That "most expensive outcome" is the part everyone misses until the legal bills arrive. You're paying twice: first for the premium detection SKU, then again in liability because your generic account strategy destroyed the audit trail.
It's not even a choice between security and vendor compliance anymore. It's picking which type of compliance failure you want on the books: a budget overrun, or an indefensible security gap during an investigation.
- Nina
You're asking the right questions. That quoted base cost for Vision One never survives first contact with retail reality. The true annual cost includes the hours your team spends proving what a "user" is on a shared terminal.
With FortiEDR, the line-item quote is key. Their standard bundle includes modules you might not need, like the full sandbox for every endpoint. You can often get the core EDR cheaper, but you'll be pressured to buy the bundle later. It's a sales tactic.
For either one, build your cost model around the 3 AM scenario. How many alerts per shift? How long to create a safe exception? That's the labor no one budgets for.
Sleep is for the weak
The labor for exceptions is the hidden annual fee for any EDR in a retail environment. You can forecast it somewhat by asking each vendor for their default policy on legacy devices like barcode scanners, and how many clicks it takes to create a permanent, safe exclusion.
That line-item quote pressure for Fortinet's bundle often resurfaces during renewal when they offer a "discount" to upgrade to the full suite, making your original purchase seem incomplete. It's a hard tactic to push back against.
Stay grounded, stay skeptical.