What does your process for managing SaaS spend look like today? Chances are, it involves several different spreadsheets, cross-referencing data from multiple systems, and manually validating data. Of course, when you’re done with all of that, the data is already out of date given how quickly your organization’s SaaS footprint changes.
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There’s a better way. Earlier this year, we introduced new SaaS spend discovery capabilities that automate the process of collecting up to two years of historical SaaS spend. Yes, you read that correctly. Instead of manually collecting data from a bunch of different systems, you can have a continuously updated record of SaaS spend within minutes of starting a free trial of Nudge Security.
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I’m sure you can easily connect the dots to understand how that will help you save time and money. But, here are a few specific ways Nudge Security makes this process faster, easier, and manageable at scale.
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Yes, we mentioned this in the intro, but in the words of the White Stripes, it bears repeating.
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Nudge Security has extended our patented SaaS discovery method to include SaaS spend data from invoices in your users’ mailboxes, uncovering SaaS expenses that may not be captured by financial software.
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Now, Nudge Security discovers and analyzes invoices from the last two years to extract spend data such as billing frequency, amount, renewal date, billing owner, cost center, and most recent transaction, powering the platform’s cost optimization insights. For additional context, we’ve added an inventory of invoice details we’ve uncovered for each app, including information like invoice ID, date, payment status, payee, and description of services.
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These new discovery capabilities enable SaaS spend forecasting that accounts for previously-unknown spend and changes in SaaS adoption. You can track your own estimated annual budget for each app alongside Nudge Security’s record of historical spend and projected spend based on actual usage. Nudge Security also calculates each app’s average cost per user, helping you prioritize SaaS deployment and investment decisions.
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It’s one thing to know that your organization uses three different project management suites, but before you can reduce SaaS sprawl by trimming apps or licenses, you need to understand who is using which platform and for what purpose.
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Nudge Security makes this easy. For each app used in your organization, you can see a Venn diagram illustrating user overlap across similar apps, and you can click into the diagram to see the list of overlapping users across each combination of apps. The bigger the circle, the more accounts exist for that application. With this info, you can better understand which tools are heavily used and likely essential to productivity, and which would be candidates to be phased out.
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Because Nudge Security discovers spend data for each app, you can gain an understanding of the relative cost of similar options and look for opportunities to reduce SaaS spend. While finance or procurement systems may have SaaS spend data, they lack the context on usage and security. Nudge Security brings together usage, spend and security data all in one place so you can assess and prioritize consolidation opportunities more easily.
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According to Gartner, a staggering 25% of all SaaS subscriptions are either underutilized or excessively deployed, resulting in significant opportunities for cost reduction. The tricky part is finding those opportunities for savings, which can take some serious digging that most IT and security teams don't have time for.
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Good news: we've done your homework for you.
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Nudge Security's cost management dashboard surfaces inactive and abandoned accounts associated with paid apps so you can reclaim costly licenses and redistribute them, or right-size your contract. There’s even an automated playbook to help you orchestrate account removals by enlisting app owners across the business in the clean up so you can scale SaaS governance efforts without drowning in manual tasks.
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And, Nudge Security will also show you a list of paid apps with just one single user that may have slipped under the radar so you can prioritize what are likely quick wins for reducing your SaaS footprint.
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Most organizations are well into the process of 2025 budget planning and are undoubtedly having to make hard decisions about what stays and what goes. Now’s the time to assess your current technology investments, identify where you have redundancies, and make a plan to recapture wasted spend and deploy it elsewhere (or improve the bottom line).
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Within minutes of starting a free trial of Nudge Security, you’ll have a full inventory of all SaaS apps, accounts and users, along with the spend data and helpful analysis described above. With a full view of spend, usage, and security posture all in one place, you can make data-informed decisions for 2025 budgeting, and eliminate wasted spend in the process.
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Start a free trial today to see for yourself.
