If you head into something like healthcare without any idea of what you need to do, you are begging for trouble. By the time you are buying any standards, you know which ones you need and how they fit in with everything else. Any real business plan will have researched this enough to get a ballpark. This is table stakes stuff.
You can research it all yourself in a few days and get a reasonable idea. If your team is all inexperienced you should probably spend a few consulting hours on guidance.
If you have anything like a real plan for a company, this is peanuts. If you don't, you do not need any of this stuff yet.
and that is what created the current situation.
Laws should be freely (as in free beer) available. Laws should not be tucked away behind a paywall or behind "case law" or behind "international standards" that the layperson can't access without a fee. No fees. That's what taxes are for.
Are there no drafts available for most standards? For C++ the draft is often as good as the standard, and anybody can access the drafts. Is there nothing similar in other areas?
How will they even know what their business plan is without knowing what standard they will be providing?
Last time I checked in Australia, compliance with pay-for-access standards was required in many laws. It is outrageous, because it means you don't even know what you are legally required to do without paying some corporation money.
To add humour to the situation, I think that corporation got bought out by the Chinese at some point. Can't swear to that, I forget what is handled by SAI Global v. Standards Austarlia.
Anyhow the whole situation is a black stain on the idea of equal access to the law.