Essential compliance software buying information
Compliance software helps businesses monitor internal controls to ensure standards and regulations applicable to their industry are met. Whether it’s keeping financial records in order for audits or tracking environmental compliance—such as reporting on emissions and hazardous materials (hazmat) use—compliance solutions simplify the processes.
Compliance officers and other professionals in industries that face regulatory scrutiny use compliance software. It serves a broad spectrum of functions, including administrative, finance, and legal teams, and helps businesses of all sizes—even those without a specific legal and compliance department.
Most compliance solutions are priced on a monthly subscription basis and their entry-level pricing plans typically start at $20 per month. Premium and advanced subscriptions commonly cost about $400 per month or more. 1
First-time compliance software buyers should consider their budget, number of employees, application requirements, use case, and any necessary integrations when making a purchase decision. Working with stakeholders to answer critical questions can help you land on the best system for your needs:
How does your system plan, schedule, and conduct compliance audits?
How easy is it to map existing processes, such as the creation of customized assessment questionnaires, to uncover blind spots and pinpoint areas for improvement?
Does this portal have a dashboard for reporting real-time status and violation?
Can it help managers develop customized learning and training materials for different segments of the organization?
Does this system help in message dissemination in crisis response?
Can your software simplify compliance workflows, such as contract renewals, across business units?
Does this system offer data extraction or recovery capabilities after a disaster?
Does your platform incorporate artificial intelligence (AI)? If so, could you show its functionalities?
What are the most reviewed compliance software systems?
Capterra Shortlist identifies the top compliance software systems based on a proprietary blend of user ratings and popularity, helping small businesses efficiently find the most effective compliance software solution for their needs. 2 Here are the five most reviewed products in our Capterra Shortlist for this category:
These rankings are determined by combining verified user ratings and publicly available web search popularity data:
Ratings score: Relative score of the software based on ratings given by users on Capterra, normalized for the number and recency of reviews.
Popularity score: Relative popularity of software based on web search trends and products’ web presence.
What is compliance software?
Compliance software, also known as compliance management software, helps businesses adhere to the legal and regulatory requirements of their industry. It assists in monitoring processes essential for compliance and centralizes documentation for regular audits.
Companies rely on compliance software to uphold the rules, standards, and internal policies governing their operations. For example, those focused on environmental compliance can use it to track and report emissions and hazmat use procedures.
Gartner predicts a significant increase in investment by business leaders in risk and compliance technology, expecting a 50% rise by 2026. 3
On Capterra, you’ll find 1,687 compliance software products, and 5,956 verified user reviews published in the past year alone. 4
Compliance software pricing
Most compliance solutions on the market are priced on a per-month basis, and their entry-level pricing plans range from $20 per month. Premium and advanced system subscriptions commonly cost about $400 per month or more.
Entry-level compliance software includes core functions like compliance tracking, document storage, policy management, and version control.
A more advanced compliance solution that costs more typically includes additional features like corrective and preventive actions (CAPA), training management, workflow automation, and incident management.
First time buyers should be aware that:
Implementation, integration, and customization are common upfront costs
Maintenance and support are common recurring costs
Free trials are available, as are free compliance software systems. Though buyers should be aware that free systems can come with limitations, like a smaller amount of data storage or the inability to customize the system to their specific needs.
Compliance software features rated by users
All compliance software includes compliance tracking and audit management features, and most share a variety of common features, such as document management, access controls, and incident management.
Core compliance software features
Compliance tracking: Report regulatory data to internal management or external stakeholders, receive real-time legal updates, and set escalation alerts to inform supervisors of issues. 90% of reviewers rate this as a critical or highly important feature.
Audit management: Plan, schedule, and conduct compliance audits while documenting findings and tracking corrective actions. 76% of reviewers say this feature is critical or highly important.
Common compliance software features
Document management: Collect, upload, store, track, and share all documents in a centralized location for quick access. 82% of users rate this feature as critical or highly important.
Access control or permissions: Define levels of authorization for access to specific files or systems. 82% of reviewers say this feature is critical or highly important.
Version control: Track updates and revisions made to a document and facilitate navigation between different versions, allowing restoration to a previous version. 76% of reviewers rate this feature as critical or highly important.
Incident management: Identify, resolve, and restore unplanned service failures, disruptions, or injuries. 74% of reviewers rate this feature as critical or highly important.
Corrective and preventive actions (CAPA): Investigate root causes or errors in products or processes and take action. 73% of reviewers rate this feature as critical or highly important.
Risk management: Identify, evaluate, and report material losses, financial losses, and legal penalties for noncompliance with specific laws and regulations.
Archiving and retention: Move and separately store data that is not actively used or continuous storage of certain data for compliance purposes.
Top compliance software benefits identified by users
Increased accuracy and quality in compliance: Users say compliance systems reduce errors and enhance the overall timeliness and quality of audits to ensure all regulations are consistently met, preventing costly mistakes and penalties.
“The system has helped us maintain our quality standards to meet increasing external compliance demands with MDR and FDA compliance.”
–Clarke M., senior quality manager, medical devices
Higher level of compliance awareness: Compliance software makes it simple to assign training courses to employees and track progress, maintaining a high level of compliance awareness across the organization.
“I like that the library has things other than training videos, like newsletters and comics, so we can provide training materials in various ways.”
–Jennifer S., compliance analyst, insurance
Encourage accountability in processes: With features designed to facilitate collaboration, compliance software helps teams work together and keeps track of who needs to do what. It makes sure that everyone is accountable for their part in the compliance process.
“One of the most remarkable aspects of this product is its ability to hold team members and management alike accountable for their actions and responsibilities.”
–Zachary B., sanitation supervisor, food production
Make reviews more efficient and helpful: Users say compliance software speeds up the review process while making feedback more actionable by spotlighting areas that need attention.
“The speed of being able to receive comments or suggestions within the change control process has made the process of getting documents and events approved much more quickly and efficiently.”
–Kim S., quality specialist, medical devices
Common challenges of compliance software identified by users
According to compliance software reviews on Capterra, some of the top challenges buyers face when making investments in compliance software include buggy email notifications and problems with software updates. Many also express concerns about vendors’ unresponsiveness in managing issues.
If you’re concerned about these challenges, bring them up with vendors to get clear answers about their solutions and service capabilities. Prior to purchase, it’s important to take advantage of free trial periods—something many options listed on Capterra offer.
What is compliance software used for?
Our analysis of extensive compliance software reviews highlight the most common use cases:
Monitor risks: Businesses use compliance software to keep an eye on their systems, including premises, processes, and devices, with a centralized dashboard that only shows what you need to worry about to align with regulations, filtering out non-relevant vulnerabilities.
Manage audits: Compliance software makes it easy for users to create custom forms and checklists for audits, distribute them, and analyze the results, making auditing much simpler and organized.
Secure systems: Reviewers say compliance software helps them securely integrate with multiple applications, monitor these networks in real-time, and back up important data and settings against risks.
Track compliance: Users use compliance systems to get up-to-the-minute view of compliance status and study past trends to understand deviations and prevent similar incidents in future.
Beyond general-purpose solutions, there are specialized compliance software options tailored for specific sector use:
Who uses compliance software?
Compliance officers and other professionals in industries that face regulatory scrutiny use compliance software. It serves a broad spectrum of functions, including administrative, finance, and legal teams, and helps businesses of all sizes—even those without a specific legal and compliance department.
Beyond business owners and compliance leaders, employees also use compliance software for self-training on key policies, such as data protection and anti-bribery. So, employee learning and training also needs to be top-of-mind with any purchase decision.
Some of the most common roles that inquire about compliance software are compliance managers, health, safety, and environment (HSE) managers, business owners, risk management VPs, quality assurance managers, associate auditors, and safety coordinators. Reviewers of compliance software commonly come from businesses with 11-200 employees.
Common compliance software integrations
We analyzed our extensive reviews database and based on that, we determined the three categories that most often integrate with compliance software are document management, accounting, and HR software.
Most reviewers had a positive experience in getting their integration needs fulfilled with vendors. Proper integration makes the flow of data between systems smooth, ensuring accuracy and consistency across operations.
Recent trends in compliance software
Focus on third-party risk management (TPRM): Businesses work with many third-party vendors, suppliers, and partners. Gartner shows that monitoring and managing risks (like data privacy or human rights) associated with third-parties will be a top priority for leaders in 2024. 5 Compliance software are adding TPRM modules to assess and manage these risks more effectively.
Employee-tailored compliance training: To make training more relevant and effective for employees based on their specific roles and risk exposure, compliance software are likely to evolve to provide more personalized and targeted training modules aligned with employee needs and workflow.
Regulatory intelligence and tracking with AI: With increasing regulatory changes across industries and geographies, compliance software vendors are building regulatory intelligence capabilities using artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning to automatically track new laws or rules. They are also leveraging natural language processing (NLP) capabilities to build chatbots that make it easy for users to browse through large documents and get immediate answers to their queries.
Learn more about how compliance software can help your business
