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Pay Per Identity Action™

How AI Is Rewriting the Economics of Every Enterprise SaaS App

By Nelson A. Cicchitto, Founder and CEO, Avatier.
Foreword by Kirk Krappe, Founder of Apttus and author of Intelligent Quote-to-Cash

Every app, every ninety days.

AI is reinventing every enterprise app every three to six months, yet software is still sold the old way: pay up front, then hope the value shows up. Nelson A. Cicchitto lays out a new deal that starts with identity and applies to every app you buy. You pay after a verified result, one action at a time.

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Pay Per Identity Action™ by Nelson A. Cicchitto on a boardroom table: the back cover with the book's summary, key lessons and author bio, and the front cover standing on a stack of two copies.

The problem

Identity is bought like drilling for oil

You pay for the survey, then the rig, then the drilling, and only then find out whether there is enough oil to pay it all back. Identity programs are bought the same way: licenses, services and months of project time come first, and the results come later, if they come at all.

Every CFO asks the same question at renewal: what did we actually get for what we paid? For decades, the answer has been seat counts and project plans. Nobody could show a count of results.

The new model

Ask, Verify, Act, Prove, Pay

Every identity action follows five steps, and you pay only at the end, once the work is done and verified.

  1. Ask

    Someone needs a password reset, an unlock or new access.

  2. Verify

    Identity and policy are checked before anything changes.

  3. Act

    The work is carried out in the systems you already run.

  4. Prove

    The result is recorded with its own evidence.

  5. Pay

    Only the finished, verified action is billed.

How the deal changes
Old wayNew way
Pay per seatUnlimited people, always included
Pay by moduleOne credit balance covers everything
ShelfwarePay only for finished, verified work
Value promised in a contractEvery action becomes proof
Hard stops at limitsNever stops; overages roll into the next billing cycle

Find your chapter

Every chapter stands on its own. Start with yours.

  • Anyone buying enterprise software

    Start with

    The One-Year Maximum, Side by Side and the Pay-After Test, for every app you buy.

  • Investor or board member

    Start with

    Where value moves when software is paid per result, and which business models are exposed.

  • CIO

    Start with

    A direction, a coexistence plan and a twelve-month playbook.

  • CFO

    Start with

    Total Cost of Identity, a break-even rate and a way to plan in quarters.

  • CISO

    Start with

    Verification for everyone, evidence for every action and rules for agents.

  • Architect or engineer

    Start with

    The Identity Action, coexistence patterns and governed building.

  • HR leader

    Start with

    Day-one access, clean departures and the Silent Ask.

  • Help desk or IT manager

    Start with

    Fewer tickets, safer resets and a better job for your team.

  • MSP or integrator

    Start with

    One price list across clients and a business built on finished work.

Inside the book

Fourteen chapters in three parts

  1. IntroductionEvery App, Every Ninety Days

Part OneThe New Rules of Buying

  1. 1Results Before Receipts
  2. 2The Great Repricing
  3. 3Identity's Broken Meter

Part TwoThe Five Steps

  1. 4The Identity Action
  2. 5Ask
  3. 6Verify
  4. 7Act
  5. 8Prove
  6. 9Pay

Part ThreeLeading the Shift

  1. 10Planning in 90-Day Horizons
  2. 11Creators, Partners, and the End of the Project Free sample
  3. 12The People Side
  4. 13Agent-Ready
  5. 14The Leader's Playbook

Appendices A to G: Glossary, action catalog, worksheets, evidence map, buyer's question set, 90-day pilot plan and maturity model.

Free sample chapter

Read or listen to Chapter 11

11Creators, Partners, and the End of the Project

When building gets cheap, the project stops being the product.

For thirty years, getting value from identity software meant a long implementation project that often cost more than the software. Prebuilt actions, standard interfaces and AI-assisted building now put the first result in the first week, and the project turns into a steady stream of improvements around a working core.

Read Chapter 11 (PDF, 19 pages, 2.9 MB, opens in a new tab)
Portrait of Nelson A. Cicchitto in a navy suit, arms crossed, smiling.

Nelson A. Cicchitto is the founder and CEO of Avatier, the identity security company he has led for nearly thirty years. He rebuilt Avatier around the question customers kept asking him, and this book is his answer. He works from Pleasanton, California.

Categories aren't created by press releases. They're created when someone names a problem clearly enough that everyone recognizes it, then shows a better way to solve it.

Kirk Krappe, co-founder of Apttus, from the Foreword

Book one of three

How AI is changing the way we buy, deploy and use technology

  1. Book 1: How we buy technology

    Pay Per Identity Action™: pay for verified results, not seats.

    Early access now

  2. Book 2: How we deploy technology

    Enterprise deployment in minutes, not months.

    Coming soon

  3. Book 3: How we use technology

    AI as the user interface.

    Coming soon

Pay Per Identity Action™ is a trademark of Avatier Corporation. Intelligent Quote-to-Cash is the work of its author.