SAST for startups that don't have a security team yet
You're a technical founder shipping a product. You know you should be scanning your code. You've looked at Snyk and seen $25 per developer per month. You've looked at Aikido and seen $314/mo to start. You've looked at GitHub Advanced Security and worked out it'd cost you $600/mo for a team of 20.
None of these are unreasonable prices for what they offer. They're just unreasonable for where you are right now.
Kolega starts at $39/mo with better detection than any of the above. Three-minute setup. No security team required.
What “startup pricing” actually looks like
Starting price for a team of 10 engineers — the typical post-seed company.
| Tool | Starting price (10 engineers) | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Snyk | $250/mo | Pattern-matching SAST, SCA, container scanning |
| Aikido | $314/mo | Aggregated open-source scanners, cloud posture |
| Semgrep | ~$300+/mo | Pattern-matching SAST with cross-file analysis |
| GitHub Advanced Security | $490/mo | CodeQL SAST + secret scanning |
| SonarQube Cloud | $32/mo+ | Code quality + security, scales with LOC |
| Kolega | From $39/mo | Semantic SAST, secret detection, autofix PRs |
The reason the entry tier exists at $39 is that “scan everything from day one” should be available to teams that haven't hit Series A yet. The product itself is the same as what runs in larger orgs — it's the tier you start on, with room to grow into the higher tiers as your team and codebase grow.
What you get on the $39 tier
Included
- Unlimited repositories
- Up to 250k lines of code per scan
- Semantic vulnerability detection (the same engine that scores 92.4% on RealVuln)
- Autofix PRs
- GitHub, GitLab, and Azure DevOps integrations
- PR-level scanning on every commit
- Secret detection
- Slack notifications
On higher tiers
- SSO
- Custom retention policies
- Self-hosted runners
- Dedicated support
These sit on higher tiers when your team needs them.
Why “startup security” used to mean “no security”
For most early-stage companies, the security tooling story has been the same for a decade. Either you pay enterprise prices for tools built for enterprises, or you skip it and hope nothing happens.
Most teams pick the second option. They wait until they hit Series A or until a customer's security questionnaire forces the conversation. By then there's a year of unreviewed code, and the first scan returns hundreds of findings.
The reason we built Kolega flat-priced is that “scan everything from day one” should be available to any team that's serious about building real product, not just teams that can afford the enterprise tier.
What you don't need to figure out
No security team required
Connect a repo, scans run automatically. Findings post as PR comments. Autofix PRs handle the mechanical fixes. You don't need to hire an AppSec engineer to operate Kolega.
No CI configuration
OAuth in, choose repos, done. No YAML files to write, no GitHub Actions to maintain, no pipeline changes.
No tuning
The engine doesn't use rule libraries that need to be configured. There's no policy file to write. Default settings work for most codebases.
No long-term commitment
Monthly billing. Cancel any time. The free tier exists if you stop paying — you don't get locked out, you just drop down to scheduled scans on one app.
When you'll outgrow it
The honest version. The $39 tier covers most teams up to ~25 engineers and ~250k LOC. Beyond that, you'll want:
- Higher tier for more repositories and larger codebases
- SSO and audit logging when your security team forms
- Self-hosted runners when enterprise procurement asks for them
- Custom retention when compliance frameworks require it
These are all paid tiers above $39, but the upgrade path is gradual. You don't hit a wall, you scale up to match what you actually need.
See it in 3 minutes
Connect a repo, run a scan, see what's in your code. That's the whole pitch.
No credit card required. 7-day Pro trial. Drops to a free tier afterwards.