Northbeams is the line item that takes Shadow AI off your risk register. The math is in IBM and Cyberhaven's research. We just turned it into an annual subscription that fits in petty cash.
IBM Cost of a Data Breach 2024 · Cyberhaven Q1 2025 · Microsoft Work Trend Index 2024
01 / The math
Shadow AI breaches cost $670,000 more than equivalent breaches without it (IBM 2024). Add $160 per leaked record on top.
Shadow data breaches take 26.2% longer to identify and contain than the average breach (IBM 2024). 60% of organizations have already had an AI data leak (Cyberhaven Q1 2025).
You don't need a security team to do this math. The formula fits on a napkin.
E = (R × $160) + $670,000
Northbeams cuts your detection window to under 24 hours, and the $670K premium to zero.
02 / A worked example
Northbeams cost
$15K/ year
Sentinel, top tier, 60 active users, annual billing. Approx. $20 / user / month.
Worst-case exposure
$1.47M
5,000 records exposed per year (a conservative midpoint), times $160 plus the $670K premium.
At 60% incident probability
$882K
Cyberhaven Q1 2025 industry baseline for the share of orgs that have already had an AI data leak.
That's 61× more expensive to do nothing than to subscribe to Sentinel for a full year.
Run the math with your own inputs → /calculator
03 / How procurement compares us
vs.Strac
Charges modular add-ons for SaaS, Cloud, Endpoint, and MCP coverage. Their MCP DLP is one Microsoft 365 server. Sentinel covers all four surfaces (browser, desktop, CLI, MCP) for one per-user price.
vs.Nightfall AI
Starter contracts run $8,000 to $20,000 a year (Vendr median $24K), browser-only. Northbeams: $0 trial, $15 / user / mo, no annual commitment, four-surface coverage.
vs.Teramind
Endpoint employee surveillance: keystroke logging and screen recording. Northbeams is metadata-only AI usage governance. No keystrokes, no screen captures, no prompt content, no MCP argument values.
vs.Harmonic Security
$163 per seat per year on AWS Marketplace, with a 200-seat minimum: a $32,600 / year floor. Their MCP Gateway is enterprise-only. Sentinel ($25/seat/mo) ships an MCP Gateway from team size 1.
Public pricing as of May 2026. Sources: vendor pricing pages, Vendr marketplace, AWS Marketplace listings.
04 / What you'd actually buy
A sentinel stands watch and keeps records. For the auditor, the regulator, and your insurer.
$20/ user / moBilled annually · Save 20%
The install is theirs to run. The 14-day trial doesn't need a card. The Discovery Report is in their inbox by Monday.
One email. One install. One line item.
14 days free on Sentinel. No card. Walks itself through setup in one afternoon.