Forrester Research, Inc.
Moat Score — Forrester Research, Inc.
Total Moat Score
9 / 30
| Moat Factor | Score | Analysis |
|---|---|---|
| Intangible Assets Patents, trademarks, brand strength, or regulatory licenses that protect a company's products or services from being freely copied by competitors. | 2 / 5 | The 'Forrester Wave' vendor-evaluation framework and more than four decades of published research give Forrester real brand recognition, but it operates in Gartner's shadow and three straight years of revenue decline show the brand alone cannot halt erosion. |
| Cost Advantage A durable ability to produce goods or services more cheaply than competitors — through scale, unique access to cheap inputs, location, or process — that lets a company undercut rivals or out-earn them at the same price. | 1 / 5 | Forrester's model is labor-intensive analyst research with no structural cost advantage over Gartner or smaller boutique research firms, and its February 2026 8% workforce reduction reflects cost pressure rather than cost leadership. |
| Pricing Power The ability to raise prices without losing meaningful business, because the product or service is differentiated, mission-critical, or has few good substitutes. | 1 / 5 | Revenue fell from $480.8 million in 2023 to roughly $397 million in 2025 even with 72% of 2025 contract value on multiyear deals, indicating clients are shrinking or non-renewing subscriptions rather than accepting price increases. |
| Network Effect The product or service becomes more valuable to every user as more people or organizations use it, making an established leader harder to displace. | 1 / 5 | Forrester's research draws on aggregated survey and client-inquiry data across its base, giving a mild network benefit as more clients contribute data points, but this effect is weak next to the AI-driven substitutes now competing for the same budget. |
| Switching Costs The money, time, or operational disruption a customer would face switching to a competitor, which locks in existing customers and supports renewals. | 2 / 5 | Multiyear Forrester Decisions subscriptions and the demonstrated fact that consulting and events clients renew core research at higher rates create real retention stickiness, but free generative-AI alternatives are actively eroding this lock-in. |
| Efficient Scale A market that can only profitably support a small number of players, so incumbents face limited threat from new entrants even without other defenses. | 2 / 5 | Forrester is the clear number-two player behind Gartner in enterprise technology and CX research, giving it meaningful scale versus smaller boutique firms, but it lacks Gartner's category breadth and go-to-market scale, and is now restructuring (exiting strategy consulting, overhauling events) to defend its position. |