Compliance Consulting in San Diego — HIPAA, SOC 2, CCPA & PCI Help Without the Big-4 Price Tag

✅ Verified 2026-05-09

TL;DR (operator-honest): If you're a San Diego SaaS, telehealth, biotech, or DTC company that just got asked for a SOC 2, HIPAA, CCPA, or PCI artifact, you have three real options: (1) buy Vanta or Drata ($15K–$35K/yr) and self-implement, (2) hire a Big-4 / boutique firm ($15K–$75K flat), or (3) work hourly with a local operator who wires the platforms in and writes the policies for you at $100/hr. SideGuy is option 3 — most engagements land $3K–$12K because the evidence-collection, policy drafting, and vendor reviews are AI-automated. Text PJ for a 15-min scoping call.

Practical, hourly compliance consulting for San Diego businesses. Built by an Encinitas operator who automates the boring parts so your audit doesn't stall your year.

What San Diego businesses actually need to know

Which frameworks apply to you: Most San Diego SMBs deal with one or more of — HIPAA (healthcare, biotech, telehealth clusters in Sorrento Valley/UTC), SOC 2 (SaaS and B2B services in Downtown/Carlsbad), CCPA/CPRA (any business with 50K+ CA consumers or $25M+ revenue), PCI-DSS (restaurants, retail, ecommerce), and OSHA/Cal-OSHA (construction, manufacturing, hospitality). We map your actual data flows to the right frameworks — not a generic checklist.
Realistic timelines: A SOC 2 Type I readiness typically takes 6–10 weeks; Type II observation window is 3–12 months. HIPAA gap assessment + remediation runs 4–8 weeks. CCPA compliance can be buttoned up in 2–4 weeks if your privacy policy, DSAR workflow, and vendor list are reasonably clean.
What it should cost in San Diego: Local boutique firms quote $15K–$60K flat-fee SOC 2 readiness; Big-4 and national firms run $75K+. SideGuy works hourly at $100/hr with no retainer — most SMB engagements land between $3K–$12K because we automate evidence collection, policy drafting, and vendor review with AI instead of billing army hours.
What you'll walk away with: A prioritized gap report, written policies (security, privacy, incident response, BCDR, acceptable use), a vendor risk register, employee training workflow, evidence-collection automation, and an audit-ready data room — plus a direct line to PJ when your auditor asks a weird question at 4pm on a Friday.

What we actually do

Framework scoping (HIPAA, SOC 2, CCPA, PCI, ISO 27001 lite)
Gap assessment against your current stack
Policy & procedure drafting (AI-assisted, human-reviewed)
Vendor risk management + BAA/DPA tracking
Automated evidence collection from AWS, Google Workspace, Okta, GitHub
Audit prep, auditor liaison, and response drafting

Who this is for

San Diego SaaS startups chasing enterprise deals that need SOC 2
Telehealth, medical device & biotech teams with HIPAA/PHI exposure
Ecommerce & DTC brands needing CCPA + PCI coverage
Agencies and MSPs who need to prove they're safe to onboard
Founders who got "send your security questionnaire" and panicked

$100/hrFlat rate · no retainer · no minimums

6–10 wksTypical SOC 2 Type I readiness timeline

70%Of compliance busywork we automate with AI

Why hourly beats a flat-fee compliance retainer

Flat-fee firms pad their quotes because they can't predict how messy your environment is. Retainer firms keep the meter running whether you need them or not. Hourly means you pay for what you actually use — and because I automate policy generation, evidence collection, and vendor questionnaires with custom AI workflows, the hours compound in your favor. Most San Diego clients finish HIPAA or SOC 2 readiness for 60–80% less than a traditional quote.

Serving North County & greater San Diego

Based in Encinitas / Solana Beach. On-site available in Carlsbad, Del Mar, La Jolla, UTC, Sorrento Valley, Downtown, Mission Valley, and across North County. Remote-first for everything else — most of the work is async anyway.

PJ · Encinitas, CA · 858-461-8054

I'm not a Big-4 consultant and I don't want to be. I build AI automations that make compliance boring and cheap — if you've got a security questionnaire on your desk or an auditor asking for evidence, text me and we'll scope it in 15 minutes.

Text PJ LinkedIn

Got a compliance fire drill?

Text a photo of the questionnaire or auditor email. I'll tell you what it'll cost and how long it'll take — no sales call.

Text 858-461-8054 Call PJ

Questions San Diego founders actually ask

→ Should I hire a compliance consultant or just buy Vanta / Drata directly?

Buy the platform if you have an internal IT/security person who can spend 80–120 hours configuring it. If you don't, the platform alone won't get you to a clean SOC 2 — you'll spend $25K on Vanta and still get an auditor finding because controls weren't actually wired right. Hire someone (us or another San Diego operator) to do the implementation work either way.

→ How much does SOC 2 readiness actually cost in San Diego in 2026?

Boutique San Diego firms quote $15K–$60K flat-fee. Big-4 + national firms run $75K+. Vanta or Drata software adds $15K–$35K/yr on top. SideGuy hourly typically lands $3K–$12K for the consulting layer because we automate evidence collection and policy drafting with custom AI workflows. Audit firm fees ($8K–$20K for the actual SOC 2 attestation) are separate either way.

→ Which compliance frameworks apply to my San Diego business?

Healthcare/biotech in Sorrento Valley + UTC: HIPAA. SaaS chasing enterprise deals: SOC 2 Type II. Any business with 50K+ CA consumers or $25M+ revenue: CCPA/CPRA. Restaurants, retail, ecommerce: PCI-DSS. Construction/manufacturing/hospitality: Cal-OSHA. Many San Diego companies need 2–3 of these. We map your data flows to the actual frameworks instead of giving you a generic checklist.

→ How long does a SOC 2 take from kickoff to audit report?

SOC 2 Type I: 6–10 weeks readiness, then 4–6 weeks for the auditor's report — call it ~3 months total. SOC 2 Type II: same readiness window plus a 3–12 month observation window plus the auditor's 4–6 week report. If your customer is asking right now, start with Type I to unblock the deal, then roll into Type II.

→ Do you do remote-only or do you come on-site in San Diego?

Both. Based in Encinitas — on-site available in Carlsbad, Del Mar, La Jolla, UTC, Sorrento Valley, Downtown SD, Mission Valley, and across North County. Most of the actual work is async (evidence collection runs in the background) so on-site is mainly for kickoff scoping and auditor-week handholding.