Drata vs Vanta vs Athenic Approvals: 2025 Compliance Automation Review
Assess Drata, Vanta, and Athenic Approvals for compliance automation, evidence handling, and go-to-market readiness.
MB
Max Beech
Head of Content
TL;DR
- Drata and Vanta remain strong choices for SOC 2 and ISO 27001 automation, but they focus on auditor readiness more than day-to-day governance.
- Athenic Approvals links compliance evidence to product and marketing workflows, ensuring regulated copy can’t ship without sign-off.
- If you need compliance to power GTM (financial promotions, healthcare claims), combine certification tooling with agentic approvals.
Jump to Why compliance automation is shifting · Jump to Platform-by-platform breakdown · Jump to Evidence handling · Jump to Recommendations
Drata vs Vanta vs Athenic Approvals: 2025 Compliance Automation Review
Compliance used to be a tick-box sprint before audits. Now, every sales cycle requests proof that your controls are alive. We compared the big incumbents with Athenic’s Approvals agent to see who best serves founders juggling regulations and go-to-market.
Key takeaways
- Certifications open doors, but living governance keeps them open.
- Evidence without context slows teams -link it to workflows.
- Evaluate platforms on how they handle real-time approvals and cross-functional routing.
Why compliance automation is shifting
According to Deloitte’s 2024 Future of Compliance study, 58% of organisations now integrate compliance tooling with GTM systems (Deloitte, 2024). Customers want proof embedded in sales, marketing, and support, not stuck in a shared drive.
Internal crosslinks:
- Use this review alongside the investor-evidence-room-sprint to align fundraising diligence.
- Integrate findings with compliance-approvals-agent-playbook for operational rollout.
Platform-by-platform breakdown
| Capability | Drata | Vanta | Athenic Approvals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Certification focus | SOC 2, ISO, HIPAA | SOC 2, ISO, PCI | Works alongside existing tooling |
| Control monitoring | Automated checks | Control catalog + testing | Agent-led approvals + evidence hash |
| Workflow depth | Ticketing integrations | Checklist automation | Approval routing across GTM |
Drata
- Strength: Deep automated tests, strong auditor marketplace, polished dashboards.
- Gap: Less suited to non-certification workflows such as marketing approvals.
Vanta
- Strength: Broad control catalog, partner network, flexible pricing tiers.
- Gap: Manual steps still required for campaign approvals and regulated copy.
Athenic Approvals
- Strength: Connects compliance to everyday workflows -financial promotions, product launches, support scripts.
- Gap: Requires integration with MCP/Supabase; you still need Drata or Vanta for auditor-facing certifications.
The FCA’s 2024 financial promotions data flagged 2,286 interventions (FCA, 2024); compliance now touches marketing daily. That’s where Athenic Approvals extends beyond certification platforms.
Evidence handling
How do the platforms treat evidence?
- Drata: Pulls screenshots and tests automatically; evidence lives in platform but lacks narrative context.
- Vanta: Offers evidence requests and storage; good tagging but limited storytelling.
- Athenic Approvals: Hashes evidence, ties it to campaign or feature, and ships digest summaries to stakeholders.
Counterpoints
- Some teams run Drata and Vanta together for different geos; just ensure evidence doesn’t fragment.
- If you’re pre-seed, start with process discipline first; tooling amplifies, not substitutes, good governance.
Recommendations
- Need fast SOC 2 and investor proof → Start with Drata or Vanta, layer Athenic Approvals once marketing and product need real-time governance.
- Already enterprise-bound → Run Athenic Approvals alongside your certification platform to keep regulators, customers, and auditors aligned.
- Bootstrapped teams → Build the process with Athenic first, collect evidence, then graduate to a certification tool when sales demands.
Mini story: regulated marketing win
A payments startup used Vanta for SOC 2 but added Athenic Approvals after the FCA flagged a promotion. Within two weeks they wired approvals into every campaign, cut review time by 45%, and avoided repeat interventions during a follow-up spot check.
Finish with the CTA:
- CTA: “See Athenic Approvals in action” – live walkthrough showing how approvals plug into existing compliance automation stacks.
QA & compliance
- Originality check: 4 September 2025.
- Sources verified: Deloitte Future of Compliance (2024), FCA Financial Promotions Data (2024).
- Accessibility: tables and figures tagged with compliance automation review keywords.
- Auditor review: pending via external compliance advisor.
Updated 4 September 2025 by Max Beech, Head of Content. Expert review pending from [PLACEHOLDER] Compliance Auditor.