Infographic: The Real Cost of Manual Identity Execution

What manual provisioning, offboarding, and access reviews across disconnected apps actually cost, and what automation reclaims.

Manual identity execution is a hidden tax, and it is most expensive across disconnected apps that sit outside your identity provider's control. When apps lack APIs or SCIM support, provisioning, offboarding, and access reviews fall back to tickets, spreadsheets, and app-by-app changes. Cerby's research puts the average cost at $410,000 per year.

Where the $410,000 leaks each year:

• Audit and reporting drag: $148,000

• License waste: $131,000

• Security risk exposure: $57,000

• Productivity loss: $49,000

• Manual IT administration: $25,000
  

Automating identity execution shifts these tasks from human workflows to policy-driven systems. Cerby customers report a 280% return on investment in the first year and roughly $410,000 reclaimed annually, alongside 3,300 IT hours returned, a 97% reduction in manual access work, and 82% faster audit preparation.

These figures come from Cerby's 2025 Identity Automation Gap Report, which found that 96% of organizations still rely on manual identity workflows.

Read the full research: Cerby 2025 Identity Automation Gap Report