SailPoint wins the evaluations it enters — it just isn't entering enough of them.
SailPoint trails Okta by 16 points of aided awareness, but everything below the top of the funnel runs above category average: conversion to consideration, conversion to usage, and win rate among active evaluators. The brakes are perception, not capability — complexity and price are doing the damage awareness gaps start.
The awareness gap is the growth ceiling
At 42% aided awareness, SailPoint trails Okta (58%) by 16 points, though it leads CyberArk (35%) and Ping Identity (24%). Unaided recall is 15% — identity security is still a category where buyers name Okta and Microsoft first.
But when buyers evaluate, SailPoint converts
Awareness → consideration runs at 67% (category average: 66%) and win rate among active evaluators is 42% vs a 36% category average. The funnel leaks at the top, not the bottom.
Complexity is the tax on every deal
47% of aware respondents associate SailPoint with "complex to implement," and only 41% agree it's "easy to implement and use" — against 72% who call it a leader in identity security. Trust is won; ease is not.
Users love it — and that's underexploited
NPS among current users is +47, up 9 points year over year, with 58% promoters. Yet only 38% of aware non-users agree it "offers good value" — the advocacy of the installed base isn't reaching the buyers who assume it's too heavy.
The funnel, at a glance
Net Promoter Score
From awareness to preference.
Each stage is the percentage of the filtered base that converts to that level of engagement. Preference is measured among active evaluators — the buyers with a live decision to make. Drop-off between stages shows where marketing dollars create the most downstream lift.
Full funnel
Conversion efficiencies
Funnel by company size
Funnel by industry
Funnel by role
Who SailPoint is really competing with.
Identity security mindshare is top-heavy: Okta and Microsoft dominate unprompted recall, and platform bundling is reshaping how buyers frame the category. SailPoint's competitive battle is less against direct IGA rivals and more against "good enough" identity features inside suites buyers already own.
Unaided top-of-mind
Aided awareness — tracked brands
Consideration — tracked brands
Current usage — tracked brands
Conversion rate — awareness to consideration
Win rate — preference among evaluators
What buyers believe about SailPoint.
Attribute ratings capture where the brand sits on capability, experience, and cost. Impression sources reveal how much of what buyers believe comes from hands-on experience versus analyst reports, peers, and reputation.
Attribute ratings
Pricing perception
Three-word associations
Where impressions come from
Which positioning claims land — and which don't.
Agreement with key positioning statements among aware respondents (n = 524). Leadership claims are earned; experience claims are contested. The 34-point spread between "leader in identity security" and "good value for the price" is the brand's whole story in one chart.
Leadership & trust
Product & technology
Experience & value
What pulls buyers in, what keeps them out.
Two questions matter for growth: why do current customers stay, and why do aware prospects never start an evaluation? Their answers point at different marketing muscles — retention runs on governance depth, acquisition stalls on perceived weight.
Why customers stay
Why aware prospects never evaluate
What would get them to look
What makes a vendor "make the cut" in general
Why former customers left
Switch-away risks (current users)
Where is the brand winning — and losing?
Firmographic cuts against the full SailPoint funnel. Use these to prioritize segment marketing, field coverage, and packaging decisions. Preference is shown as a share of active evaluators in each segment.
Full funnel by company size
Full funnel by industry
Full funnel by role
Full funnel by region
Twelve months of compounding gains.
Rolling brand metrics, December 2024 through November 2025. Awareness, consideration, and usage have all climbed steadily across four waves — slow-burn growth consistent with a brand winning on reputation rather than reach.
Awareness, consideration & usage trend
NPS trend
Key metrics — year over year
In their own words.
Free-text responses from the open fields that yielded the richest signal: what would change their mind, why evaluators chose or passed on SailPoint, and the first three words that come to mind. Searchable. All verbatims are illustrative demo content.
Browse verbatims
Sample, quotas, and data integrity.
Every number in this report is traceable to the underlying 1,247 completed interviews. Sample matched to the identity-security buying population at US companies with 500+ employees.
Field summary
Wave: Wave 4 — Q4 2025 · n: 1,247 completed interviews · Mode: AI-moderated conversational interviews (Gather) · Field window: 2025-09-08 to 2025-11-21 · Geography: United States
Audience: IT decision makers and security professionals at companies with 500+ employees who influence or own identity-security purchasing.
Quota compliance
Quotas were set to match the identity-security buying population by company size, industry, role, and region. Every dimension hit target within ±1.0 percentage points.
| Size | Target | Actual | n |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500–999 | 25% | 25.0% 0.0 | 312 |
| 1,000–4,999 | 38% | 37.5% -0.5 | 468 |
| 5,000–9,999 | 20% | 19.8% -0.2 | 247 |
| 10,000+ | 17% | 17.6% +0.6 | 220 |
| Role | Target | Actual | n |
|---|---|---|---|
| CISO / VP Security | 18% | 18.0% | 224 |
| IT / Security Director | 29% | 28.9% | 361 |
| IAM / Security Architect | 23% | 23.0% | 287 |
| IT Operations leadership | 30% | 30.1% | 375 |
| Industry | Target | Actual | n |
|---|---|---|---|
| Financial services | 19% | 18.9% | 236 |
| Technology | 21% | 21.0% | 262 |
| Healthcare | 15% | 15.0% | 187 |
| Manufacturing | 14% | 14.0% | 175 |
| Retail | 12% | 11.9% | 149 |
| Public sector | 9% | 9.5% +0.5 | 118 |
| Other | 10% | 9.6% | 120 |
| Region | Target | Actual | n |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northeast | 24% | 24.0% | 299 |
| Midwest | 21% | 21.0% | 262 |
| South | 32% | 32.0% | 399 |
| West | 23% | 23.0% | 287 |
Metric definitions
- Unaided awareness: % who mentioned the brand in the open-ended top-of-mind question before any brand names appeared in the interview.
- Aided awareness: % who selected any option other than "Never heard of it" when prompted with the brand name.
- Consideration: % intending to evaluate the vendor within the next 12 months.
- Investigation: % in active evaluation — running a demo, POC, or formal vendor assessment.
- Usage: % with the vendor currently deployed.
- Preference: % of active evaluators naming the vendor their primary choice.
- NPS: Promoters (9–10) minus detractors (0–6) on likelihood to recommend, asked of current users only (n = 150).
Category definition
Identity Security, including Identity Governance & Administration (IGA), Privileged Access Management (PAM), and Identity & Access Management (IAM).
Statistical notes
Margin of error ±2.8% at 95% confidence on the full base. Segment cells with n < 30 are suppressed throughout the report. Trend comparisons reference Waves 1–3 (Q1–Q3 2025) fielded with identical instruments.
Vendor
Fielded and reported by Gather — AI-moderated conversational research platform.