It depends on scope and deployment model. Open source platforms carry lower upfront costs but hide real expense in setup, tuning, and ongoing management, plus the risk of a project losing support down the line. Commercial platforms cost more to start, but they come with documentation, defined service levels, and automation that cuts the staff time needed to run the program day to day. The honest way to size total cost is licensing plus deployment effort plus tuning, weighed against what an undetected breach actually costs, which averaged $4.99 million globally last year, a record high, per IBM’s latest figures. That’s the real number a deception program is ultimately measured against. Vendors who lead with the license number alone are answering a different question than the one you’re actually asking.
