How to Audit Your SaaS Stack and Reduce Unnecessary Software Costs

A SaaS stack audit can help businesses identify unused subscriptions, duplicate software, unnecessary seats and plans that no longer match their needs. For companies with a growing number of software subscriptions, a regular review can also make it easier to keep technology spending under control.

Below is a four-step process businesses can use to review their SaaS spending.

This article is for general operational guidance and isn’t legal, tax or financial advice. Consult an appropriate professional for decisions specific to your business.

Step 1: Find Every SaaS Subscription

Start with three data sources, not one:

• 12 months of business bank statements. Pull every recurring debit, not just obvious software merchant names. Payment processors can use descriptors that make the underlying subscription less obvious.
• Corporate and reimbursed personal card spending. If employees have expensed software themselves, those subscriptions may sit in reimbursement records rather than the main software ledger.
• Direct debits and ACH payments. Annual subscriptions can be easier to miss because they do not appear as a recurring monthly charge.

The real challenge here is Shadow IT: software employees purchase independently, usually on a personal card for reimbursement, to solve an immediate problem without going through procurement. Because these purchases can sit outside the main software budget, they can be easy to miss during a routine expense review.

Action item: Build a single master list containing the tool name, cost, billing cycle, owner and last login date. A spreadsheet may be enough for a small stack; larger environments may benefit from dedicated software-management tools.

This is exactly where SaaS management platforms like Zylo, Productiv, or Torii can help. These tools are designed to give businesses greater visibility over their software subscriptions and usage, which can make it easier to identify subscriptions that need reviewing.

Step 2: The Categorisation & Redundancy SaaS Stack Audit

Once you have the master list, group every tool by function rather than by name. Overlap is easier to spot when two project-management, communication or storage tools appear in the same category.

Category	Example Apps	Common Redundancy	Action Item
Project Management	Asana, Monday, Notion, ClickUp	Notion used as a wiki AND a task tracker, duplicating Asana	Pick one system of record; downgrade the other to a free/wiki-only tier
Communication & Video	Slack, Zoom, Google Meet, MS Teams	Zoom paid plan when Google Workspace already includes Meet	Cancel standalone video tool if your workspace suite covers it
CRM	HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive	Sales team on HubSpot Pro while marketing runs a second contact database in Airtable	Consolidate contact data into one CRM; kill the shadow database
File Storage	Google Drive, Dropbox, Box	Dropbox retained “out of habit” after migrating to Google Workspace	Migrate remaining files, cancel Dropbox
AI Tools	ChatGPT Team, Claude, Jasper, Copy.ai	3-4 individually expensed AI subscriptions doing overlapping copywriting/research tasks	Standardise on one or two enterprise AI seats; cancel individually expensed tools
Design	Canva, Adobe CC, Figma	Full Adobe CC suite when only Photoshop and Illustrator are actually used	Move to single-app Adobe plans or Canva Pro for non-designers

The pattern is always the same: a tool gets adopted for one specific use case, then slowly gets treated as a general-purpose replacement for something you’re already paying for elsewhere. Nobody makes the redundant purchase decision on purpose. It just accumulates.

Action item: For every category with 2+ tools, name a single “system of record.” Everything else in that category gets cancelled or downgraded to the free tier within 30 days.

Step 3: Seat License & Tier Optimisation

Inactive seats and unnecessarily expensive plan tiers are often among the easiest costs to review.

Two things to check in every tool, every quarter:

• Inactive seats. Pull the admin panel’s last-login report for every tool with per-seat pricing. Any seat inactive for 60+ days is a candidate for removal. Offboarded contractors can be an easy source of unnecessary seats, so it’s worth checking whether former contractors still have active accounts.
• Tier mismatch. Teams can end up on “Enterprise” or “Business Pro” tiers to access a specific feature (such as advanced permissions, SSO, or an API limit) that may not be needed by everyone. Check actual feature usage against tier requirements before your next renewal.

Illustrative example: A 12-person marketing agency with 18 Slack seats could have six unused contractor seats. At $12.50/seat/month, those six seats would cost $900/year. The exact cost will depend on the vendor, plan and current pricing, but the example shows why inactive seats are worth checking across every per-seat tool.

Action item: Build a quarterly “seat reconciliation” tied to your offboarding checklist — when HR or ops processes an offboarding, seat removal should be a mandatory step, not an afterthought.

Step 4: The 30-Day Cancellation & Negotiation Protocol

Once you know what to cut, review the contract and renewal terms before cancelling. Some tools may be worth renegotiating instead.

For tools you’re keeping but overpaying for:

• Call before auto-renewal, not after. Vendors have far more flexibility to negotiate 30-60 days out than once you’ve already been charged.
• Ask directly: “We’re evaluating [competitor] for this renewal — what can you do on price if we commit to an annual term?” Vendors sometimes offer retention or renewal discounts, so it can be worth asking before cancellation.
• Bundle your ask — if you’re consolidating three tools into one vendor’s suite, use that leverage explicitly in the renewal call.

For tools you’re cutting:

• Cancel at the account level immediately; don’t wait for the “convenient” end of a billing cycle unless you’re mid-contract.
• Export your data first — some vendors may restrict access to data or account features after cancellation, depending on their terms.
• Document the cancellation date and confirmation in your master tracker.

This entire step can be easier with financial tools that give businesses greater visibility over recurring software spending. Corporate card and expense-management platforms may offer features such as transaction monitoring, spending controls and subscription management, depending on the provider and plan. If you’re also reviewing business banking options, see our guide to business credit cards for another part of the spending picture.

Long-Term Prevention: Build a SaaS Buying Policy

An audit without a policy change may only provide a temporary fix — subscription creep can return if nothing structural changes.

A workable policy is short. Three rules cover most small businesses:

• Require manager approval for new software above a set monthly threshold, such as $50/month, routed through a single Slack channel or form — no exceptions for “quick trials.”
• All new SaaS purchases go on the corporate card, rather than personal cards for reimbursement. This can improve visibility at the point of purchase.
• Every tool gets an owner and a quarterly usage review. If a tool has no named owner, it gets cancelled by default at next renewal.

Pair this with a shared, single source of truth — a simple internal wiki page or a dedicated SaaS management tool — so the master list from Step 1 doesn’t decay back into invisibility six months from now. For businesses also reviewing wider operating costs, our expense tracking software guide covers tools that can help organise business spending.

What You Can Recover From a SaaS Audit

The savings from a SaaS audit will vary from business to business. The biggest opportunities usually come from cancelling unused subscriptions, removing inactive seats, consolidating overlapping tools and moving to plans that better match actual usage.

Set a recurring quarterly review, pull your master list and work through the same checks each time. Once the process is in place, keeping software spending under control becomes much easier.