What is a vendor security questionnaire, and why did your prospect send you one?
The plain-English starting point if a CAIQ, SIG-Lite, or custom security spreadsheet just landed in your inbox for the first time: who's asking, why, what a good answer looks like, and what happens to the deal if you ignore it.
How to Answer a Vendor Security Questionnaire Faster
Grounded in: your own answer libraryA repeatable process for getting through a CAIQ, a SIG-Lite, or a prospect's custom Excel tab without re-researching every question from scratch.
SIG-Lite Questionnaires: A Practical Answer Guide for B2B SaaS Vendors
Grounded in: Shared Assessments SIGWhat the Standardized Information Gathering Lite format actually asks across its risk domains, and where B2B SaaS vendors typically lose the most time.
CAIQ Automation: What It Actually Does and What Still Needs a Human Reviewer
Grounded in: CSA CAIQ / CCMWhere a tool can reliably reuse a prior answer against the CSA CAIQ's control set, and where a reviewer still has to make a judgment call.
SOC 2 Inheritance in a Vendor Security Questionnaire: What You Can (and Can't) Claim
Grounded in: AICPA SOC 2Which controls in your response you can point to your SOC 2 report for, and how to phrase inherited controls so a reviewer doesn't send the form back.
Security Questionnaire Automation Tools, Compared
Grounded in: category, not brand namesWhat each category of automation tool actually does under the hood, and the questions worth asking about any tool's draft answers before you trust one in a live deal.
Reply Engine's primary audience is the commercial B2B SaaS vendor answering a CAIQ or SIG-Lite for an enterprise prospect. If you're a DoD subcontractor working through a prime's DFARS flow-down or a CMMC Level 1/2 self-assessment instead, this smaller track covers that path — reachable from here, not the front door.
CMMC Self-Assessment and DFARS 252.204-7012 Vendor Questionnaires
Start here for the defense-contracting track — how a CMMC self-assessment differs from a commercial SIG-Lite or CAIQ.
Your Prime Asked for Your Security Posture
What a prime contractor is actually requesting when the questionnaire arrives.
DFARS Flow-Down Questionnaires
How 252.204-7012 obligations travel down a subcontract chain.
SPRS Self-Assessments & CMMC Level 2
The scoring model, the C3PAO assessment path, and why primes want the SSP behind the number.
How to Respond to a Security Questionnaire from Your DoD Prime
Gathering your documentation corpus, mapping questions, and keeping an audit trail.
What Is a Vendor Security Questionnaire (and Why Your Prospect Sent You One)
The orientation guide — start here if this is your first one.
How to Answer a Vendor Security Questionnaire Faster
A process for CAIQ, SIG-Lite, or a custom Excel tab.
SIG-Lite Questionnaires: A Practical Answer Guide
Risk domains and where B2B SaaS vendors lose the most time.
CAIQ Automation: What It Actually Does
Where automation helps a CAIQ response, and where it doesn't.
SOC 2 Inheritance in a Vendor Security Questionnaire
What you can and can't claim from your SOC 2 report.
Security Questionnaire Automation Tools, Compared
What each tool category does, and whether to trust its draft answers.
CMMC Self-Assessment and DFARS 252.204-7012 Questionnaires Secondary
What small defense vendors actually need to answer.
Want a workbench for the next questionnaire, not just another guide?
Reply Engine drafts each answer from your own prior questionnaires and policies, cites the source, and routes everything through your team's review before export. Drafts, not attestations.