Imagine you ask three different department heads which tool they use for project management. You get three different answers. Asana. Monday. Jira. All three tools are running. All three are being paid for. No one knows about the others.
That is SaaS sprawl, and it is more expensive than most IT decision-makers realize.
How it happens, and why no one admits it
SaaS sprawl does not arise from bad intentions. It arises from good intentions that no one coordinates.
- Each department purchases independently, without central approval
- Free trials automatically become paid after 14 days, and no one records it
- Employees leave the company, but their tool access remains active
- Per-seat licenses are bought for teams, but the license count was never adjusted
What it actually costs
A typical SME with 200 employees structurally has redundant tools: 3 project management tools, 2 video conferencing solutions, 4 file-sharing solutions.
In audits, we regularly see that 30–40% of SaaS spending can be saved through a clean inventory.
The security problem that is often ignored
OAuth connections that no one knows about. SaaS tools remain active even when the tool is no longer used.
No offboarding process for SaaS. When an employee leaves the company, the AD account is disabled. Their Slack account, their Trello? Often not.
Five steps we use to clean up SaaS sprawl
Step 1: Discovery. List all active SaaS subscriptions. The result is always surprising.
Step 2: Rationalize. Which tools solve the same problem?
Step 3: Consolidate. Not three project management tools, but one.
Step 4: Negotiate. With a complete inventory list and real usage data.
Step 5: Introduce governance. Who is allowed to approve new SaaS tools?
The numbers that matter
- 80–120 SaaS tools are used by an average SME with 200 employees
- 40–60% of them are typically known to the IT department
- 30–40% savings potential through a clean inventory
If you want to know what is in use at your company: We do this as part of our FinOps consulting.
