By Paul Lindsay, Founder of CertCrowd
In nearly every corner of B2B software, the trend is clear: high-quality tools are becoming more accessible. CRM? You've got HubSpot. Ticketing? Try Jira. Accounting? Xero made it mainstream. Messaging? Hello Slack. Video Conferencing? The conqueror of Covid Zoom. Even AI and automation platforms offer free tiers to get started (no wonder they limit the number of images you can generate right?) But one category remains stuck in a different era and that's GRC software.
Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) platforms remain stubbornly enterprise focused. Expensive. Opaque. Often bundled with consultant-led implementations; and as such, out of reach for the very businesses that need them the most - small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
It comes down to four key reasons:
1. A Niche, High-Margin Business Model GRC has been historically sold to risk officers, compliance teams, or auditors in large companies. With fewer total buyers, vendors have built business models around low-volume, high-margin enterprise sales - not scale.
2. Complex Implementation Needs Even modern GRC software often mimics legacy architecture: highly configurable, but still requiring consultants and workshops to get up and running. That complexity just doesn't lend itself to a low-cost, self-serve onboarding model.
3. Trust is Tied to Price When you're dealing with ISO 27001, SOC 2, or ERM, many buyers equate high price with high quality. That psychology has kept vendors in the "consulting-plus-software" mindset.
4. No Bottom-Up Adoption Pressure CRMs and project management tools won the market by targeting users directly - founders, marketers, and operations teams. GRC tools have focused on risk and compliance managers and auditors.
The world has moved on, SMEs are now expected to comply with complex frameworks - not primarily for internal governance or regulatory compliance, but to win tenders, grow, access markets and customers. They need to comply with ISO standards like ISO9001 Quality, ISO45001 Safety, ISO14001 Environment and Cyber Frameworks like ISO27001, NIST, Cyber Essentials Plus.
For many SMEs or SMBs, the price tag of $10-15K plus to implement a system makes it inaccessible.
That's why we built CertCrowd - the first freemium GRC SaaS platform. It's time GRC became simple, affordable and accessible. GRC for the rest of us.
Build real systems, align to real standards and grow with confidence - without the five-figure invoice.
Freemium GRC is coming. And it's long overdue.
Want early access to CertCrowd? Visit certcrowd.com
