I've been evaluating cloud security platforms for a client with a multi-cloud setup (AWS, Azure, and some GCP). The big names kept pushing their "value," but I wanted to cut through the noise and look at the raw operational metric: cost per finding.
So I built an internal dashboard to track it. I'm focusing on the three we shortlisted: Orca Security, Wiz, and OpenClaw. The methodology is straightforward, but the results are telling.
Here's the high-level approach:
* Pulled 30 days of alert data via each platform's API into a central warehouse.
* Normalized the findings: categorized them (critical/high/medium), deduplicated, and mapped to a common framework (MITRE ATT&CK Cloud Matrix).
* Factored in the total monthly platform cost, including committed spend, user licenses, and any data egress fees for the cloud accounts in scope.
* Calculated: **(Total Monthly Platform Cost) / (Total Normalized Critical & High Findings)** = Cost per Actionable Finding.
Preliminary observations after two full months:
**Orca**
* Strength: Depth of findings, especially around lateral movement risk and workload vulnerabilities.
* Weakness: This depth generates volume. Our normalized critical/high count was high, which brought the cost per finding down, but it also increased the investigation burden.
* **Cost per Finding: $18.50**
**Wiz**
* Strength: Breadth and cloud resource context. Finds issues others miss by understanding asset relationships.
* Weakness: The pricing model is complex. Our cost was heavily influenced by the number of "cloud environments" scanned.
* **Cost per Finding: $22.75**
**OpenClaw**
* Strength: The open-core model let us run the agent-based scanning at near-zero license cost for our baseline coverage.
* Weakness: The operational lift is real. Engineering hours for deployment, tuning, and maintenance must be factored in. Adding these labor costs changed the picture significantly.
* **Cost per Finding (software only): ~$3.00**
* **Cost per Finding (including estimated 15 hrs/month engineering time): $27.40**
The takeaway for my client was clear: the cheapest software isn't the cheapest solution. For them, Orca's higher license fee was justified by the lower operational overhead and solid per-finding cost. The dashboard now runs continuously, and we're tracking the trend to see if these numbers hold.
Has anyone else done a similar TCO breakdown? I'm particularly interested in how you quantify the "operational lift" for open-source or DIY tools when comparing to managed platforms.
Your cloud bill is 30% too high