Security Awareness Training Comparison Compliance-Grade Courses vs Generic Awareness Modules

KnowBe4, Wizer and Hook Security sell a per-seat subscription. According to their published pricing pages as of September 10, 2026, each bundle includes simulated phishing, an administrative console or learner console, automated enrollment or campaigns, and reporting, wrapped around a library of short awareness modules. That is a good product for a company whose primary goal is to run phishing tests against hundreds of employees and watch click rates fall over a three-year contract.

Petronella Technology Group, Inc. sells courses, not a platform. The Training Academy catalog is written and taught by a practitioner who runs a compliance practice: a 90-minute annual awareness course rebuilt for the 2026 threat surface, a self-service HIPAA compliance kit with the policies and risk-assessment tools a practice needs to build its own program, CMMC Level 2 awareness and role-based courses that map to specific NIST SP 800-171 requirements, and an implementation bootcamp that ships editable System Security Plan, Plan of Action and Milestones, and policy templates. Each course issues a certificate of completion per learner.

The difference is the level of the material. Generic awareness training teaches an employee to spot a suspicious email. Compliance-grade training teaches a practice manager how the HIPAA Security Rule's administrative safeguards work, what a risk analysis has to contain, and what an OCR audit request looks like. Both have a place. This page lays out what each vendor publishes so you can decide which one you are buying.

See the 2026 course outline and two free preview lessons

The 2026 Security Awareness Training course runs 90 minutes across six modules and 17 lessons, with short knowledge checks throughout and a final exam. Every lesson is narrated audio paired with on-screen text, scenario walkthroughs and short quizzes. Learners can pause and resume. Learners who pass the final exam receive a certificate of completion valid for one year; the certificate is dated and lists the framework citations the training maps to. The current price is $49 per learner, and team packs start at 10 seats for $290 with one enrollment code and a roster. The first two lessons are marked as free previews on the course page, so a manager can listen before buying a single seat.

The six modules

• The 2026 Threat Landscape. How breaches actually unfold, why end-user behavior is the highest-leverage control an organization owns, and how annual training maps to GLBA, HIPAA, CMMC, PCI DSS and SOC 2.
• Phishing and AI-Enabled Attacks. AI-personalized email phishing, deepfake video, voice-cloning vishing, polymorphic SMS smishing and QR-code quishing, closed by the scenario lesson "The Wire Transfer Request."
• Identity, Passwords and MFA. Strong authentication without friction, credential stuffing, MFA fatigue, SIM swap and account takeover, closed by "The MFA Push Storm."
• Data Handling, Privacy and Vendor Risk. Classifying and handling sensitive data, third-party SaaS, shadow AI and vendor risk, closed by "The Free AI Tool."
• Mobile, Remote Work and Physical Security. Device hygiene, public Wi-Fi, lost-device protocol and in-person social engineering, closed by "The Conference Lobby."
• Recognizing and Reporting Incidents. When and how to report a suspected incident, a compliance recap, and the closing scenario "The Suspicious Click."

What a learner can do after passing

The course page lists eight learning outcomes. A learner who completes the course can recognize AI-generated phishing and deepfake voice and video impersonation attempts; apply a verify-before-trust workflow to any request involving money, credentials or sensitive data; report a suspected incident through the correct internal channel within minutes rather than days; configure phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication and recognize MFA fatigue prompts; protect sensitive data on laptops, mobile devices, removable media and shared cloud drives; identify supply-chain and vendor-compromise warning signs in software updates and SaaS access prompts; use approved AI tools safely without pasting regulated data into public chatbots; and understand the personal and organizational consequences of security policy violations.

Who the course page says it is for

All employees and contractors at small and mid-sized businesses; workforce members at financial institutions covered by GLBA; healthcare staff handling protected health information under HIPAA; defense industrial base personnel preparing for or maintaining CMMC 2.0; card-handling staff under PCI DSS scope; and new hires completing onboarding security training.

What it does not include

The course does not include a phishing simulator, an administrative console, automatic re-enrollment or a reporting dashboard. Managers pull a completion roster for audit evidence and file the dated certificates. If you want simulated phishing campaigns run against your staff, Petronella Technology Group, Inc. offers that as a separate managed service; see the phishing simulation page. The course is the training record; the simulator is a different purchase.

Awareness modules from a platform vendor are designed to be consumed in five or ten minutes by every employee in every industry. That is the right design for that job. It also means the module cannot go deep on any one regulation, and it cannot hand an organization the working documents a regulator or assessor expects to see. As of September 10, 2026, KnowBe4 lists regulatory topics under a separately priced Compliance Plus add-on whose product page names HIPAA, PCI and GDPR. Hook Security's pricing page lists "compliance training" as included in both plans without itemizing it, and Wizer's pricing page lists certificates as a Boost feature without itemizing course depth.

The Petronella Technology Group, Inc. catalog is written at the level of the compliance officer, the practice manager, the qualified individual and the senior official who signs the affirmation. Here is what those courses contain, in their own words.

Every course above issues a certificate of completion. None of them is accredited for continuing-education credit, and this page makes no continuing-education claim. Completing a course does not by itself make an organization compliant with any regulatory framework; the course content maps to the training expectations of the frameworks named on each course page, and the rest of the program is the organization's own work.

The only published single-course, no-platform cyber awareness price found during the same review, as of September 10, 2026, was a $19.95 "Security Awareness Training: Cybersecurity" course from HIPAA Exams with a downloadable certificate [10]. It is listed here because a fair comparison includes the low end of the market, not only the platforms.

Choose a platform subscription if your security program is measured by phishing click rates. KnowBe4, Hook Security and Wizer Boost all publish simulated phishing as part of the subscription; KnowBe4 publishes a console with 60 or more reports, and Wizer Boost lists single sign-on and advanced reporting, which is what a security team managing several hundred users relies on. If you already have a three-year budget line and 25 or more seats, the published per-seat prices assume exactly that shape of buyer.

Choose the Petronella Technology Group, Inc. course if the job in front of you is to get every employee through current, narrated awareness training this year and put a dated certificate in the training file for each of them, without adopting a platform. A five-person accounting firm, a single medical practice, a subcontractor with twelve people who touch CUI, or a company that already has email filtering and a managed detection service and simply needs the annual training record: those buyers do not need a simulator to meet the training expectation, and they do not want a 25-seat, three-year minimum to get a certificate.

Choose the compliance courses when the person taking the training is the one who has to build or run the program. A practice manager working through the HIPAA Security Rule safeguards module by module, a senior official who has to understand POA&M oversight before signing a CMMC affirmation, or a firm owner drafting a WISP from the IRS Publication 5708 template is not served by a five-minute awareness video, however well produced. That is the gap Petronella Technology Group, Inc. built the catalog to fill, and it is why the courses are taught by a practitioner rather than assembled from a library.

You can also do both. Many organizations run a platform for phishing simulation and buy role-specific or regulation-specific courses on top of it for the people who need more than awareness. The two products do not compete for the same line item.

Ask which courses fit your roster

Enrolling one learner

Open the course page, listen to the free preview lessons if you want to hear the narration first, and select enroll. The learner works through the modules at their own pace, with pause and resume, and takes the final exam. The certificate of completion is issued on passing.

Enrolling a team

Each learner enrolls at the same published price; there is no minimum and no volume tier to qualify for. If you would rather send a roster and receive one invoice, or you want a quote that combines the awareness course with role-based CMMC or HIPAA courses for specific people, call Petronella Technology Group, Inc. at 919-348-4912 or use the contact page. Organizations that want a cohort with live instruction can review the corporate cohort option instead.

Terms

Every paid course is covered by our 30-day money-back guarantee: request a refund within 30 days of purchase if you have completed less than 25% of the course and we refund the full price. Full policy: Training Academy Refund Policy. Purchases are otherwise governed by the Terms of Use.

• Security awareness training program: the managed program for organizations that want Petronella Technology Group, Inc. to run training and simulations for them, as opposed to buying the course.
• Petronella vs KnowBe4: the broader company-level comparison covering custom CMMC training and HIPAA compliance systems.
• CMMC compliance services: assessment readiness, gap analysis and documentation support for defense contractors.
• HIPAA training for healthcare organizations: the training services page for practices and business associates.
• NIST SP 800-50 security training program design: how an awareness and training program is structured to meet the federal guidance.
• Cybersecurity services: managed security, monitoring and incident response from Petronella Technology Group, Inc.