The Total Economic Impact™ Of Tricentis Tosca After Open-Source Test Automation Tools

Business Value Of Freed Developer Resources

Evidence and data. Interviewees shared that after migrating to Tricentis Tosca, their organizations reduced their reliance on skilled developers for testing and test automation workstreams. With Tosca’s model-based, no-code interface, their teams no longer needed developers to write and maintain complex scripts for open-source frameworks. This shift freed the interviewees’ organizations to reassign their high-cost automation development resources away from application testing to other strategic priorities such as new feature development and modernization projects. Interviewees emphasized that this reallocation was a critical enabler for accelerating digital transformation and improving time to market for new products.

The head of testing from a software and services organization explained: “Before Tosca, developers were spending up to 20% of their time fixing brittle automation scripts. Now, that time goes into building new automation and AI capabilities.” Similarly, the director of quality engineering from a data storage firm noted, “We eliminated the need for developers in test automation completely. That freed up budget and talent for innovation.”

Modeling and assumptions. For the composite organization, Forrester models:

• Sixty percent of the testing team’s members are automation developers.

• The percentage of developers reallocated each year is equal to the percentage of test cases Tricentis Tosca handles instead of open-source tools.

• The average fully burdened annual salary for an automation developer is $175,000.

• Automation developers recapture 50% of their time productively as they make the switch from testing automation to working on other automation and artificial intelligence projects.

Risks. The total value of freeing developers to work on high priority projects will vary with:

• The speed at which an organization deploys Tricentis Tosca.

• The comfort level the organization has in winding down its open-source tooling in favor of Tosca.

• The number of developers reallocated after migrating to Tosca.

• The average fully burdened annual salary of these developers.

• The ability of reallocated developers to be fully productive in their new roles.

• The end value of the new work added by these reallocated developers (not modeled here).

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 $1.5 million.

Expanded Testing Automation Coverage

Evidence and data. Interviewees emphasized that adopting Tosca significantly expanded their organizations’ automation capabilities and accelerated every stage of the testing process. Prior to Tosca, automation coverage was limited — often between 25% to 40% — due to the complexity of scripting, a dearth of coverage, and a lack of integration with open-source tooling. Interviewees reported that after switching to Tosca, automation rates climbing to between 70% to 90%, enabling their organizations to replace large portions of manual testing with automated executions.

The QA lead from a financial services organization shared, “We went from automating less than half of our regression suite to nearly full coverage.” Similarly, the test manager from a life sciences firm noted, “Tosca allowed us to automate scenarios we never thought possible when we used [open-source tools].”

Beyond coverage, Tosca’s model-based, no-code approach reduced the time required to create new test cases at the interviewees’ organizations from days to hours. Interviewees reported that what previously took between three to five days for developers to script for open-source tools could now be completed in 3 to 6 hours with Tosca. The automation architect from a telecommunications organization explained: “Creating new tests is no longer a bottleneck. We can respond to business changes almost immediately.”

Interviewees said test maintenance work also reduced with Tricentis Tosca. Open-source tools required their teams to spend significant time updating scripts for application changes, often dedicating entire sprints to maintenance. Interviewees reported that Tosca’s self-healing and reusable test blocks reduced this effort by between 60% and 70%, freeing testers to focus on new coverage rather than fixing broken scripts.

Additionally, regression testing cycles improved at interviewees’ organizations. Interviewees reported cutting regression runs from between three to eight weeks down to one week or less, even for complex enterprise-level application environments. The automation architect for a telecommunication business said: “Regression cycles that used to block releases for weeks now run in parallel and finish in days. It completely changed how we plan sprints.”

Finally, increased automation and earlier defect detection reduced code errors in production at the interviewees’ organizations. Interviewees highlighted that automated tests had less defects and caught those defects that did exist earlier in the cycle, lowering the cost and risk of late-stage fixes. The head of testing from a software and services organization summarized: “Automation isn’t just about speed — it’s about quality. We’ve seen a measurable drop in production defects since Tosca.”

By expanding automation coverage, accelerating test creation, simplifying maintenance, and shortening regression cycles, Tosca enabled the interviewees’ organizations to execute faster with fewer errors and at a lower cost.

Modeling and assumptions. For the composite organization, Forrester models:

• Forty percent of the testing team is composed of QA professionals.

• Automation covers 40% of application test cases before migration to Tosca.

• Automation test coverage increases to 70% after migrating to Tosca.

• This automation increase results in a 50% reduction in manual testing done by QA professionals. Before Tosca, 60% of test cases were manual. With Tosca, only 30% of the test cases are manual.

• The average fully burdened annual salary for a QA professional is $110,000.

• The actual reduction in manual work done by QA professionals is limited to the percentage of open-source tools that are wound down.

• QA professionals recapture 50% of their time productively after their manual testing work is reduced.

Risks. The value of increasing application test automation will vary with:

• The number of QA professionals on the testing team.

• The current automation rate and the automation rate increase from Tricentis Tosca.

• The result of this increased automation on the reduction in manual testing done by QA professionals.

• The comfort of the organization with winding down its prior open-source tooling.

• The fully burdened annual salary for QA professionals.

• The ability for QA professionals to recapture their time productively.

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 $316,000.

Business Value Of Testing

Evidence and data. With shortened testing cycle length and less maintenance work from improved automation, the interviewees’ organizations found that they could test more and also release more often. Interviewees reported that after adopting Tosca, their organizations moved to shorter, more agile release cadences without increasing headcount or compromising quality.

The test manager from a life sciences firm shared: “We used to plan releases around testing bottlenecks. Now, testing fits into the sprint instead of dictating it.” Similarly, the automation architect from a telecommunications organization explained: “Tosca gave us the confidence to release every two weeks. That was unheard of before.”

Several factors drove the improvement to release windows for the interviewees’ organizations:

• Continuous integration enablement. Tosca’s integration with CI/CD pipelines allowed automated tests to run as part of every build, eliminating delays caused by manual validation.

• Parallel execution at scale. Interviewees’ organizations leveraged Tosca’s distributed execution to run thousands of tests simultaneously across virtual environments, reducing end-to-end test cycles from days to hours.

• Risk reduction through automation. Higher automation coverage meant fewer manual steps and less variability, enabling teams at the interviewees’ organizations to push incremental updates without waiting for full regression cycles.

• Faster feedback loops. Automated tests provided near-instant feedback on code changes, allowing defects to be addressed early and reducing the risk of late-stage failures.

The interviewees agreed that faster releases improved the value of testing for application end users — often their organizations’ wider employee base. The automation architect from a telecommunications industry said: “Reducing release cycles improved productivity across the board. People can use the latest tools without delays.” The head of testing from a software and services organization reported: “Employees aren’t stuck waiting for fixes anymore. Faster releases mean they get new features and bug resolutions almost immediately.” The QA lead in financial services concluded: “Our business teams used to wait weeks for updates. Now, they have new functionality in days, which keeps their workflows moving.”

Modeling and assumptions. For the composite organization, Forrester models:

• Prior testing cycles for impacted applications run 2.5 weeks, or 100 working hours, on average.

• On average, testing cycles are reduced by 43%, resulting in a new testing cycle average length of 57 hours.

• This gives end-user employees 43 additional hours with updated, newly released software and means that 15 additional software releases occur annually with Tosca. Before Tosca, nearly 21 releases were completed each year. With Tosca, this value is nearly 37. The number of additional software releases annually is rounded down due to annual limitation.

• Each release is estimated to impact an average of 20% of total employees and results in an efficiency increase of 2% per impacted employee.

• The fully burdened hourly rate for an impacted employee is $40.

• The ability to increase employee efficiency is directly related to the decommissioning of open-source tooling in favor of Tricentis Tosca.

• The average employee recaptures 20% of the time saved by each impacted release.

Risks. The improved business value of testing from more releases will vary with:

• The average time to release impacted applications before Tosca and the resulting delta in time to release with Tosca.

• The organization’s comfort level in releasing more often due to reduced testing times.

• The average number of employees impacted by each new release.

• The efficiency improvement of each release for the average impacted employee.

• The fully burdened rate for general employees.

• The organization’s rate of replacing open-source tooling with Tricentis Tosca.

• The ability of employees to recapture their time productively.

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 $990,000.

Unquantified Benefits

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

• AI-enhanced testing. Interviewees noted that Tosca’s AI capabilities, such as Vision AI and self-healing, delivered significant improvements over their prior open-source tools. These features reduced the brittleness of test scripts and eliminated the need for constant manual updates when applications changed. For example, the automation architect from a telecommunications organization shared: “Self-healing alone saved us countless hours. We no longer scramble to fix tests after every UI tweak.” Interviewees noted that AI-driven object recognition also enabled automation for dynamic and nonstandard interfaces that were previously impossible to script. The head of testing from a software and services company explained: “Vision AI allowed us to automate screens that [our open-source tooling] couldn’t touch. That opened up coverage across critical workflows.”

• Improved security. Interviewees confirmed that aligning testing speed with application release cycles strengthened security and compliance. Before Tosca, slow regression cycles delayed critical patches and updates at their organizations, leaving systems exposed. After adopting Tosca, their organizations could validate and deploy security fixes within days instead of weeks. The test manager from a life sciences firm said: “We no longer have a gap between development and testing. Security patches go live as soon as they’re ready.” Faster testing also ensured that compliance requirements were met without sacrificing agility. The director of quality engineering from a data storage company explained: “Regulatory updates used to derail our timelines. Now, we implement and validate changes immediately, reducing risk.”

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Tosca after open-source test automation tools and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:

• Time to market. The interviewees reported that via shorter testing cycles and improved rates of release, their organizations also improved competitiveness, supported digital transformation, and could respond quickly to market and regulatory demands. The head of testing from a software and services organization said, “We can now deliver features every sprint instead of waiting for quarterly releases. That agility is critical for staying ahead in our market.” The automation architect from a telecommunications organization confirmed, “Speeding up releases wasn’t just about IT — it enabled the business to accelerate its digital roadmap and respond to customer demands faster.”

• Center of excellence (COE). The interviewees also discussed how incorporating Tricentis Tosca into their test automation workflows modernized development practices more broadly and opened the possibility to develop an application testing COE due to Tosca’s role in driving unified strategy and best practices. The director of quality engineering from a data storage company said: “Our regression cycle dropped from weeks to days. That’s how we unlocked continuous delivery.” The automation architect from a telecommunications organizations explained, “[Thanks to Tosca’s end-to-end testing capabilities], we formed a center of excellence to define naming conventions, branching policies, and governance standards, ensuring consistency across markets.”

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