That’s the estimated global SaaS spend in 2024. Enterprises everywhere use hundreds of SaaS tools to boost productivity, streamline operations, and drive growth.
But as helpful as these tools are, managing them effectively can be challenging. Many organizations face “SaaS sprawl,” where licenses multiply, apps go unused, and costs rise unchecked.
That’s where SaaS management solutions come in. They streamline your software view, cut costs, and ensure security.
Here, we’ll cover the best options to help you take control of your SaaS portfolio and optimize every dollar spent.
TL;DR
- Managing SaaS applications is challenging, particularly for medium to large companies, where manual tracking of each app can lead to inefficiencies and added costs.
- SaaS management platforms simplify this process by monitoring app usage, eliminating duplicate or unused licenses, automating renewals, and bringing clarity and control to complex SaaS portfolios.
- Benefits include scalable management, enhanced operational efficiency, and secure compliance, helping organizations maximize value from every subscription as they grow.
- CloudEagle.ai stands out as a top choice, offering extensive features like app discovery, spend tracking, license and contract management, and renewal alerts specially designed to optimize SaaS management.
What is SaaS Management, and Why Does it Matter?
SaaS management is the process of tracking, optimizing, and securing all software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications within an organization. It covers tasks like license management, renewals, and compliance to streamline operations and control costs.
With a centralized system, you can avoid manually navigating these tasks across scattered platforms, which is essential for businesses as SaaS spending increases.
Without effective management, enterprises often experience common pitfalls: SaaS sprawl (a collection of forgotten or unused apps), security risks, and cost inefficiencies.
A recent report from Nexthink found that almost half of all installed software and licensed SaaS applications go unused, costing organizations around $44.7 million per month or $536.9 million per year.
This statistic alone emphasizes the need for a proper SaaS management solution to track every license and ensure every dollar is spent wisely.
How to Choose the Right SaaS Management Tool?
Selecting a SaaS management solution isn’t just about ticking boxes – it’s about choosing a tool to drive your organization's value.
Here are key factors to consider:
- Integration capabilities: Ensure the tool integrates seamlessly with your existing systems, such as HR, finance, and security platforms. For example, if your tool syncs with HR systems, you can automate access and deprovision as employees join or leave, minimizing the risk of inactive accounts.
- Cost-effectiveness: Look for a solution with measurable ROI. Ask for case studies or testimonials showing how the platform helped similar businesses save on underused licenses, streamline renewals, or boost productivity.
- User-friendliness: Choose an intuitive and easy platform for all team members to adopt. A new learning curve can delay implementation, while a user-friendly interface can help teams to make data-driven decisions quickly. Test a few tools and request demos with real-life use cases to see how well each meets your needs.
- Reporting and analytics: Data-driven insights into app usage, costs, and compliance help you make smarter decisions and prove value.
- Security and compliance: Verify that the platform can monitor unauthorized apps, enforce security protocols, and stay compliant with industry standards.
Top 13 SaaS Management Solutions
1. CloudEagle.ai
CloudEagle.ai stands out as a SaaS management and procurement solution, providing organizations with detailed visibility into their entire SaaS ecosystem. It’s designed to help teams identify cost-saving opportunities, track usage, and automate workflows around renewals and deprovisioning.
This platform helps enterprises discover, optimize, govern, and renew their SaaS applications with the help of 500+ direct integrations, a team of SaaS buying experts, and robust security features.
Enterprises like RingCentral, ICEYE, and Shiji trust CloudEagle.ai to streamline their SaaS management, access governance, expedite their procurement, and realize significant savings thought SaaS optimization.
Features:
App and spend discovery: CloudEagle.ai’s app and spend discovery identifies every SaaS app across your organization, even those bought without IT knowledge.
With over 500+ integrations, including SSO, finance, and browser extensions, it provides a complete picture of all active applications and their associated costs, helping you eliminate hidden expenses and shadow IT.
Smart license management: CloudEagle.ai tracks and optimizes your software licenses, ensuring you only pay for what’s truly needed.
This feature monitors usage patterns to reallocate or reclaim underutilized licenses, ensuring you aren’t wasting resources on unused subscriptions. License reclamation workflows are also available to automate this process.
Stay ahead with contract control: Managing renewals and contracts can be complex. Contract control simplifies this by maintaining a calendar of renewal dates and sending reminders well in advance.
Automatic workflows assign renewal tasks to stakeholders, helping you negotiate better rates and avoid last-minute renewals, which often lead to higher costs.
Efficient license harvesting: License harvesting is essential to maximizing your investments. CloudEagle.ai automates the process of reclaiming inactive or unused licenses, allowing you to reassign them where needed most.
This feature supports effective license utilization, preventing unnecessary costs and ensuring that every dollar spent on software is used well.
Insightful SaaS budgeting: Stay on top of your SaaS costs with insightful analytics. This feature provides detailed budgeting tools that let you forecast expenses, track actual costs against budgets, and identify areas where you can adjust spending.
These insights are valuable for finance and procurement teams aiming to keep SaaS costs under control.
Spend optimization: Optimizing spending takes your cost management further by pinpointing underutilized applications and providing actionable insights on how to streamline spending.
The platform’s AI-powered analysis identifies duplicate apps or low-usage subscriptions, giving you the data you need to make informed, cost-saving decisions.
Benchmarking for better decisions: CloudEagle.ai gives you visibility into pricing standards and best practices across your SaaS stack. This data helps you negotiate better deals and make informed procurement decisions, ensuring that you get the best value from your software investments.
Proactive renewal alerts: CloudEagle.ai sends notifications up to 90 days in advance, allowing ample time to renegotiate, adjust terms, or even cancel subscriptions. This approach helps you control your SaaS spending and avoid unplanned costs.
Vendor research: Vendor research helps you data-driven when selecting vendors. CloudEagle.ai’s AI-driven recommendation engine consolidates vendor reviews, costs, and feature comparisons in one place, saving you time on external research and ensuring you choose vendors that align with your needs and budget.
Outsourced procurement: Free up your procurement team’s time by letting CloudEagle handle the complexity of vendor research and negotiation. With expert negotiators who know the SaaS landscape inside and out, CloudEagle secures top-tier software at competitive prices, allowing your team to focus on high-priority initiatives.
By outsourcing SaaS purchasing, organizations can realize significant savings and gain access to the best deals with minimal effort.
Approval workflows: Streamline the entire procurement process with CloudEagle’s no-code workflows. Create custom intake request forms for every purchase type, automate routing to the right stakeholders, and enable real-time tracking—all from a centralized dashboard.
With Slack integration, employees can raise, track, and approve procurement requests seamlessly, ensuring efficient and transparent procurement without the burden of manual tracking.
Self-service app catalog: Request access to approved applications directly without leaving Slack. CloudEagle.ai streamlines the process by allowing employees to find, request, and receive app access instantly, cutting down on IT workload and speeding up access to essential tools.
Seamless onboarding and offboarding: No more stress every time you onboard or offboard a new hire.
With this SaaS management solution, new hires receive access to the right applications from day one, while departing employees have access promptly revoked. This streamlined workflow boosts security and ensures compliance across the board.
Access and Compliance: This feature helps protect your organization from potential breaches and ensures that access policies align with industry standards, whether it's enforcing security protocols or monitoring unauthorized app usage.
Why it stands out:
With over 500 integrations, CloudEagle.ai is particularly useful for large organizations with various tech stacks. Its automation and deep analytics make it a top choice for companies looking to streamline costs and enhance security in their SaaS portfolio.
Want to see how it works in action? Edge, a global hiring platform, used CloudEagle to achieve complete visibility and uncover cost-per-license insights, helping them optimize their SaaS investments.
Pricing: CloudEagle.ai offers three pricing modules – SaaS management, SaaS governance, and SaaS procurement, with prices ranging from $2000 to $2500.
2. Zylo
Zylo offers a SaaS operations platform that optimizes SaaS spend and ensures compliance. It provides visibility into all SaaS applications and detailed insights into usage and costs.
Features:
- SaaS discovery for visibility into all applications.
- License optimization based on usage tracking.
- Integration with finance and IT tools to streamline management.
Pricing: Pricing is based on company size and specific requirements.
3. Torii
Torii is an end-to-end SaaS management platform that excels in application discovery, spend management, and automation. It’s particularly well-suited for teams that need automation to reduce manual SaaS management tasks.
Features:
- Comprehensive application discovery and insights into SaaS spend.
- Automated workflows for onboarding, offboarding, and renewals.
- Budgeting tools for real-time expense tracking.
Pricing: Available upon request from Torii’s sales team.
4. Productiv
Productiv leverages AI-powered insights to help businesses understand app usage and engagement across their organization. It’s an ideal choice for those focused on maximizing the ROI of their SaaS portfolio by tracking and analyzing usage patterns.
Features:
- Detailed metrics on user engagement for every app.
- Customizable analytics dashboards for monitoring spend and usage.
- Integrates with procurement and financial systems for smooth reporting.
Pricing: Contact Productiv for a demo and personalized pricing.
5. Vendr
Vendr focuses on SaaS procurement and vendor management, specializing in getting companies the best deals on their SaaS contracts. With a vast repository of SaaS pricing data, Vendr assists with purchasing and renewals, ensuring fair pricing.
Features:
- Benchmarking tools for comparing prices with industry standards.
- Vendor management and contract negotiation support.
- Automated renewal management to avoid surprises.
Pricing: Starts at $36,000 per year for companies with substantial SaaS spending, with packages that scale with usage.
6. BetterCloud
BetterCloud is a powerful platform for IT teams looking to secure, automate, and optimize their SaaS applications. It’s highly regarded for its ability to streamline SaaS operations and improve security across the organization.
Features:
- Automated workflows for onboarding and offboarding users.
- Security features like content scanning and policy enforcement.
- Compliance monitoring for data protection.
Pricing: Contact BetterCloud for a quote tailored to your organization’s requirements.
7. Zluri
Zluri provides IT and security teams with a modern platform for SaaS management, access control, and compliance. It’s designed to help companies discover, manage, and automate access to all SaaS applications, reducing security risks and costs.
Features:
- Automated discovery of SaaS applications and shadow IT.
- Access management to streamline onboarding/offboarding and enforce access policies.
- Compliance reporting and audit trails for better governance.
Pricing: Custom pricing based on company size and specific requirements, available upon request.
8. Flexera One
Flexera One is a comprehensive IT asset management solution, offering cloud cost optimization and SaaS management capabilities. It’s particularly suitable for enterprises with large and complex software portfolios.
Features:
- Discovery and inventory management for all SaaS and cloud applications.
- Tools to eliminate redundant apps and manage vendor contracts.
- Usage analytics and cost tracking for better budget control.
Pricing: Contact Flexera for pricing based on your organization’s needs.
9. Airbase
Airbase primarily focuses on expense management and offers tools to help companies manage their SaaS spend, automate accounts payable, and streamline procurement processes.
Features:
- Guided procurement and approval workflows.
- Corporate cards and expense management tools to control spending.
- Budget tracking and spending analytics for financial planning.
Pricing: Available upon request, with packages tailored to the company size and scope of services.
10. Cledara
Cledara is designed for finance and IT teams who want visibility and control over SaaS spending. It combines SaaS management with payments, allowing companies to manage subscriptions and make informed purchasing decisions.
Features:
- Virtual cards for SaaS payments, reducing payment risks.
- SaaS directory to monitor usage and renewals.
- Alerts for subscription renewals and budget tracking.
Pricing: The basic plan starts at £75 per month, with additional features in higher-tier plans.
11. Apptio Cloudability
Apptio Cloudability is a cloud cost management platform that helps organizations optimize their cloud spend. While its primary focus is cloud infrastructure, it includes features for managing SaaS costs.
Features:
- Cost allocation and showback/chargeback capabilities for cloud and SaaS costs.
- Rightsizing recommendations for efficient resource use.
- Customizable dashboards and analytics for tracking cloud spend.
Pricing: Pricing is based on cloud spend volume, starting at $54,000 annually for $150,000 in monthly AWS spend.
12. Trelica
Trelica is a SaaS management platform that supports IT teams in managing licenses, tracking spending, and automating SaaS workflows. It’s known for its strong focus on app discovery and usage optimization.
Features:
- Continuous app discovery and shadow IT monitoring.
- Spend analysis to identify cost-saving opportunities.
- Workflow automation for onboarding, offboarding, and compliance.
Pricing: Starts at $299 per month for up to 100 employees; contact Trelica for enterprise pricing.
13. Sastrify
Saastrify is a procurement-focused SaaS management platform that emphasizes cost optimization and contract management. It provides procurement insights and vendor negotiation support.
Features:
- SaaS procurement workflows and pricing benchmarks.
- Renewal calendar and alerts to avoid surprise renewals.
- Vendor negotiation support to secure better rates.
Pricing: Pricing plans are available in three tiers—Flex, Professional, and Platinum—with a free trial available for Flex. Contact Saastrify for specific pricing details.
SaaS Management Made Easy with CloudEagle.ai
Ready to streamline SaaS management?
These top tools provide the clarity, control, and cost-saving features that make managing software applications easier and more effective. With streamlined license tracking, automated renewals, and proactive security measures, these platforms ensure your team spends less time on tiring tasks and more on growth.
With CloudEagle.ai, you can take your SaaS management strategy even further.
Designed to optimize your SaaS stack, it comes with 500+ integrations that provide complete app visibility, detailed usage insights for effective SaaS optimization, and automated workflows for procurement, renewals, onboarding/offboarding, and app access reviews. It's an all-in-one platform to manage your entire SaaS lifecycle.
The result?
Every dollar spent on software goes toward driving value, not wasted licenses – keeping your business lean, efficient, and secure.
FAQs
1. What is the SaaS management system?
A SaaS management system helps organizations control and optimize their software subscriptions by tracking usage, automating renewals, and securing applications. This system reduces wasted spending, improves compliance, and enhances operational efficiency.
2. What are SaaS solutions?
SaaS solutions are cloud-based applications that deliver software services over the Internet. They allow users to access programs like CRM, accounting, or project management tools without installing them on-premises. They provide flexibility, scalability, and reduce maintenance costs.
3. What is the SaaS management strategy?
A SaaS management strategy is a structured approach to managing all software-as-a-service applications within an organization, focusing on cost efficiency, compliance, and productivity. It involves optimizing usage, automating renewals, and improving security across applications.
4. What is a SaaS managed service?
SaaS managed services offer dedicated support for managing cloud-based software, including setup, monitoring, and optimization. They ensure SaaS applications are secure, cost-effective, and tailored to specific business needs.