When organizations talk about “SaaS savings,” they often jump straight to negotiation or procurement. In reality, some of the most reliable savings opportunities are operational: licenses assigned to users who aren’t active, or access that exists long after the business need has ended.
Syba Identity is built to help identity teams make that opportunity visible and actionable, by turning Okta user and license telemetry into reporting that quantifies spend, highlights waste, and supports governed decisions. This aligns with Syba’s “optimize” and “audit readiness” positioning (Syba Identity).
The core problem: “assigned” isn’t the same as “used”
Most organizations can answer “how many licenses are assigned.” Fewer can answer “how many of those assignments are delivering value.”
That gap exists because:
- Usage is distributed across apps and cohorts.
- “Active” has different meanings (signed in recently, used app recently, created recently, etc.).
- The same person can exist across multiple tenants or systems.
- Evidence requirements are real: removing access requires defensible reasoning.
Syba’s Okta license reporting focuses on reducing that gap with consistent, repeatable metrics.
What Syba reports on (Okta license and cost views)
Syba includes reporting that can show, per tenant and across tenants:
- License usage and utilization: how many licenses exist, how many are assigned, and what the active vs inactive split looks like under a defined window.
- Cost analysis (where cost inputs are configured): estimated monthly spend and an estimate of wasted spend attributable to inactive licensed users.
- Dormant and never-used cohorts: accounts that have never logged in, or accounts that have not logged in within a defined window.
- App-level license cost analysis (where app cost is configured): which apps have cost exposure and where inactive usage represents potential savings.
This is not “magic savings.” It’s structured visibility that helps teams decide what to investigate first.
Making “inactive” useful instead of controversial
“Inactive users” reports can be politically charged unless they’re framed correctly.
Syba’s approach is to treat inactivity as a prioritization signal, not an automatic verdict:
- The report is a queue for review.
- The business context determines final decisions (role changes, seasonal work, leave).
- Exceptions are part of the process, not a failure.
The win is consistency: the organization stops arguing about how “inactive” is computed and starts focusing on what to do about it.
Turning savings reporting into an operational workflow
The organizations that get repeatable savings outcomes don’t run one big cleanup once a year. They run a cadence:
- Review the top cost drivers monthly or quarterly
- Validate ownership for apps with high license cost exposure
- Run a governance campaign (user or app access) for a defined scope
- Apply changes in controlled batches and record outcomes
Syba supports the analytics side (cost and inactivity reporting) and the governance side (campaign workflows) so teams can connect the dots between “potential savings” and “approved changes.”
App-level savings: where the biggest waste often hides
Tenant-level reporting is helpful, but app-level cost analysis is often where savings opportunities concentrate:
- High-cost apps with long-tail assignments
- Apps with declining usage after projects end
- Apps where provisioning exists, but ongoing access isn’t being validated
Syba’s app license cost analysis is designed to help teams see:
- total assigned users
- active vs inactive users under a defined threshold
- estimated monthly cost
- estimated “inactive portion” that deserves review
The output is simple on purpose: it creates an “investigation shortlist,” not a false sense of certainty.
A note on accuracy and defensibility
SaaS savings conversations go sideways when numbers can’t be explained. Syba is designed to keep the analysis defensible:
- thresholds are explicit (e.g., activity window definitions)
- costs are explicit (where configured)
- outputs are repeatable (same inputs, same computation)
- changes can be traced to decisions (campaign outcomes, approvals, or documented actions)
This is what makes savings real: not just a chart, but a process you can explain to stakeholders and auditors.
Getting value fast: a practical first month plan
If you want Okta savings reporting to pay off quickly:
- Week 1: confirm cost inputs and validate tenant data is collecting cleanly.
- Week 2: run a first “inactive licensed users” pass and pick a narrow scope (one tenant or one license type).
- Week 3: validate results with app owners or business stakeholders; document exceptions.
- Week 4: apply a small set of approved changes and measure impact.
Repeatable savings comes from repeatable cadence.
Closing thought: the best savings stories are operational stories
Most organizations don’t need to guess where savings might exist. They need a reliable way to see it, review it, and act on it safely.
Syba’s Okta reporting is built to do exactly that: quantify cost exposure, highlight waste, and support governed action with audit-ready traceability (Syba Identity).
CTA: Want to see Okta license cost and app cost analytics in a real workflow (from shortlist → review → decision)? Request a demo and we’ll walk through it at a high level.