Compared
Certova and HawkSoft, side by side
HawkSoft publishes its price, publishes no lock-in, and charges nothing to get your data out. It is one of the few vendors in this market that does, and this page is written with that in mind: on transparency, we are not the exception here. Certova costs more per seat at small counts, and the honest question is what the seat buys.
The questions, answered
Every answer in their column carries the source it came from. Where they do not publish something, the table says so, because that is the answer.
| Question | Certova | HawkSoft |
|---|---|---|
| What does it cost? | $379 platform + $85 per licensed seat, published on this site | $99 per user per month on HawkSoft 6 — published by the vendor, on their own site. Cheaper than us at small seat counts. HawkSoft's own FAQ |
| What is the contract term? | Month to month, thirty days' notice, published in the terms | No lock-in, published on their own FAQ. Same answer as ours. HawkSoft's own FAQ |
| What does leaving cost? | Nothing. A complete export, free, any day — including the day you close the account. | No data-export fees, published by the vendor. Same answer as ours. HawkSoft's own FAQ |
| Is the API included? | Yes, and the MCP server, at no additional charge | An open API on HawkSoft 6, with an open partner program — genuinely more open than Applied or Vertafore. Not available on HawkSoft 5, whose support ends mid-2026. HawkSoft's own FAQ |
| Does a licensed human approve what the AI writes? | Yes, on every write. The approval queue is a database constraint, not a setting. | Not published. Where AI reaches HawkSoft through a third-party partner bought separately, the approval question belongs to that partner's terms rather than to HawkSoft's — so it is a question to ask each vendor you add. |
| Does it fill a submission from public record? | Yes. Folio, year built, roof year, open permits and wind design pulled from the county of record, each field showing its source and the date it was fetched. | Not published. HawkSoft's documented strengths are its ACORD library, self-serve certificates and accounting; county-record prefill is not among them. |
| Is the certificate checked against the contract? | Yes. The requirement in the contract is compared field by field against the coverage in force before anything is drafted — waiver of subrogation, additional insured, primary and non-contributory — and a disagreement is shown rather than issued over. | Not published. No vendor in this category publishes whether a certificate is verified against the contract that demanded it. |
| Does it work in Spanish? | English and Spanish across the whole product, including certificates and client-facing documents | Not published — and not by anyone. The August 2026 market scan found no Spanish interface or bilingual certificate tooling at any vendor in this category. |
Where HawkSoft is the better answer
Price, at your seat count, and a track record. HawkSoft is cheaper per seat than Certova until you are quite large, it publishes what it charges, it publishes no lock-in, and it has a loyal base that says so out loud. Its ACORD library and self-serve certificates are strong. If what you need is a well-run system of record at a published price, HawkSoft is a good answer and we would rather you knew that from us than found it out afterwards.
Moving your book across
HawkSoft handles conversions in-house and publishes no conversion fee. If you are on HawkSoft 5, note that its support ends mid-2026 and API access exists only on HawkSoft 6 — the version question and the vendor question are separate decisions, and it is worth answering the first one before the second.
The seat math, so you can check it. At six seats Certova is $889 a month against roughly $594 for six HawkSoft users — about $148 a seat against $99. At ten it is $1,229 against $990, or $123 a seat. At twenty it is $2,079 against $1,980: $104 a seat, and nearly level. We are the more expensive system at every count on this list. The case for the difference is not a cheaper invoice — it is that the work arrives drafted and cited, so the queue stops growing before the next account manager does. That is the comparison: a few hundred dollars a month against a $4,200 hire.
See it do the work
Nine minutes on a real account, end to end, with no salesperson between you and the product. Tell us where to send it, or just write to hola@certova.co.
Watch the walkthrough