A commissioned Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study from Forrester Consulting put a number on what Cynet customers already knew: consolidating cybersecurity onto one platform pays for itself fast. Forrester interviewed an executive manager of IT at a $1 billion wholesale and retail organization who had adopted Cynet’s AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platform, then built a three-year financial model around that experience.
The result: $3.37 million in benefits against $640,000 in costs, for a net present value of $2.73 million and a 426% ROI — with payback in under six months.
Before working with Cynet, the interviewee’s organization had no established cybersecurity posture: legacy infrastructure, endpoints running unsupported operating systems, and a single basic endpoint tool standing in for a real security program. That gap is what makes the numbers below worth unpacking — four proof points that show where the ROI actually comes from.
1. $279,000 saved by retiring standalone security tools
Before Cynet, the organization would have needed to license and maintain separate tools for centralized log management, security orchestration and automated response (SOAR), and mobile security — on top of running overlapping pieces of legacy antivirus. Cynet’s platform folds all of it into one system, so those standalone investments simply go away.
Forrester put the three-year, risk-adjusted value of that consolidation at $279,000.
2. $933,000 saved by avoiding data breaches
Endpoint detection and response, network traffic analysis, intrusion detection, and threat intelligence work together inside the platform, rather than as bolted-together point products. That integration is what let the customer catch and contain an active incident before it became a breach.
“Our return on investment can be quantified by the fact that when we had the cyber incident, the platform jumped in and shut down the attackers — in a fashion that really limited our exposure.”
— Executive Manager of IT, Wholesale & Retail Industry
Forrester valued the avoided business loss from data breaches at $933,000 over three years.
3. $348,500 saved on incident investigation and reporting
Manually investigating a security incident used to take up to two hours of piecing together data from multiple systems. Writing up the incident report took up to two business days on top of that. With Cynet generating automated forensic summaries and detailed reports, the customer cut investigation time by 88% and reporting time by 98%.
“The ability to use Cynet for reporting is invaluable — it has all the data and metrics needed to make a sound judgement call.”
— Executive Manager of IT, Wholesale & Retail Industry
Together, those efficiencies were worth $348,500 over three years.
4. $1.8 million saved through built-in security orchestration
This is the largest line item in the study, and it comes down to what the customer didn’t have to build. Orchestrating a comparable security posture without Cynet would have required five additional full-time security hires, plus an outsourced 24/7 SOC to cover nights, weekends, and everything in between. Cynet’s platform — and its built-in Platinum SOC service — replaced both.
“There’s the benefit that comes with peace of mind, knowing that you can confidently rely on a solution — especially 24/7, when it isn’t even waking hours for you.”
— Executive Manager of IT, Wholesale & Retail Industry
Forrester valued that avoided headcount and outsourcing spend at $1.8 million over three years.
The bottom line: benefits outweigh costs 5 to 1
Across the three-year model, Forrester calculated $3.37 million in total benefits against $640,000 in total costs — platform subscription and a lightweight implementation effort included. That nets out to a $2.73 million NPV, a 426% ROI, and payback in under six months.
Benefits that don’t show up on the balance sheet
Forrester also documented value the model couldn’t quantify: faster onboarding for new security hires thanks to the platform’s single-pane interface, better work/life balance for IT staff who no longer have to be on constant alert, built-in training that lets the team upskill without third-party certifications, and lower endpoint resource consumption from running one agent instead of several. The interviewee also pointed to the ongoing relationship with Cynet itself as a differentiator, a vendor that keeps shipping new capabilities, like email phishing protection and machine rollback, based directly on customer feedback.
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