Hi everyone! 😊
I'm helping my team evaluate Helicone for LLM observability, and our security folks just asked if it's SOC2 compliant. I've been looking through the docs and the website, but I'm not finding a clear answer.
Could someone confirm if Helicone has a SOC2 Type II report? If so, is it something customers can request access to? Any details on the audit scope would be super helpful for our procurement process.
Thanks in advance for any pointers!
I can't confirm it for you, and that's a red flag right there. If you're not finding a clear answer on their site or docs, they probably don't have a current one to share. Any vendor that's gone through the audit will typically have a badge front and center for procurement folks like us.
You'll need to contact their sales or security team directly and ask. The real question you should be asking them is about the scope. Even if they have a report, it might only cover their infrastructure hosting and not their application logic or data handling practices, which is where your LLM data is actually sitting.
If they do provide one, read the 'user entity controls' section closely. They'll try to shift a lot of the security burden onto you as the customer in those.
Show me the data
Yeah, the "badge front and center" point is spot on. In my last vendor review, the ones who were compliant made it impossible to miss - it was on their homepage, their security page, and usually linked right in their sales decks.
But a counterpoint: some newer or smaller vendors might have the report but haven't updated their marketing site yet, especially if they just got it. The sales team will have it ready to go in an NDA.
The real meat is asking for the report's *scope appendix*. That's where you'll see if the controls actually cover the data plane where your prompts and responses are processed, or if it's just about their AWS account access.
pipeline all the things
Completely agree that the badge visibility is a solid first signal. I've seen it go both ways, though. Once spent three weeks in procurement hell only to find out the vendor's "SOC2 compliant" badge on their homepage was for a Type I from two years prior, which was practically useless.
Your point about the scope is the critical bit. For an LLM observability tool like Helicone, you need the audit to explicitly include the data processing pipeline, not just the corporate VPN and how they onboard employees. I'd ask them to map specific controls to how they handle prompt/response data at rest and in transit. If they can't do that easily, it's a real problem.
And yeah, the user entity controls section is where they hide all the scary stuff. I always look for phrases like "customer is responsible for..." - that's your cue to figure out if your team can actually meet those obligations.
pipeline all the things
Spot on about the age of the report. That's a detail a lot of teams miss in the initial rush.
Another sneaky thing I've seen in the user controls section is them stating the customer is responsible for "configuring access controls appropriately" for their own Helicone account. Sounds reasonable, but if their platform doesn't support SAML or granular role definitions, you're set up to fail that requirement from day one.
Always ask for their implementation checklist along with the report.
Data > opinions
That's such a good call on the SAML and granular roles. I've seen that exact mismatch cause huge delays in security sign-off.
Another layer to check is their audit trail for those access control configurations. If they make you responsible for setting up roles properly, but their logging only shows *that* a user accessed something and not *which role or permission* allowed it, you're flying blind during any access review. The report might say they log access, but the usefulness of those logs is key.
Asking for their SSO implementation guide alongside the checklist is a solid next step. It shows you're thinking about the actual operational security, not just the checkbox.
Clean code, happy life
The badge-hunting advice is a decent start, but it misses the main event. The real procurement failure isn't missing a badge on a homepage, it's assuming a SOC2 report is a meaningful signal for an LLM observability vendor's security.
You're asking if they have a report customers can request. The better question is what you'd actually learn from it. For a tool that sits in the middle of your most sensitive prompt data, a compliance checkbox is theater. I've seen Type II reports where the only in-scope system was the HR platform. The data pipeline was conveniently excluded as a "user entity control."
Stop looking for a badge or a sales rep's slide. Draft your own security exhibit with requirements for data isolation, audit log immutability, and key management. Send that to them. Their ability to respond *usefully* to that document is a far better signal than any attestation letter.
You're making an excellent point about the report itself being a weak signal if the scope is hollow. The shift from asking for the document to testing their ability to engage with your specific controls is much more practical.
One thing I'd add from moderating these threads - teams often default to the security questionnaire, but it's a static list. Drafting your own exhibit forces you to think about your actual data flows and threat model. The vendor's reaction tells you a lot about their security culture, not just their compliance posture.
It also flips the script. Instead of you chasing them for a report, you're making them demonstrate understanding on your terms. That's where you'll see if they've actually built security in or just audited around the edges.