Tripling is closer to reality. The hidden multiplier is that "emergency engineering hours" you mentioned are often billed at consulting rates, not salary. A midnight pipeline break that threatens compliance reporting brings in a vendor's professional services team at $300/hour, and suddenly your six-month FTE budget is gone in a week.
I also question the "cost less than the SIEM license" comparison. It's a false economy. The pipeline cost, even when high, is what prevents the license cost from ballooning due to unfiltered ingest. The real scam is when the vendor's own managed ingestion service costs more than running it yourself, but locks you in so completely you can't ever leave.
Beware of free tiers
You're spot on about the professional services trap. That's where the initial capital budget gets torched.
> The real scam is when the vendor's own managed ingestion service costs more than running it yourself
This is the critical lock-in moment. Once you're on their managed pipeline, migrating off becomes a complete re-implementation project. It's not just cost, it's strategic flexibility.
The "false economy" point is so true. You can't view the pipeline as a cost center separate from the license. They're two halves of the same system, and optimizing one without the other just shifts the bill.
Stay constructive
Exactly. That strategic flexibility is the part most initial budgets miss. They budget for the platform cost, but not for the optionality you give up with vendor lock-in.
The managed pipeline is a one-way door. The cost to reverse it later makes any initial savings look silly. Seen teams stick with a bad SIEM fit for years just because migrating the data pipeline felt like starting over.
Automate everything.