9 Ways CloudEagle.ai ai Helps You Save Money on SaaS

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As businesses grow, managing the costs of multiple SaaS apps can quickly get out of control. Gartner predicts that by 2026, over 45% of all enterprise IT spending will be on cloud services.

If you don't find ways to optimize costs, there's a high chance that resources will be wasted over time. Many organizations end up overpaying for apps they don’t fully use, often due to inaccurate insights, inefficient license management, and missed renewals.

By taking simple yet effective steps, you can achieve significant cost savings. One such step is using a SaaS management and procurement platform like CloudEagle.ai. It offers a smart way to optimize SaaS spending by providing clear visibility into app usage, identifying unused licenses, and automating key processes to save both time and money.

Let’s know the specific ways CloudEagle.ai helps you save money on your SaaS costs.

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TL;DR

• CloudEagle.ai offers a unified view of all your SaaS apps, helping you track usage and costs across departments. This clarity lets you eliminate redundancies and ensure you're only paying for necessary apps.
• By identifying unused or underutilized licenses, CloudEagle.ai allows you to reclaim and reassign them, reducing wasted resources and ensuring you're not overpaying for unused licenses.
• CloudEagle.ai automates procurement workflows, helping you streamline vendor negotiations, secure better deals, and avoid manual processes that often lead to delays and overspending.
• Automated renewal reminders and price benchmarking help you avoid unexpected price hikes, ensuring you're always paying competitive rates and never missing a renewal deadline.
• CloudEagle.ai's forecasting feature predicts future SaaS costs based on past usage, enabling you to plan your budget more accurately and avoid unexpected costs.

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Why do organizations struggle to control resources and budgets?

Organizations often struggle to manage resources and control budgets for SaaS apps due to the following challenges:

1. Rapid adoption of multiple SaaS apps: According to CloudEagle.ai's procurement report, organizations use 400+ SaaS apps on average. The fast-paced adoption of new apps to meet specific team or project needs often leads to a scattered approach, making it challenging to track all subscriptions and their costs.

2. Lack of centralized visibility: Without a single platform to manage and monitor SaaS apps, organizations face a lack of visibility into their SaaS usage and spending. This makes it hard to assess if apps are being used efficiently or if overspending is happening.

3. Shadow IT and unauthorized subscriptions: When employees subscribe to apps without proper authorization from IT departments, it creates a situation known as "shadow IT." These unauthorized apps can lead to hidden costs and security risks, making it tough to control the organization’s SaaS ecosystem.

4. Difficulty tracking licenses and renewals: Managing licenses manually can lead to confusion and missed renewals. Organizations may end up overpaying for unused licenses or face sudden service disruptions when licenses are not renewed on time, affecting overall business operations.

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Ways CloudEagle.ai helps you save money on SaaS?

CloudEagle.ai helps organizations reduce SaaS costs by offering clear visibility, automation, and data-driven insights. By proactively managing and optimizing spending, it ensures every dollar brings value.

Here’s how CloudEagle.ai can help you save on SaaS spending:

1. Comprehensive SaaS spend visibility

One of the biggest challenges organizations face with SaaS is not having complete visibility into their usage. CloudEagle.ai solves this by giving you a unified view of all your SaaS apps and subscriptions. This helps align your SaaS spending with your business goals, empowering smarter decision-making.

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With this visibility, you can track feature-level usage across departments, spot redundancies, and ensure you're only paying for what you need. This detailed usage insight can also help us determine the right type of license for each department. For example, the marketing team might require a Business license for Loom, while the product team may only need a Basic one.

It integrates with over 500 SaaS apps, including your financial systems, to provide real-time data on your spending. This ensures you're always up-to-date on costs and can make adjustments as needed.

2. Harvesting unused licenses

Many organizations continue paying for SaaS licenses that aren't being used, wasting valuable resources. CloudEagle.ai helps by tracking your licenses and flagging those that are underutilized or unused.

For example, if an employee leaves the company but their license is still active, the platform will notify you so you can cancel it and avoid paying for something you’re not using. 

CloudEagle.ai identifies unused licenses and flags them. With CloudEagle.ai's license reclamation workflows, you can revoke licenses and harvest them for future use. This feature is especially helpful in dynamic workplaces where employees frequently change roles.

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CloudEagle.ai also allows you to downgrade licenses when they’re no longer fully utilized. If a team is only using the basic features of an app, you can switch them to a more affordable plan that fits their needs. This helps reduce costs without losing important functionality.

Discover how RingCentral leveraged CloudEagle.ai to save over $1.2 million in license harvesting, cutting costs, and optimizing operations with ease.

3. Application rationalization

As organizations scale, managing a growing list of SaaS applications becomes increasingly challenging. It's easy for redundancies to slip in, leading to unnecessary spending on multiple apps that serve the same purpose.

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CloudEagle.ai can help you streamline and rationalize your app portfolio by identifying these overlaps and consolidating your apps into more efficient and cost-effective solutions. For example, if your teams are using multiple project management apps, the platform pinpoints these redundancies and suggests opportunities to consolidate them into one app.

This not only reduces licensing costs but also simplifies your software stack, making it easier for teams to collaborate and ensuring you’re only paying for the essential features you truly need.

By consolidating your apps, you gain better control over your SaaS spend. Eliminating redundant apps helps save both time and money, allowing you to allocate resources more strategically. This enables you to invest in the apps that truly drive business value and maximize efficiency.

4. Automated procurement workflows

CloudEagle.ai’s procurement workflows make SaaS purchasing simple and cost-effective. It takes care of repetitive tasks like vendor research, comparing prices, and managing approvals, saving time and effort.

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Users can create customized intake request forms with no coding required, tailored to different needs, and quickly route them to the right stakeholders. The platform's centralized dashboard provides clear visibility into the procurement process.

Both requesters and stakeholders can track progress in real-time, making the process clearer and more efficient. CloudEagle.ai integrates with Slack to speed up approvals, allowing teams to act quickly and communicate better. This automation eliminates the need for manual tracking, simplifies procurement, and reduces the delays common in traditional methods.

Know the detailed customer success story of how Nowports achieved 34% savings by outsourcing procurement with CloudEagle.ai.

5. Price benchmarking for better deals

CloudEagle.ai makes it easy to ensure you're getting the best deal on your SaaS subscriptions with our price benchmarking feature. It compares your current prices to industry standards, giving you the leverage you need when negotiating with vendors.

If you're paying more than the average for a similar app, CloudEagle.ai will flag it, so you can renegotiate or explore more affordable options.

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What makes our price benchmarking so accurate is the extensive data we gather from over $2.5 billion in transactions, ongoing market analysis, and real-time insights from hundreds of SaaS vendors.

This ensures you’re always armed with the latest pricing trends. With CloudEagle.ai, you can rest easy knowing you're getting the best value and not overpaying for your software.

6. Automated renewal management

Automating renewal management ensures you never overpay for an app again and keeps you in control of your SaaS contracts. However, manually managing SaaS renewals can lead to missed deadlines and surprise price hikes.

CloudEagle.ai simplifies SaaS renewal management by automating workflows, eliminating the need to chase stakeholders or worry about missed deadlines. With real-time communication on Slack, you can create dedicated channels for clear and transparent collaboration.

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Stay ahead of renewals by proactively checking opt-out dates 30, 60, or 90 days before. If you're considering a vendor switch, quickly explore alternative options using the app directory. With renewal cards providing key data, CloudEagle.ai enables you to make informed decisions and negotiate the best terms, helping you avoid unnecessary costs.

7. Outsourced procurement and vendor negotiations

Standalone SaaS buying can be a time-consuming and tedious process, often taking an average of 40 hours per app for vendor research alone. With CloudEagle.ai’s outsourced procurement services, you save valuable time by allowing our experts to handle everything from negotiating fair pricing to finalizing deals.

CloudEagle.ai makes vendor negotiations much easier by giving you the insights you need to secure better deals. With clear data on how much you're using each app, you can negotiate for discounts or shorter contract terms if you're not fully using a particular app.

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On top of that, CloudEagle.ai offers expert negotiation support backed by years of experience and data from over 2.5 billion transactions. This gives you the leverage to get the best pricing and terms, ultimately saving your business money on SaaS subscriptions.

8. Forecasting and budget planning

Accurate forecasting and budget planning are essential for managing SaaS expenses as your business grows. CloudEagle.ai makes this easy by analyzing your past usage and predicting future costs.

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For example, if you're hiring more employees, it can estimate the extra software costs, so you can adjust your budget ahead of time and avoid any surprises. With real-time data on SaaS spending across teams and users, the app lets you track costs without having to check each app. 

By using CloudEagle.ai’s forecasting feature, you’ll be able to plan your costs ahead, understand where your money is going, and avoid unexpected costs. Also, you can set alerts to notify you if you're nearing or exceeding your budget, making it simple to stay on top of your spending.

9. Eliminating shadow IT

Shadow IT refers to software and apps that employees use without the knowledge or approval of the IT department, often leading to hidden costs, security risks, and missed renewals. This can easily lead to unnecessary spending as unauthorized apps get added to the mix without any oversight.

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CloudEagle.ai helps identify and put an end to shadow IT by providing automated alerts when new, unapproved apps are detected in your environment. With CloudEagle.ai, you get complete visibility into all the SaaS apps being used across your organization, ensuring that nothing slips through the cracks.

By flagging unauthorized apps, the platform helps you control spending, prevent potential compliance issues, and ensure that every app in your stack is properly tracked and managed. This proactive approach not only saves you money but also enhances security and compliance across your organization.

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Benefits of prioritizing SaaS cost optimization

Prioritizing SaaS cost optimization is a smart strategy that brings several advantages to organizations. Here's how it can make a significant impact:

1. Control escalating SaaS spending: It’s easy for costs to get out of hand when new apps are added without a plan. Regularly reviewing your usage and contracts helps keep costs in check, letting you cancel subscriptions or avoid unnecessary price hikes.

2. Reduce inefficiencies in license usage: Many companies pay for more licenses than they actually need. By tracking license usage, you can reduce excess licenses or switch to cheaper plans, saving money on underused apps.

3. Eliminate hidden costs and shadow IT: Sometimes employees use apps that haven’t been approved, which leads to untracked costs. SaaS cost optimization helps spot these hidden subscriptions, cut wasteful spending, and make sure all apps are aligned with your goals.

4. Stay within budget constraints: It’s easy to lose track of software spending, especially when it’s spread across different teams. Actively managing subscriptions helps avoid surprise costs, ensuring you stay on track with your budget and prevent overspending.

5. Maximize ROI: SaaS cost optimization makes sure you're using every app to its full potential. For example, if you’re only using a fraction of a CRM’s features, you could be wasting money. Optimization ensures you’re only paying for what you need, improving your ROI.

6. Improve financial forecasting accuracy: By analyzing past spending trends, you can predict future SaaS costs more accurately. This helps with budget planning and avoids any unexpected SaaS expenses.

7. Strengthen vendor negotiations: SaaS cost optimization gives you the data you need to negotiate better deals. If you’re not using all your licenses, you can approach vendors for better pricing or terms, helping you save money and get more favorable deals.

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Conclusion

CloudEagle.ai offers a straightforward and effective way to save money on your SaaS apps. It gives you clear insights into your usage and costs, helping you understand exactly where your money is going.

CloudEagle.ai provides smart recommendations based on real-time data, helping you optimize your SaaS stack. With all the information at your fingertips, you can make better decisions about your subscriptions, ensuring you're only paying for what you need. This helps you avoid overspending and stay within your budget.

Are you ready to take full control of your SaaS spend management?

Schedule a demo with CloudEagle.ai today and start managing your SaaS apps more cost-effectively.

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