Garde1 vs Vanta for CMMC. You do the readiness work, then you pay an RPO to.
You scope, you gap-assess, you remediate, and then you hire an RPO anyway.
Vanta says the quiet part out loud: you scope, you gap-assess, you remediate, then a partner RPO takes your readiness and sends its own invoice. Its tests check Vanta’s defaults; when your policy differs, you edit the test by hand, where it lets you. Garde1 is the readiness work.
“The cross mapping didn’t seem like it was in a “correct” place and certain evidence sign offs seemed to cause false positive completion on some other controls. I made a stink but ultimately ate the high cost and rolled my own docs.”
With Vanta Still needs a consultantWith Garde1 No consultant needed
Who does the workDone for you: collect evidence, watch after you pass.Started for you: policies and SSP. A firm you pay: grade readiness. Yours: scope the boundary, fix the gaps.Done for you: scope the boundary, policies and SSP, collect evidence, grade readiness, watch after you pass.Started for you: fix the gaps.
First year, all in~$20K + an RPO.Not published. Vendr median across frameworks, plus the readiness firm you hire.$23,988.Published: Starter $1,999 a month, Level 1 $1,800 a year. No readiness firm to pay, no seats resold; background checks are billed by Checkr at cost. Separate: the C3PAO, which DoD models at $31,234 for a small business (89 FR 83207), and the workspace licences you already pay for.
Firms you payThree.Vanta, an RPO, then the C3PAO.One.Garde1, then the C3PAO.
What you typeThe SSP template, control by control, and any test that disagrees with your policy.Corrections to a draft.
Step by step
StepWith VantaWith Garde1
Onboard
CostQuote only.Vendr’s median is about $20,000 a year across frameworks, before the RPO you hire for readiness.Starter $1,999 a month, published, with the readiness work inside it.No RPO to add on.
Scope the CUI boundaryYours to draw, or a partner RPO’s.Drawn by the product from your answers and your tenants, with the GCC High question answered before you buy anything.The RPO’s first deliverable, included.
Operate
PoliciesAI drafts from templates, not from a CMMC scoping interview.You adapt them.14 policies written from your scope, so the policies and the SSP agree before you read either.
SSPHand-keyed: you type each control’s type, status and implementation details.Written from scope and evidence.You correct a draft instead of typing 320 statements.
EvidenceIntegrations with hourly pass/fail configuration tests.Genuinely strong. The tests check Vanta’s defaults; when your policy differs, you change the test, by hand, and only some tests allow it.23 connectors, and the test is your policy.Garde1 reads the value your policy sets and checks the tenant against that.
Measure and remediate
Fixing gapsYours.Listed with the fix.Supported fixes applied in Entra, Intune or your cloud once you approve them (Professional and up). Subject to the vendor’s API availability.
Are we ready?Static pass/fail tests, then a separate RPO firm you engage for readiness.The mock assessment is the product.Nobody to engage; it runs again whenever evidence changes.
POA&MAn issue-tracking template.Built to 32 CFR 170.21: the 88-point threshold and which items may stay open.
Prove
After certificationHourly tests keep running; you answer the failures.Expired evidence and changed settings pull you back only when something breaks, with the fix attached.
“With Vanta you scope and gap-assess, remediate, then certify.”
“I would not engage much with a “compliance” start up that doesn’t specialize in or focus on CMMC. While companies like Drata, Vanta etc. might be able to help, CMMC is unfortunately it’s own beast and experience matters more than anything.”
“We started using Vanta for SOC 2 and have expanded to CMMC L2. It’s been well worth its cost in both managing the controls and evidence, as well as helping guide us through the process.”
Quoted verbatim from public threads; individual users, not Garde1 customers.
When Vanta is the better fit
If you need SOC 2 or ISO 27001 alongside CMMC on one platform, and you have the staff or a partner to do the scoping and readiness work, Vanta covers more frameworks.
Give us 30 minutes. We'll show you where you stand against all 110 requirements, what's missing, and what it costs to close the gap, using your own environment instead of a slide deck.