Free vCISO tools
Ten tools, all free, none of which hide the answer behind an email address. Each gives you the result on screen and asks for a way to reach you only if you want the written version.
These sit behind the guides on this site and answer the questions that decide a security leadership purchase: whether you need one at all, which of the three jobs sold under the label you are short of, how many hours, what it costs against hiring, who owns what today, what should exist by day 90, what the contract has to say, and what to put in front of the board once you have one.
| Tool | What it answers | Questions |
|---|---|---|
| vCISO hours calculator | How many hours a month an engagement at your size and stage really needs, what that costs in CAD, and where the hours go | 6 |
| vCISO ROI calculator | A retainer, a full-time hire and doing nothing in three columns of Canadian dollars, with the assumptions published | 5 |
| Do you need a vCISO | Whether a retainer is the right purchase at all, or whether the honest answer is not yet | 6 |
| Security maturity assessment | Where your program sits across seven domains, scored separately, with one concrete next action each | 7 |
| Board report builder | The section order, the prompts and the measures for a quarterly board security report, arranged for your audience | 5 |
| vCISO scope definer | Which of the three jobs sold as fractional CISO you actually need, what that scope excludes, and why an unlabelled quote cannot be compared | 6 |
| Security ownership gap | Who owns each of seven security responsibilities today, and the unowned ones ranked by what breaks first | 9 |
| First 90 days planner | A week-banded plan of what a fractional CISO should deliver by day 90 at your stage, and the reading if they do not | 5 |
| Fractional or full time | Whether you have passed the point where a full-time hire wins, with the six thresholds named either way | 7 |
| Contract term sheet | The clauses missing from your draft, ranked by what each absence costs, with what the wording has to say | 6 |
Every one of them is willing to tell you not to buy anything, which is the point. A tool that recommends a retainer whatever you answer is a brochure with radio buttons.
Nothing here is gated
Every result renders on the page as soon as you finish the questions, with the reasoning and the arithmetic shown. The email field underneath buys the written version, which is the same answer laid out so you can forward it. Skipping it costs you nothing, and no firm is contacted because you used a calculator.
Which one to start with
- If nobody has told you to do anything yet, start with the need check. It is the one most likely to save you money.
- If you know you need someone and are working out the budget, start with the hours calculator, because the hours are the price and everything else follows from them.
- If the decision on the table is hire against rent, go to the ROI calculator and take the three columns to the board.
- If a customer security review has just gone badly, run the maturity assessment to find which domain actually held the deal up.
- If you have a board meeting in three weeks, use the board report builder alongside the board report template.
- If proposals have arrived and they do not look comparable, run the scope definer first, because most of that gap is three providers pricing three different jobs.
- If the honest problem is that nobody is doing anything in particular, the ownership gap check names the responsibilities with nothing behind them.
- If somebody starts next month, agree the deliverables with the first 90 days planner before day one rather than at the first review.
- If the argument internally is hire against rent, fractional or full time gives you the thresholds you have crossed and the ones you have not.
- If a contract is on the table, the term sheet builder returns the clauses your draft is missing.
Where the numbers come from
Every CAD figure in these tools traces to a published band on this site rather than to a rate multiplied out privately. Retainer costs come from the engagement models on vCISO pricing. Full-time compensation comes from the build-up on fractional CISO cost, which states plainly that no large Canadian CISO compensation survey exists and that the bands are assembled from posted roles and recruiter guidance. Where a range is wide, it is wide because the underlying evidence disagrees, and the tool says so rather than picking a midpoint that looks computed.
Common questions
Do I have to give you an email address to see the results?
No. Every result renders on the page as soon as you finish the questions. The email field underneath buys the written version, which is the same answer with the reasoning and the assumptions set out so you can forward it. Skipping it costs you nothing.
Where do the Canadian salary and rate figures come from?
Each page states its own sources and says where a range is wide because the underlying data disagrees. There is no large published Canadian CISO compensation survey, so the full-time bands are ranges built from posted roles and recruiter guidance rather than one authoritative figure, and the calculators say so on the page rather than presenting a false precision.
Will a firm contact me because I used a tool?
Only if you ask. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you fill in the email field, and the quote form is a separate deliberate step. Using a calculator is not a request for quotes.
Do the tools save my answers?
Not unless you submit the form under the result. The questions run in your own browser and the answers are used to draw the result on screen. Checklists elsewhere on this site remember their state in your browser only, and nothing about that reaches us.
Ready to talk to someone
Tell us the situation and we will match you with providers doing this work in Canada.
Get matched