We started Nomona after spending years on both sides of the audit table: as buyers fighting through opaque pricing and conflicted recommendations, and as practitioners watching good independent firms get squeezed out of pipelines they should have been winning. The problem we kept running into wasn't a shortage of qualified auditors. It was a market structure that made it almost impossible for buyers to find them on neutral ground.
The compliance automation platforms solved a real problem in evidence collection, but they introduced a new one in procurement. When the same platform that runs your readiness program also recommends your auditor (inside a commercial partner program), the recommendation is a sales motion dressed up as advice. Buyers deserve to know that. Auditors who refuse to pay for placement deserve a way to be found anyway.
Nomona is a marketplace with one structural rule: auditors don't pay for placement, and buyers see every qualified firm that matches their scope. Firms compete on price, fit, and verified independence. Our model is simple. Paid-tier firms pay a flat success fee when an engagement is finalized through Nomona, tiered by the buyer's company size rather than the deal value. Free-tier firms pay a flat fee per lead they choose to unlock. Nobody pays for ranking. And we split the success fee with the buyer: half back as a visible discount, or more than half as credit toward next year's audit. That's the only way we could think of to align our incentives with the buyer's.
We don't think the existing platforms are bad. We use several of them ourselves for evidence automation. We think procurement is a different problem, and it deserves a different tool, run by people who have no commercial relationship with the firms being recommended. If our rankings ever start reflecting who pays us rather than who fits your scope, you should stop trusting them. We have designed our fees so that day never comes. Until then, we hope you'll give us a chance to prove the model works.
Frequently asked questions
- How does Nomona make money?
- Paid-tier firms pay a flat success fee when an engagement is finalized through Nomona, tiered by the buyer's company size rather than the deal value. Free-tier firms pay a flat fee per lead they choose to unlock. Nobody pays for placement or ranking. We also return half of every success fee to the buyer as a discount or more than half as credit toward next year's audit.
- What does "no pay-for-placement" mean in practice?
- Auditors don't pay to appear in search results, to be ranked higher, or to be visible to buyers. Buyers see every accredited firm that matches their scope, and firms compete on price, fit, and verified independence.
- Does Nomona charge buyers directly?
- No. Buyers do not pay a separate fee to use the marketplace. Paid-tier firms pay a success fee only when an engagement is finalized, and half of that fee is returned to the buyer as a discount or credit toward a future audit.
- How is Nomona different from compliance automation platforms?
- Compliance automation platforms solve evidence collection; Nomona solves procurement. We have no commercial relationship with the firms being recommended, and we do not earn more when an auditor inflates scope because our fee is tied to buyer company size, not deal value.
- How can I trust Nomona's rankings won't become pay-to-play?
- Our fee structure is designed so that our rankings never reflect who pays us. If they ever do, you should stop trusting them. We built the model so that our revenue does not grow when an auditor inflates scope or pays for visibility.
Related reading
- IndustryThe Trust Layer is Dying
Certification was built to give companies a common language for trust. Somewhere between the readiness platforms and the auditors they recommend, the line between supporting an audit and influencing one went opaque. A look at the feedback loop nobody designed.
- GuideHow to Choose an ISO 27001 Auditor
What accreditation actually means for ISO 27001, what a certification audit costs, and the impartiality questions to ask before you sign.
- GuideHow to Choose a SOC 2 Auditor
Why a SOC 2 report has to come from a CPA firm, how Type 1 and Type 2 differ, and how to compare quotes without buying on price alone.