How One Saas Review Unveiled £4M Savings

Financial Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.

Discover the hidden cost and time savings of scaling access reviews - which of the three giants will give you the biggest return?

Scaling access reviews can shave up to £4 million from a mid-size firm’s annual budget while cutting review time by 70 per cent. The savings come from automating repetitive checks, consolidating licences and renegotiating vendor contracts. In my experience, the right SaaS platform makes the difference between a costly chore and a strategic advantage.

When I first heard about the £4 million figure, I was talking to a publican in Galway last month and he laughed, thinking it was a tall tale. But the numbers were real - they came from a detailed internal audit at a Dublin-based tech services firm that had switched from a patchwork of legacy tools to a unified access-review SaaS. The firm’s finance director, Aoife Ní Dhálaigh, told me the change unlocked hidden efficiencies that no one had imagined.

The story is worth telling because most Irish companies still treat access reviews as a compliance checkbox rather than a business optimisation. Yet the market is shifting fast. A recent Q4 2025 Enterprise SaaS M&A Review notes a surge in deals focused on identity and access management (IAM) platforms, indicating that investors see value in streamlined governance (PitchBook). The question for mid-size firms is which platform delivers the biggest return on that investment.

Below I break down the three market giants - Okta, SailPoint and OneLogin - and show how each stacks up on cost, speed, and scalability. I’ll also walk you through the methodology that turned an internal review into a £4 million saving, so you can replicate the process in your own organisation.

Key Takeaways

• Automating access reviews can cut effort by up to 70%.
• Okta, SailPoint and OneLogin each have distinct pricing models.
• £4 million savings came from licence consolidation and workflow automation.
• Choosing the right platform depends on integration needs and user volume.
• Regular audits are essential to maintain cost efficiencies.

The hidden cost of access reviews

Most firms see access reviews as a line-item on the compliance checklist, but the hidden cost runs much deeper. Manual reviews demand hours from senior engineers, security analysts and line managers - time that could be spent on product development or client work. A 2025 Sylogist earnings call highlighted that SaaS subscription revenue grew by 12% year-over-year, yet many providers still charge per user without accounting for the administrative overhead (Sylogist Q3 2025). That mismatch creates a hidden drain on cash flow.

In Dublin’s tech hub, I met with Claire O’Reilly, senior security architect at a fintech startup, who told me her team spent an average of 15 hours per month on manual entitlement checks. At €80 per hour, that’s €12 000 a year - and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The real expense is the opportunity cost: delayed releases, slower incident response and burnt-out staff.

"We thought we were saving money by using a cheap spreadsheet-based approach, but the hidden labour cost was eroding our margins," Claire said.

Beyond labour, there are licence inefficiencies. Many organisations purchase IAM licences for all employees, even those who never need privileged access. Over-licencing can inflate the annual SaaS bill by 20-30 per cent, according to a recent Security Boulevard analysis of the top 12 IAM platforms (Security Boulevard). The analysis also noted that most vendors offer tiered pricing based on active users, not total seats, making it easy to overpay if you don’t audit regularly.

Finally, there’s the risk of non-compliance penalties. GDPR fines can reach €20 million or 4% of global turnover. While most Irish firms never get hit with the maximum fine, even a fraction can be a heavy blow. The cost of a data breach - averaging €4.2 million in Europe - adds another layer of hidden expense (Reuters). Effective access reviews are a frontline defence against such losses.

All these factors combine to create a massive, often invisible, cost centre. The challenge is to expose and trim it, and that’s where SaaS access-review platforms step in.

Scaling access reviews: Time and cost savings

When the Dublin firm I mentioned earlier decided to scale its access reviews, they started with three clear objectives: reduce manual effort, optimise licence usage and tighten compliance reporting. The first step was a data-driven audit of existing IAM licences across Okta, SailPoint and OneLogin deployments. They discovered 28 per cent of licences were dormant - users had left the company or moved to roles that no longer required elevated access.

Using the platform’s native analytics, they built a “vibe” AI workflow - an idea borrowed from Legato’s recent $7 million AI-builder launch (Legato). The workflow automatically flagged accounts that hadn’t logged in for 90 days and routed them for review. The AI also suggested appropriate role changes based on historical usage patterns, cutting the decision-making time from days to minutes.

Over a six-month pilot, the firm reduced the average review cycle from 12 weeks to just under 3 weeks. That translates to a 75 per cent reduction in time spent. In monetary terms, the saved labour equated to roughly £1.2 million. The remaining £2.8 million came from renegotiated licence contracts after the dormant accounts were purged.

Here’s how the numbers broke down:

The table shows a total annual saving of just over £4 million - a figure that stunned the CFO, who initially thought the project would only yield a few hundred thousand.

Fair play to the team that drove this change. They didn’t just adopt a new tool; they re-engineered the whole review process. The key lessons I took away are:

• Start with a hard look at licence utilisation - the numbers are usually eye-opening.
• Leverage AI-enabled workflows to automate low-risk decisions.
• Align the review cadence with business cycles to avoid unnecessary spikes.

These steps are universally applicable, whether you’re on Okta, SailPoint or OneLogin. The difference lies in how each platform supports automation and pricing flexibility.

Okta vs SailPoint vs OneLogin: Which gives the biggest return?

Choosing the right platform is less about brand hype and more about fitting the solution to your organisation’s size, integration needs and growth trajectory. Below is a concise comparison of the three giants, based on the latest market data and my own hands-on testing during the Dublin pilot.

Okta’s strength lies in its massive integration ecosystem - a real boon for firms with heterogeneous environments. Its Identity Engine also offers AI-driven recommendations, which can replace a lot of manual work. However, the price point is slightly higher than OneLogin, and some customers report higher licensing overhead for low-usage accounts.

SailPoint excels in deep governance and detailed audit trails, making it the go-to for heavily regulated sectors like finance and health. The AI in IdentityNow is powerful but comes at a premium, and the platform can be complex to implement - a factor that adds to upfront project costs.

OneLogin, on the other hand, offers the most competitive per-user price and a clean, intuitive interface. While it lacks native AI recommendations, its rule-based automation can still deliver substantial time savings for mid-size firms with simpler access-review needs.

From the £4 million case study, the firm ultimately chose Okta because its AI capabilities matched the complexity of their multi-cloud environment. The decision unlocked the biggest ROI, as the AI reduced manual decisions by 65 per cent, far outstripping the savings they could have achieved with OneLogin’s cheaper but less sophisticated automation.

That said, if your organisation prioritises strict audit compliance over AI, SailPoint could be the better fit despite the higher cost. The key is to map platform strengths to the pain points you’ve identified in your own hidden-cost audit.

Here’s the thing about selecting a platform: you must treat the purchase as a long-term partnership, not a one-off licence buy. Ongoing costs - support, upgrades, and additional modules - can erode the initial savings if you’re not vigilant.

In my experience, the most successful roll-outs involve a phased approach: pilot the platform on a single business unit, measure KPI improvements, then expand. This reduces risk and provides concrete data to justify further investment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How can I start measuring hidden costs in my current access review process?

A: Begin by logging the hours your team spends on each review cycle and map those to hourly rates. Next, audit your IAM licences to identify dormant accounts. Combine labour and licence data to calculate a baseline cost, then compare against the projected savings of an automated platform.

Q: Which platform offers the best AI-driven automation for mid-size firms?

A: For most mid-size firms, Okta’s Identity Engine provides the most comprehensive AI recommendations at a reasonable price. If AI is less critical and cost is the primary concern, OneLogin’s rule-based automation can still deliver notable time savings.

Q: What are the typical licence savings after cleaning up dormant accounts?

A: Companies often find 20-30 per cent of licences are unused. By de-provisioning these accounts and renegotiating contracts, firms can save between €1 million and €3 million annually, depending on scale.

Q: How long does a typical SaaS access-review implementation take?

A: A focused pilot can be up and running in 6-8 weeks. A full-enterprise rollout usually takes 4-6 months, depending on the number of integrated applications and the complexity of existing processes.

Q: Are there any regulatory benefits to automating access reviews?

A: Yes. Automated reviews generate audit-ready logs, reducing the effort required for GDPR and ISO27001 compliance checks. This not only saves money but also lowers the risk of costly fines.