Fractional CISO services for startups
Five productized engagements that take you from "we need SOC 2" to audit-ready and beyond. One senior practitioner owns the outcome, on a fixed scope or a monthly retainer.
Founder-led engagements. Fixed scopes, fixed prices. You work with the practitioner, not a bench. All prices in USD.
Book a scoping call
A 30-minute call to understand what triggered the need and what a good outcome looks like. You leave with a clear path, not a sales pitch.
Get the plan
A fixed-scope, fixed-price assessment turns your gaps into a prioritized roadmap with owners and effort estimates, executable with us or without us.
Get a security leader
The monthly retainer puts a senior practitioner in your corner: they run your compliance program, face your auditors, and answer your customers.
Security Questionnaire Rescue
Fast turnaround, fixed scope
A customer sent a security questionnaire and your deal is stalled.
- Every questionnaire item answered accurately
- Real gaps flagged plainly, not papered over
- A short punch list of fixes worth making before the next one
Audit-Readiness Gap Assessment
2 to 3 weeks, fixed scope
Teams facing their first SOC 2 or ISO 27001 readiness engagement.
- Control-by-control gap analysis against your target framework
- Prioritized remediation roadmap with an owner and effort estimate per item
- An evidence baseline collected from your actual stack
- Executive readout for your board or lead investor
SOC 2 Readiness Sprint
3 to 4 weeks, fixed scope
Companies committed to SOC 2 who want it run end to end.
- Scoping across the trust criteria that apply to you
- Control implementation mapped to your stack
- Evidence process that proves controls held for the audit window
- Auditor selection and audit liaison
Fractional CISO Retainer
Monthly retainer
Startups that need a security leader, not a full-time hire.
- A named senior practitioner as your acting security lead
- Your compliance program run inside the tools you already use
- Auditor selection and audit liaison, end to end
- Customer security questionnaires answered for you
- Board and investor-facing security reporting
Cloud Security Review
1 to 2 weeks, standalone or add-on
Teams who want configuration truth before an auditor or customer finds it.
- Access, networking, logging, and exposure reviewed by hand
- Prioritized findings with fixes, not just findings
- A short readout you can hand to your team or board
Why one accountable practitioner beats a tool or a bench.
| DIY plus a tool | Traditional consultancy | Xorabyte | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | Your engineers, nights and weekends | Their bench, at their pace | One senior practitioner, hands on |
| Cost shape | A tool subscription, plus your team quarter | Several hundred dollars an hour, meter always running | Flat, fixed scopes and monthly retainers |
| Who owns the outcome | On you | Shared at best | One accountable owner |
| New software to learn | You learn and run the tool | Varies | None, we work in your tools |
Questions founders actually ask.
Do we have to buy new software?
No. We work inside the tools you already use, including a compliance platform such as Vanta or Drata if you have one. The deliverable is the outcome: an audit-ready program, not software.
Which frameworks do you cover?
SOC 2 and ISO 27001 are the core. HIPAA and PCI DSS engagements are scoped case by case, and GDPR or Law 25 readiness can be added to a retainer.
How fast can we be audit-ready?
It depends on your gaps, typically 8 to 16 weeks from gap assessment to audit window. The assessment gives you a dated plan. We do not promise pass guarantees; auditors decide audits.
Who will we actually work with?
The practitioner who scopes your engagement is the one who runs it. Founder-led means exactly that: no handoff to a junior bench after the contract is signed.
Start with a call.
Tell us what triggered the need. You leave the first call with a clear path to audit-ready, not a quote you cannot read.