Supplier Shield vs Excel
Excel is free, familiar, and genuinely useful for getting started. But once you have more than a handful of vendors, face a regulatory audit, or need to prove an evidence trail, the limits become painful fast. Here is an honest look at where the line is.
When you choose Supplier Shield, you get the whole GRC platform.
Supplier Shield is the TPRM module inside Acuna GRC; the AI-native GRC platform built by the same Swiss team, on the same infrastructure. You are not buying a point tool; you are getting an operating system for your entire compliance program.
Third-party risk, vendor inventory, assessments, OSINT monitoring, and audit-ready evidence.
GDPR, nDSG, RoPA, DPIAs, and breach response workflows; all in one place.
ISO 27001, NIS2, DORA, SOC 2, FINMA, and 50+ frameworks with multi-control mapping.
Audit universe, planning, fieldwork, findings, and follow-up; no separate tool needed.
Top-down risk register, KRIs, and board-grade reporting across your organisation.
BIA, recovery plans, crisis-management runbooks, and exercises; integrated into your risk picture.
Side-by-side comparison.
Three reasons teams choose us.
Regulation does not accept "it was in a spreadsheet"
DORA supervisors and ISO 27001 auditors ask for documented evidence of assessments, risk decisions, and remediation. A spreadsheet row with no timestamp and no attached proof does not pass. Supplier Shield produces the evidence package automatically.
One price. Six GRC modules.
Acuna Professional starts from CHF 5,388/year with a modular approach; add only the modules your team needs. Excel costs nothing; but it also delivers nothing when auditors ask for documented evidence.
Compliance coverage built in, not bolted on
DORA, NIS2, GDPR, nDSG; all mapped. When regulation updates, our team updates the platform. You stop maintaining a second spreadsheet just to track what the first spreadsheet should be tracking.
Neither tool is right for every situation. Here is when each one makes sense.
Excel is genuinely fine if you manage fewer than 10 vendors informally, have no regulatory audit obligation, and are in an early stage of building a TPRM program. It is also a good starting point before you formalise things. There is no shame in starting there.
Once you are subject to DORA, NIS2, or GDPR with a vendor count above 10, or once an external auditor has ever asked you to produce evidence you could not find; that is when the switch makes sense. And when you switch, you get Acuna GRC: not just TPRM, but data protection, compliance frameworks, and internal audit in one AI-native platform. Most teams make the move after the first uncomfortable audit question.
Explore more comparisons
View all comparisons