SecurityPal vs. In-house Security Review Teams: A Cost-Benefit Analysis

Your sales cycle is only as fast as the speed of trust. Security and Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) have become essential to closing deals, proving trust is no longer optional — it’s a competitive edge.

Enter: the security review. 

Security reviews — including security questionnaires, trust center resources, and one-off documentation requests — have become a standard part of vendor due diligence. But as necessary as they are, they can also stall your sales process, drain internal resources, and create friction between go-to-market (GTM) and InfoSec teams.

While many companies rely on internal security, GRC, or IT teams to complete reviews, doing so often pulls those teams away from higher-impact, strategic work. That’s where SecurityPal comes in: a dedicated partner built to handle security reviews at speed and scale, with a blend of AI and certified human analysts.

Let’s compare the strengths, tradeoffs, and total cost of ownership between SecurityPal and in-house security review workflows — helping you decide what makes the most sense for your business.

Quick Comparison Table

About SecurityPal

SecurityPal is the all-in-one, always-on solution for navigating the terrain of security assessments with unmatched speed and precision. Founded in 2020, we’ve pioneered a new category — Customer Assurance (CAx™) — to help high-growth and enterprise organizations accelerate trust-building during every stage of the customer journey.

Our mission is simple: make security reviews frictionless so innovation and growth never slow down.

Today, we serve the world’s leading innovators, including OpenAI, Figma, MongoDB, Airtable, and Snapchat. With expertise across industries like fintech, AI, healthtech, and enterprise SaaS, we’ve answered more than 2 million security questions — and counting.

SecurityPal combines intelligent automation with certified human analysts to deliver faster, more accurate security reviews — all with white-glove support and seamless integration into your existing systems.

SecurityPal Strengths

• Scalability and Speed: We guarantee 24–72 hour turnaround on every request, which means faster sales cycles and fewer bottlenecks.
• AI + Human Oversight: Our approach combines machine efficiency with certified human precision. The result? More accurate responses, fewer escalations, and peace of mind for your InfoSec team.
• Customer Experience: Every customer is assigned a dedicated engagement manager who acts as a strategic partner — flagging optimization opportunities, providing insights, and ensuring a seamless process from start to finish.

SecurityPal Considerations

Some outlier or highly technical questions may still require brief internal review — though our completion rate consistently exceeds 90%.

About In-House Security Review Teams

“In-house” typically refers to internal staff across security, GRC, IT, legal, and sales operations manually managing reviews. These teams coordinate questionnaire completion, track documentation, and ensure accuracy — often on top of their core responsibilities.

For large enterprises with mature compliance programs and surplus capacity, this may seem like a reasonable path. But even in those environments, teams often struggle with:

• High volumes of requests during end-of-quarter surges
• Repetitive work that distracts from proactive risk management
• Review bottlenecks that slow sales cycles

Many teams have turned to AI-only tools to help automate the process. But these still require extensive manual review and editing, which ends up shifting — not solving — the burden.

In-House Strengths

• Institutional Knowledge: Internal teams have a deep understanding of your policies, architecture, and risk posture — often resulting in accurate, context-aware responses.
• Custom Workflows: Your internal systems, communication protocols, and approval processes are already in place, which can make workflows seamless (if you have the bandwidth).

In-House Limitations

• Cost: Hiring, training, and retaining skilled security professionals is costly — and they’re often stretched thin across audits, product reviews, and compliance demands.
• Process Bottlenecks: Security reviews involve multiple stakeholders, which results in long threads, version control issues, and internal delays.
• Scalability Challenges: Teams can’t easily flex during peak seasons like end-of-quarter or procurement pushes, leading to burnout and missed opportunities.

Which One Should You Choose?

Choosing between SecurityPal and an in-house team depends on your company’s stage, goals, and resources. Here’s how to decide:

Choose SecurityPal if you:

• Are a fast-growing or enterprise company with limited security and GRC headcount
• Need fast, consistent turnaround on security questionnaires
• Want to free your team to focus on audits, strategy, and proactive initiatives
• Value a managed partner that integrates into your existing tools and processes

In-house may work if you:

• Have an established, well-resourced InfoSec team with time to kill
• Experience low volume and complexity of reviews
• Prefer full internal ownership (though SecurityPal still offers visibility and control)

Why People Choose SecurityPal Over In-House

• Speed + Accuracy: Our hybrid model ensures completion rates of 90%+ with minimal internal lift
• Built-In Knowledge Library: We store, optimize, update, and reuse Q&A pairs for maximum consistency
• Dedicated Support: Every customer is matched with a real human — not just a chatbot
• Seamless Experience: Our white-labeled assurance profiles and integrations create trust from day one
• Hours Saved: Customers routinely reclaim dozens of hours per month, freeing up senior staff for higher-impact work

“What sets SecurityPal apart is the human component,” Shailey says. “Other questionnaire tools rely solely on AI, but nuanced questions require human expertise. SecurityPal customer support is immediate, providing us with constant assurance that our questionnaires are being handled with care.” Shailey Kadakia, Head of GRCP at Airtable

Final Verdict

SecurityPal offers the speed, scale, and sophistication that modern enterprises need to close deals faster and build trust without burning out internal teams. While in-house may work for some, it can’t match the efficiency, consistency, and peace of mind of a dedicated, expert-led approach.

Ready to Decide?

Let’s take the manual work — and the guesswork — out of security reviews. Get started now with SecurityPal.