How Do Prepurchased Credits Work?

Test Credits are essentially a currency used to streamline the process when your organization is looking to augment its internal information security efforts with Secure Ideas security assessment expertise. There are several benefits to this approach but the most obvious is the efficiency gains you will get by not having to re-engage your procurement team for each individual engagement.

What is a Test Credit worth?

Each Test Credit represents approximately one (1) day of effort by one (1) security consultant. For example, an engagement that is estimated to require the effort of 2 consultants over 3 days would be valued at 6 credits (i.e. 2 x 3 = 6).

Why not just use a block of hours?

This is a common question to which the answer is: simplicity and value. Nobody likes to track individual hours. Test Credits already take into account the fact that the consultants tied to a project still maintain normal business activities such as checking email, attending meetings, collaborating with team members, and so on.

An important distinction between a bucket of hours and Test Credits is that the Test Credits are treated the same as a flat fee for a given test, meaning we will tell you up-front how many credits a test will cost. Therefore as long as the scope of a test doesn't change, the cost in Test Credits won't change even if it takes us more effort than we estimated to complete the work. In essence, Test Credits are for flat-fee effort estimates, where hours are for tracking time.

This approach has allowed us to provide some of the flexibility of a bucket of hours without the hassle of tracking each individual hour.

Do Test Credits Expire?

Test Credits expire two (2) years after purchase. However, after two years any outstanding credits can be rolled into a new contract.