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Government · head to head

Periscope Holdings vs Very Good Security

Periscope Holdings logo

Periscope Holdings

Government

Statewide e-procurement systems and supplier networks for large public agencies

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Very Good Security logo

Very Good Security

Cybersecurity

Tokenisation proxy that keeps card and personal data out of your own systems and out of PCI scope

From
$1000/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Periscope Holdings it is scaled and priced for statewide programmes, so a single city or county typically finds both the implementation effort and the cost out of proportion to its needs.; Very Good Security vGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • They diverge on capability: Periscope Holdings covers Sealed bid solicitation, Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Periscope Holdings and Very Good Security actually diverge.

Attributes where Periscope Holdings and Very Good Security differ
AttributePeriscope HoldingsVery Good Security
Starting priceOn request$1000/month
Pricing modelquotePer month
PlatformsWebWeb, API
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Periscope Holdings

  • Sealed bid solicitation
  • Supplier registration network
  • Contract catalogues
  • Cooperative purchasing
  • Spend and compliance reporting
  • Supplier diversity tracking

Only in Very Good Security

  • Aliasing proxy
  • PCI scope reduction
  • Network tokenisation
  • Processor optionality
  • Card issuing data
  • Vault and access controls
  • Data residency options
  • Compliance artefacts

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Periscope Holdings

  • A state building a central procurement portal serving many agencies and local entitiesnot Very Good Security
  • A large agency needing statutory sealed bidding with a public opening recordnot Very Good Security
  • A purchasing programme that must report spend and supplier diversity across entitiesnot Very Good Security
  • A state wanting local governments to buy from its awarded cooperative contractsnot Very Good Security

Very Good Security

  • A marketplace facing its first PCI DSS Level 1 assessment that wants to keep card data off its own estate rather than harden a dozen servicesnot Periscope Holdings
  • A merchant negotiating with a second acquirer that needs card credentials portable so the negotiation is real rather than theoreticalnot Periscope Holdings
  • A fintech collecting bank account and identity documents that wants sensitive fields absent from logs, backups and analytics warehouses by constructionnot Periscope Holdings
  • A card issuer that must display a full PAN in its own mobile app without the app or its backend touching cardholder datanot Periscope Holdings

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Periscope Holdings

  • It is scaled and priced for statewide programmes, so a single city or county typically finds both the implementation effort and the cost out of proportion to its needs.
  • The interface reflects the age and regulatory weight of the platform, and suppliers routinely describe registration and bidding as harder than on newer portals, which can suppress bid response.
  • Ownership has changed twice since 2021, from independent to mdf commerce to KKR, so roadmap and support continuity should be written into the contract rather than assumed.
  • Sibling products inside mdf commerce cover adjacent procurement ground, which means an apparently competitive shortlist may contain two products with the same owner.
  • Statewide implementations are multi year projects with heavy configuration and change management, and the professional services cost commonly exceeds the software over the contract term.

Very Good Security

  • VGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • Token portability is the whole selling point yet leaving VGS means migrating tokens back out, a project the vendor has no incentive to streamline, so the lock-in you removed from your acquirer partly moves to VGS.
  • Entry pricing at around one thousand US dollars a month is real money for a pre-revenue fintech, and it buys volume-limited throughput, so cost scales with exactly the growth that made you buy it.
  • Scope reduction is not scope elimination: your QSA still assesses how you integrate, and teams regularly discover that a support tool or an internal admin screen pulled plaintext back in and dragged systems into scope again.
  • Proxy-based interception constrains how you design request flows, and non-standard payloads, streaming uploads or binary formats often need custom routing rules that make debugging production issues noticeably harder.

Pricing, plan by plan

Periscope Holdings

On request
  • BuySpeed$undefined/year
    • Quoted per programme, scaled to entities served and transaction volume
    • Multi year statewide contracts with implementation priced separately
    • Supplier side registration fees form part of the commercial model on some programmes

Very Good Security

$1000/month
  • Starter$1000/month
    • Aliasing proxy
    • Vault storage
    • PCI scope reduction
  • Growth$undefined/month
    • Network tokenisation
    • Multiple processors
    • Data residency options
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Custom vault architecture
    • Dedicated support and SLA
    • Contractual compliance coverage

Which should you pick?

Choose Periscope Holdings if

  • You need sealed bid solicitation.
  • You also want supplier registration network.
Periscope Holdings review

Choose Very Good Security if

  • You need aliasing proxy.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want pci scope reduction.
Very Good Security review

Questions people ask

Is Periscope Holdings or Very Good Security better?
Neither clearly leads. Periscope Holdings starts at On request and Very Good Security at $1000/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Periscope Holdings or Very Good Security?
Periscope Holdings starts at On request and Very Good Security at $1000/month.
Does Periscope Holdings or Very Good Security run on more platforms?
Periscope Holdings runs on Web. Very Good Security runs on Web, API.
What is Periscope Holdings best used for?
Periscope Holdings is most often used for a state building a central procurement portal serving many agencies and local entities, a large agency needing statutory sealed bidding with a public opening record, a purchasing programme that must report spend and supplier diversity across entities, a state wanting local governments to buy from its awarded cooperative contracts. Of those, a state building a central procurement portal serving many agencies and local entities and a large agency needing statutory sealed bidding with a public opening record are not what Very Good Security is typically brought in for.
What can Periscope Holdings do that Very Good Security cannot?
Periscope Holdings covers Sealed bid solicitation, Supplier registration network, Contract catalogues, Cooperative purchasing. Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy, PCI scope reduction, Network tokenisation, Processor optionality.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Periscope Holdings: Who owns Periscope Holdings?

mdf commerce acquired it in 2021, and mdf commerce was itself acquired by KKR in 2024.

Very Good Security: Does VGS make me PCI compliant?

No. It removes cardholder data from your systems so your assessment covers a far smaller boundary, but you still complete an assessment and your integration is part of it.

Periscope Holdings: Is it suitable for a single city?

Usually not. It is built and priced for statewide or very large agency programmes.

Very Good Security: Can I move to another processor without re-collecting cards?

Yes, that is a core reason people buy it. The vault reveals stored credentials to whichever processor you route to.

Periscope Holdings: What is BuySpeed?

The e-procurement platform behind its statewide deployments, covering solicitation through catalogue ordering and reporting.

Very Good Security: What does it cost?

Published entry pricing is about one thousand US dollars per month; growth and enterprise tiers are quoted.

Periscope Holdings: Can we see what a state paid?

Yes. State procurement awards are public records and typically disclose the full multi year contract value.

Very Good Security: Is it only for card data?

No. The proxy handles any sensitive field, including bank details, national identifiers and documents, though payments is where the product is now focused.

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