Skip to content
All guides
Artificial intelligence4 min read

What is CMMC 2.0 and who needs it?

The gap between selling to teams and selling to companies is not a pricing change.

The gap between selling to teams and selling to companies is not a pricing change. It is a different set of people, a different set of questions, and a set of features nobody on your roadmap asked for.

This piece walks through how we think about it at Paycux, what we have changed our minds about, and where the sharp edges are.

Why CMMC exists

Consider why cmmc exists. Price the work honestly. A quarter spent building identity plumbing is a quarter not spent on the product the customer actually chose you for, and that trade should be made deliberately rather than by default.

Price the work honestly. A quarter spent building identity plumbing is a quarter not spent on the product the customer actually chose you for, and that trade should be made deliberately rather than by default.

The three levels

Consider the three levels. The requirements look arbitrary until you map each one to a failure the buyer has already lived through. Single sign-on exists because someone left and kept access. Provisioning exists because a contractor's account outlived their contract.

Price the work honestly. A quarter spent building identity plumbing is a quarter not spent on the product the customer actually chose you for, and that trade should be made deliberately rather than by default.

  • Map each requirement to the failure it prevents
  • Count the long tail, not the first integration
  • Decide who owns the plumbing for the next three years
  • Make the buy-versus-build trade explicitly

Level 1: Foundational

Consider level 1: foundational. The cost is not the first integration; it is the long tail. Providers disagree in small ways, certificates expire, tenants move, and each one becomes something you own indefinitely.

Price the work honestly. A quarter spent building identity plumbing is a quarter not spent on the product the customer actually chose you for, and that trade should be made deliberately rather than by default.

Level 2: Advanced

Consider level 2: advanced. Price the work honestly. A quarter spent building identity plumbing is a quarter not spent on the product the customer actually chose you for, and that trade should be made deliberately rather than by default.

The cost is not the first integration; it is the long tail. Providers disagree in small ways, certificates expire, tenants move, and each one becomes something you own indefinitely.

The requirements look arbitrary until you map each one to a failure the buyer has already lived through.

Level 3: Expert

Level 3: Expert is where this gets concrete. Price the work honestly. A quarter spent building identity plumbing is a quarter not spent on the product the customer actually chose you for, and that trade should be made deliberately rather than by default.

The requirements look arbitrary until you map each one to a failure the buyer has already lived through. Single sign-on exists because someone left and kept access. Provisioning exists because a contractor's account outlived their contract.

Who needs CMMC certification

Who needs CMMC certification deserves its own treatment. The cost is not the first integration; it is the long tail. Providers disagree in small ways, certificates expire, tenants move, and each one becomes something you own indefinitely.

The requirements look arbitrary until you map each one to a failure the buyer has already lived through. Single sign-on exists because someone left and kept access. Provisioning exists because a contractor's account outlived their contract.

The subcontractor reality

The subcontractor reality deserves its own treatment. The requirements look arbitrary until you map each one to a failure the buyer has already lived through. Single sign-on exists because someone left and kept access. Provisioning exists because a contractor's account outlived their contract.

Price the work honestly. A quarter spent building identity plumbing is a quarter not spent on the product the customer actually chose you for, and that trade should be made deliberately rather than by default.

Where this leaves us

None of this is exotic. It is the ordinary discipline of deciding what you own, writing down what you assume, and making the failures loud enough to notice.

If you are working through the same problem and want to compare notes, the docs cover the mechanics and the console shows the behaviour on your own data.

Everything here, already built

Sign-in, enterprise SSO, directory provisioning, roles and an audit trail behind one API.

Stop reading, start shipping

The quickstart takes about ten minutes and leaves you with a working sign-in.