The Total Economic Impact™ Of Ping Identity

Value Of New Users From Improved Registration

Evidence and data. Interviewees described how modernizing registration and authentication reduced friction for new users, improved completion rates, and lowered abandonment during account creation. Specific experiences included:

• The head of customer IAM in the transportation industry told Forrester: “Our registration flow created friction for new users. When authentication failed, customers often abandoned the process or created duplicate accounts instead of completing registration.”

• The VP of information security in the travel and hospitality industry said: “New users struggled with passwords and verification during signup. That friction directly impacted how many people actually completed registration.”

• The technical delivery manager in the financial services industry told Forrester: “Registration journeys were tightly coupled to legacy systems. Even small changes were slow to make, and failures during signup led to users dropping out.”

• The director of information security in the pharmaceutical industry explained: “Before modernizing identity, registration success was inconsistent. Authentication issues were one of the main reasons users failed to complete onboarding.”

• The CISO in the business services industry told Forrester, “Inefficient registration and login flows drove unnecessary support calls and reduced the number of users who successfully completed initial access.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization generates 150,000 new paid user registration attempts per year.

• Before Ping Identity, the composite organization achieves a 90% successful registration rate, with failures driven by authentication friction and incomplete registration flows.

• After implementing Ping Identity, the composite organization improves successful registration rates to 95%, consistent with interviewee experiences.

• The improvement in registration success results in 8,333 incremental new paid users per year.

• Each new paid user generates an average annual value of $320, and the composite organization operates at a 10% operating margin.

• Only incremental registrations attributable to improved registration success are included in this benefit.

Risks. The value of this benefit can vary across organizations due to the following:

• Some improvement in registration success may be attributable to broader digital experience improvements rather than identity alone.

• Actual registration volumes may fluctuate year over year due to changes in demand, marketing effectiveness, or seasonality.

• Registration success improvements may be lower for organizations with already optimized registration flows before deployment.

• While registration volumes and performance may vary, the benefit is based on a direct and measurable improvement in registration completion rates, reducing overall uncertainty relative to broader business outcome metrics.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $597,000.

Value Of Retaining Existing Customers From Reduced Friction

Evidence and data. Interviewees described how improving authentication reliability, reducing login friction, and strengthening security controls reduced customer frustration and helped retain existing users. Specific experiences included:

• The VP of information security in the travel and hospitality industry said: “When customers struggled to log in or reset passwords, they were far more likely to disengage. Reducing authentication friction helped keep existing users active.”

• The head of customer IAM in the transportation industry told Forrester: “Account lockouts and failed logins created frustration for returning customers. Improving authentication reliability reduced drop-off and repeat support contacts.”

• The director of security engineering in the financial services industry said: “Inconsistent MFA and legacy authentication caused repeated access issues. Those experiences directly impacted customer trust and ongoing engagement.”

• Interviewees also noted that reducing authentication failures, account lockouts, and password-related friction improved overall user satisfaction and reduced the likelihood of customers abandoning digital channels over time.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization maintains 20 million paid user accounts in Year 1, which increases annually.

• Before Ping Identity, the composite organization achieves an average annual retention rate of 91.0%, reflecting friction from login failures, security challenges, and inconsistent authentication experiences.

• After implementing Ping Identity, the composite organization improves retention by 0.5 percentage points, reaching 91.5%, consistent with interviewee observations.

• Each retained user generates an average annual value of $180, and the composite organization operates at a 10% operating margin.

• Only incremental retention attributable to improved identity experiences is included in this benefit.

Risks. The value of this benefit can vary across organizations due to the following:

• Improvements in retention may also be influenced by non‑identity factors such as pricing, product quality, or customer service initiatives.

• Retention gains may be lower for organizations that already had strong authentication experiences before deployment.

• Some benefits of improved authentication may manifest gradually rather than immediately within the modeled period.

• Customer retention is influenced by numerous factors beyond identity, including competitive dynamics, product offerings, pricing, and customer experience initiatives, increasing uncertainty in attributing the full benefit to identity improvements alone.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 25%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $3.7 million.

Partner Onboarding Time Savings

Evidence and data. Interviewees described how standardizing identity, automating provisioning, and decoupling access management from individual applications significantly reduced the time required to onboard partners. Specific experiences included:

• The head of customer IAM in the transportation industry said: “Partner onboarding used to take weeks of coordination and manual setup. After centralizing identity, most partners could be onboarded in a matter of hours instead of days.”

• Several interviewees reported reducing partner onboarding effort from multiple days or weeks to a few hours after implementing centralized identity and automation.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization onboards 2,000 partners per year.

• Before Ping Identity, partner onboarding required an average of 40 hours per partner from manual configuration, custom integrations, and cross‑team coordination.

• With Ping Identity, partner onboarding effort decreases to 4 hours per partner, consistent with interviewee experiences.

• CIAM resources have a fully burdened hourly rate of $45, and 50% of recovered time is applied to value‑added work.

Risks. The value of this benefit can vary across organizations due to the following:

• Actual onboarding time reductions may depend on the degree of automation and integration achieved during deployment.

• Some partners may require additional approvals or manual steps that limit achievable time savings.

• Recovered time may be partially absorbed by other operational demands rather than fully redirected to value‑added activities.

• The modeled benefit is based on direct reductions in onboarding effort and process time, making outcomes relatively observable and measurable once identity workflows are standardized.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $3.6 million.

Employee Onboarding Time Savings

Evidence and data. Interviewees described how standardizing identity, automating provisioning, and decoupling access management from individual applications significantly reduced the time required to onboard employees. Specific experiences included:

• The director of information security in the pharmaceutical industry told Forrester: “Provisioning access for new employees was highly manual and required multiple teams. Automating identity reduced onboarding time dramatically.”

• The technical delivery manager in the financial services industry said: “New hires often waited days for full access. Automating provisioning cut that time down to a fraction of what it was before.”

• Several interviewees reported reducing employee access provisioning from many hours to a small number of hours after implementing centralized identity and automation.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization onboards 10,000 employees per year.

• Before Ping Identity, employee access provisioning required an average of 10 hours per employee.

• With Ping Identity, access provisioning effort decreases to 2 hours per employee through automation and standardized workflows.

• CIAM resources have a fully burdened hourly rate of $45, and 50% of recovered time is applied to value‑added work.

Risks. The value of this benefit can vary across organizations due to the following:

• Actual onboarding time reductions may depend on the degree of automation and integration achieved during deployment.

• Some employee roles may require additional approvals or manual steps that limit achievable time savings.

• Recovered time may be partially absorbed by other operational demands rather than fully redirected to value‑added activities.

• Because the benefit is tied to measured reductions in provisioning effort and onboarding activities, actual results can be observed and validated through operational metrics following deployment.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $4.0 million.

Value Of Ongoing Employee Productivity From Improved Access

Evidence and data. Interviewees described how improving login reliability, reducing password resets and lockouts, and enabling faster recovery reduced productivity losses for employees attempting to access internal systems. Specific experiences included:

• The director of security engineering in the financial services industry said: “Employees regularly lost time to password resets and account lockouts. Improving login success reduced those interruptions during the workday.”

• The VP of information security in the travel and hospitality industry told Forrester, “Failed logins and recovery steps disrupted employee workflows, especially for users accessing multiple systems throughout the day.”

• Several interviewees reported that improving authentication success and recovery reduced the time employees spent resolving access issues by approximately 15% to 25%.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization has 100,000 employees using Ping Identity-managed authentication.

• Employees log in to corporate applications an average of eight times per day.

• Before Ping Identity, approximately 0.5% of login attempts resulted in a password reset or account lockout.

• Each password reset or lockout required an average of 10 minutes for the employee to remediate.

• With Ping Identity, the composite organization improves login success and recovery time by 20%, consistent with interviewee feedback.

• Employees have a fully burdened hourly rate of $40, and 50% of recovered time is applied to value‑added work.³

Risks. The value of this benefit can vary across organizations due to the following:

• Login failure rates may vary depending on the number of applications and authentication policies in place.

• Some productivity gains may be offset if employees multitask or shift attention during recovery events.

• Organizations with already optimized authentication experiences may see smaller improvements.

• Productivity benefits depend on employees redirecting recovered time toward value-added work, which may vary across organizations and business functions.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1.2 million.

Value Of Ongoing IAM Time Savings From Identity Operations

Evidence and data. Interviewees described how consolidating identity platforms, reducing manual intervention, and simplifying ongoing administration allowed IAM teams to spend less time on operational tasks and more time on higher‑value activities. Specific experiences included:

• The director of security engineering in the financial services industry said: “A significant portion of our team’s time was spent maintaining legacy identity systems. Consolidation reduced that operational overhead.”

• The CISO in the business services industry told Forrester, “Reducing manual configuration and maintenance allowed the team to focus more on governance, security improvements, and strategic initiatives.”

• Several interviewees noted that simplifying identity operations resulted in platform consolidation, reduced manual intervention, and easier ongoing management, which drove efficiency gains and enabled a measurable portion of IAM team capacity to be redirected from maintenance activities to higher‑value work.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization employs a 50‑person IAM team responsible for identity operations and administration.

• After implementing Ping Identity, 20% of IAM team capacity is redirected from operational maintenance to higher‑value activities.

• IAM team members have an average fully burdened annual salary of $95,000.

• Only productivity gains that result in redeployed capacity are included in this benefit.

Risks. The value of this benefit can vary across organizations due to the following:

• The extent of efficiency gains depends on how fully legacy systems are retired.

• Some operational tasks may persist due to organizational or regulatory requirements.

• Redeployed capacity may be absorbed by new initiatives rather than producing directly measurable productivity gains.

• The benefit is based on defined IAM team resources, documented operational activities, and measurable reductions in administration effort, resulting in relatively low uncertainty compared with customer-facing or behavior-driven benefits.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 5%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $1.1 million.

Ongoing Reduction In Identity-Related Support Demand Through Self-Service

Evidence and data. Interviewees described how introducing self‑service authentication capabilities, including password reset, MFA enrollment, and account recovery, significantly reduced identity‑related help desk and call center volumes. Specific experiences included:

• The VP of information security in the travel and hospitality industry said: “Before self-service and MFA, we were handling hundreds of authentication-related tickets every month. After rollout, that volume dropped dramatically.”

• The head of customer IAM in the transportation industry said: “Password resets and account lockouts drove a large share of support calls. Enabling self-service removed the need for customers to contact the help desk in most cases.”

• The CISO in the business services industry told Forrester: “Identity-related issues were a constant drain on support resources. With self-service options in place, the majority of those tickets disappeared.”

• Several interviewees reported reductions of approximately 80% to 90% in identity-related tickets after deploying self-service authentication capabilities, reflecting a significant shift from manual support to automated user-driven recovery.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization receives 50,000 identity‑related help desk or call center tickets per month before implementing Ping Identity.

• After deploying self‑service options, the composite organization reduces identity‑related ticket volume by 90%, consistent with interviewee reports.

• Remaining tickets primarily relate to exceptional cases such as device issues or complex access scenarios.

• Each identity‑related ticket requires an average of 5 minutes of help desk effort.

• The fully burdened hourly rate for a help desk employee is $25.

Risks. The value of this benefit can vary across organizations due to the following:

• Actual ticket reduction may be lower if self‑service features are not broadly adopted by users.

• Some organizations may continue to route certain authentication issues through support due to policy or regulatory requirements.

• Help desk cost savings may be partially offset if support staff are redeployed rather than reduced.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $2.5 million.

Avoided Fraud Losses

Evidence and data. Interviewees described how improving authentication strength, enforcing MFA, and centralizing identity management across applications reduced fraud risk and limited account takeover (ATO) losses associated with compromised credentials. Centralizing identity provided greater visibility into access activity and identity lifecycles, enabling their organizations to monitor access across applications, identify anomalous behavior, and reduce fragmented authentication surfaces that increased exposure to attack. Specific experiences included:

• The director of security engineering in the financial services industry said: “Account takeover was a persistent issue before stronger authentication. Implementing consistent MFA significantly reduced successful fraud attempts.”

• The global security technology officer in the insurance industry told Forrester: “Legacy authentication made it easier for attackers to compromise accounts. Strengthening identity controls reduced the volume and impact of fraud events.”

• The CISO in the business services industry told Forrester, “Reducing account takeover incidents had a measurable impact on fraud losses, particularly for high‑value customer accounts.”

• Several interviewees also reported that improving authentication controls reduced fraud losses related to account takeovers by approximately 20% to 30%, depending on user population and use case. Fraud reduction was driven by stronger authentication controls, broader MFA adoption, and improved detection and prevention of compromised credentials.

• Interviewees also noted that improving visibility into identity activity enabled faster identification of misconfigured or inactive accounts, reducing the risk of unauthorized access through orphaned or unmanaged identities.

• The director of security engineering in the financial services industry told Forrester: “Before centralizing identity, access controls were inconsistent across applications and difficult to monitor. With a unified identity platform, we gained visibility across access activity and could more quickly identify and address potential security gaps.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization experiences $7.5 million per year in fraud losses attributable to account takeovers before implementing Ping Identity.

• After deploying Ping Identity, the composite organization reduces fraud losses related to account takeovers by 25%, consistent with interviewee feedback.

• Only fraud losses directly attributable to account takeovers are included in this benefit.

Risks. The value of this benefit can vary across organizations due to the following:

• Fraud loss reductions may be influenced by other security investments or fraud prevention tools beyond identity.

• Actual fraud exposure varies significantly by industry, user behavior, and threat environment.

• Some fraud losses may shift to other attack vectors not directly addressed by authentication improvements.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 25%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $3.5 million.

Unquantified Benefits

Interviewees mentioned the following additional benefits that their organizations experienced but were not able to quantify:

• Greater confidence in enterprise security and compliance posture at scale. Interviewees consistently noted increased assurance that identity controls aligned with internal security standards and external regulatory requirements. This confidence reduces executive concern for audit readiness, data protection, and operational risk while strengthening overall governance and risk management across their organizations.

• Improved ongoing partner management, relationships, and efficiency. Interviewees described how fragmented identity systems and manual coordination created friction not only during partner onboarding but also in maintaining partner access and supporting ongoing partner interactions across applications. By centralizing identity and standardizing access management, organizations reduced ongoing coordination effort, improved partner access reliability, and enabled partners to begin transacting more quickly following onboarding. These improvements contribute to more consistent partner engagement, improved partner experience and business relationships, maintained partnership retention, and reduced operational friction over time.

• Improved resiliency and speed to response for identity-related security events. Interviewees described how centralizing identity and reducing fragmented attack surfaces improves visibility into identity activity and enables faster detection and response to potential security issues. These capabilities will allow their organizations to identify and prioritize threats more quickly, isolate impacted accounts, and reduce remediation time, strengthening overall operational resilience and security responsiveness.

• Improved organizational ownership and governance of identity capabilities. Interviewees reported stronger internal control over identity strategy and execution after moving away from heavily customized or third-party-managed identity environments. This shift enables clearer accountability, improved cross-team coordination, and more proactive planning for identity-dependent initiatives, supporting more consistent execution of identity strategy across the enterprise.

• Reduced long‑term architectural complexity and technical debt. Several interviewees highlighted the strategic value of simplifying fragmented identity architectures and consolidating legacy tools onto a unified platform. Reducing complexity improves system stability, supports more efficient integration and maintenance, and positions their organizations to scale identity capabilities more effectively as business and technology needs evolve.

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Ping Identity and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:

• Adopting new digital and identity‑driven initiatives without rearchitecting core systems. Interviewees indicated that Ping Identity positioned their organizations to pursue future initiatives, such as passwordless authentication, advanced identity orchestration, expanded partner access, and nonhuman or agent‑based identities, without needing to replace or redesign the underlying identity foundation.

• Scaling identity capabilities as business models, users, and channels evolve. Interviewees described Ping Identity as a platform that could scale alongside growth in user populations, transaction volumes, and digital channels. This reduced concerns that identity would become a limiting factor as they introduced new applications, partners, or customer experiences.

• Supporting future automation and AI-driven identity use cases as requirements evolve. Interviewees described AI and automation primarily in terms of future readiness rather than current deployment, indicating that Ping Identity positions their organizations to explore emerging use cases such as delegated actions, intelligent services, and nonhuman identity interactions. By enabling identity policies and controls to adapt over time, the platform supports evolving AI-driven operating models without requiring a redesign of the core identity architecture.

• Expanding identity functionality incrementally through modular adoption.
  Interviewees noted that Ping Identity’s modular packaging would enable their organizations to add capabilities over time, such as enhanced fraud protection, stronger verification, or additional credential types, supporting expansion without large upfront investments or rip‑and‑replace efforts.

• Supporting faster experimentation and innovation over time. By decoupling identity from individual applications, interviewees reported greater flexibility to experiment with new access models, integrations, and digital journeys, knowing that identity policies and capabilities could be adapted as requirements change.

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).