Single-tenant or SaaS audit software: how to choose
In SaaS audit software, every customer shares one running system and usually one database, separated by a tenant column. In a single-tenant system, each customer gets their own deployment and their own database. The difference shows up in four places: where your audit evidence sits, who decides when you upgrade, how far the system can be adapted to your methodology, and how the price behaves as your team grows. AuditEase Pro is single-tenant by design.
Where your data sits
Shared systems keep audit evidence from many organisations in one place, and rely on the software to keep them apart. That is usually done well, but it is a control you cannot inspect and cannot test. A single-tenant deployment removes the question: there are no other customers in your database, so there is nothing to separate.
It also settles data residency without a negotiation. The deployment runs where you put it.
Who decides when you upgrade
On a shared platform everyone moves on the vendor's schedule, which occasionally lands in the middle of an audit committee cycle. With your own deployment, you take a new version when it suits you.
The trade is real and worth stating plainly: nobody upgrades for you unless we run your instance. A single-tenant system asks someone to press the button.
How far it can be adapted
A shared platform can only offer settings that are safe for every customer at once, so adaptation stops at configuration. With a deployment of your own, the questionnaires, risk weights, workflow and report templates are fitted to your methodology, and a change for you does not have to be a change for everyone.
That is the main reason audit functions with an established manual choose this shape. The system is made to follow the methodology, rather than the methodology being rewritten to suit the system.
How the price behaves
SaaS audit tools are normally priced per seat for everyone who logs in, which makes rolling the system out to auditees a budget decision. AuditEase Pro counts only the audit team and quality assurance as seats; business owners and the audit committee are free. The self-serve plans have a published price and a 15-day free trial. A deployment in your own environment, or one fitted to your process, is quoted after a call.
When SaaS is the better answer
If you have no infrastructure of any kind, no preference about where data sits, a standard methodology, and you want to be running this week, a shared platform is a reasonable choice and we will say so. Single-tenant earns its keep when the audit material is sensitive, the methodology is your own, or the organisation has a rule about where its data lives.
Common questions
- Is AuditEase Pro available as SaaS?
- Not as shared SaaS. The self-serve plans are hosted by us, but every customer still gets their own deployment and database. That is the product, not an upgrade tier.
- Does single-tenant mean we must host it ourselves?
- No. You can host it, or we can run a dedicated instance for you. Either way it is your own deployment and your own database.
- Is it priced per user?
- Only the audit team and quality assurance count as seats. Business owners and the audit committee are free and unlimited, so adding auditees does not change the price.
- Can we move our data out?
- Yes. It is your PostgreSQL database and your file storage; you can back both up and export them at any time.
See it working
The live demo is open, with a login for each role and a fictional organisation in it. No sign-up.