What happened to Laika
Laika was an early entrant in GRC automation for SOC 2, founded in New York in 2019 and operating alongside Vanta, Drata, and Secureframe. The platform supported automated evidence collection, control library mapping, policy templates, and compliance dashboards in roughly the same shape as the rest of the category, with one structural difference: the company operated its own licensed CPA entity (Laika Compliance, LLC) so audits could be delivered in-house rather than through partnered audit firms. In March 2023, Laika announced a rebrand to Thoropass. The company stated at the time that it was the same product and service under a new name and visual identity; the legal entity remains Laika Compliance, LLC, now doing business as Thoropass Assurance for the audit arm. The Laika brand was retired and existing customers were transitioned to Thoropass branding. The rebrand announcement and the contemporary positioning are on the Thoropass site at thoropass.com.
What changed in the pricing model
Less than the rebrand headlines might suggest. The bundled audit-plus-platform model that defines Thoropass today was already the company's structural differentiator in the Laika era: the platform subscription and the audit delivered by the company's own licensed CPA arm in one contract. Buyer-reported Laika-era pricing landed in the $15,000 to $40,000 range per year for mid-market SaaS; contemporary Thoropass bundled pricing typically lands in the $20,000 to $60,000 range per year all-in, with the audit fee included. The drift upward reflects normal category-wide price movement and scope growth rather than a model change at the rebrand.
The buyer-side implication of the bundled model is auditor lock-in: unlike with Vanta, Drata, or Secureframe (platform-only vendors where the audit firm is a separate contract you can switch), the Thoropass audit team is part of the same vendor, and switching auditors requires leaving Thoropass entirely. This is the largest operational risk with the contemporary Thoropass model and is described in detail on the Thoropass cost page.
For existing Laika customers
Existing Laika customers transitioned to Thoropass continue to receive support and pricing continuity through the existing contract term. The platform technology underlying Thoropass is the same Laika platform under the new brand, and the user interface and workflow are continuous. The audit relationship also carries over: the in-house CPA arm that delivered Laika audits now operates as Thoropass Assurance.
The decision point for existing Laika customers is the renewal cycle. At renewal, Thoropass typically presents a multi-year quote that locks in the bundled-audit model at the contemporary pricing. Compare that quote against the alternatives: Vanta plus a separately contracted CPA firm, Drata plus a separately contracted CPA firm, or Sprinto plus a boutique CPA firm. For buyers who value vendor simplification and the workflow integration of the bundled-audit model, staying with Thoropass usually makes sense. For buyers who value auditor flexibility (e.g. wanting to move to a Big 4 firm at Series C as part of IPO preparation), migrating to a platform-only alternative is usually the right call.
For new buyers searching for Laika
New buyers searching for Laika should evaluate Thoropass as the contemporary product. The Laika brand is fully retired and there is no separately purchasable Laika product. The relevant pricing reference is the Thoropass cost page on this site, which walks through pricing by company size, the bundled-audit model, and the auditor lock-in trade-off in detail. The realistic alternatives to Thoropass for SOC 2 are Vanta, Drata, Secureframe for healthcare SaaS, Sprinto for budget-constrained sub-100-employee teams, Scrut Automation for multi-framework mid-market workloads, Scytale for AI-assist marketing positioning, and Strike Graph for the discrete tier model with bundled-audit middle tier.
A correction on Pivot Point Security
Some third-party coverage (and an earlier version of this page) described Thoropass as the product of a 2023 merger between Laika and Pivot Point Security. That is wrong. Pivot Point Security is a separate information security consulting firm that was acquired by CBIZ in June 2023; it has never been part of Laika or Thoropass. Thoropass came about through a straightforward rebrand of Laika announced in March 2023.
The audit credibility question is answered by the company's own structure instead: Thoropass SOC 2 audits are delivered by Thoropass Assurance, a licensed certified public accounting firm registered with the AICPA (legal entity Laika Compliance, LLC dba Thoropass Assurance), which the company states conducts 500+ audits annually with in-house auditors. The audit deliverable is the standard AICPA SOC 2 report and is recognised by enterprise procurement teams equivalently to reports from Schellman, A-LIGN, Coalfire, or other established firms. Whether the bundled-audit model fits a particular buyer's situation is a separate question covered on the Thoropass cost page.
Concrete next steps for Laika-related searches
If you are an existing Laika customer evaluating renewal, read the Thoropass cost page for the contemporary pricing structure and the auditor lock-in trade-off. Compare that quote against the platform-only alternatives at your scale. If you are a new buyer who landed on Laika through search, start with the Thoropass cost page and the broader platforms comparison page, and use the audit firms guide to understand the separate-vendor alternatives for the audit side of the programme. The historical Laika brand association does not affect the contemporary buying decision; the decision is between Thoropass (bundled audit) and the platform-only alternatives (Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, Sprinto, Scrut, Scytale, Strike Graph) plus a separately contracted CPA firm.