should improve audit quality while simultaneously improving efficiency.

Learn more: How We’re Combining the Best of People and Processes to Build an AI-Native Auditor

At Thoropass, that's exactly how we've approached building an AI-native audit firm. We use AI throughout the engagement to automate evidence collection, perform first-pass evidence reviews, and assist our auditors with repetitive work, allowing them to focus on the parts of the audit where experience and professional judgment matter most. Our goal isn't to help companies obtain a SOC 2 report faster at the expense of quality. It's to remove the historical tradeoff altogether so founders no longer have to choose between speed, cost, and a credible audit.

Every founder wants to move quickly, especially when a customer is waiting on a SOC 2 report. They shouldn't have to compromise on quality to do it. The promise of AI isn't that audits become easier; it's that the best audits become faster, more affordable, and ultimately more valuable for everyone involved.

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