How to Audit Your SaaS Stack: Cut Waste, Find Overlap, Save Money

Step 1: Find Everything You're Paying For

This sounds obvious but most companies don't have a complete list. Tools get signed up on personal cards, departmental cards, and forgotten free trials that auto-converted.

Sources to check:

• Company credit cards (filter for recurring charges)
• Bank statements (direct debits)
• IT department's existing licence list
• Ask each department head: "what tools does your team use that aren't on our IT list?"
• Check your email for "receipt" and "invoice" emails from SaaS vendors
• Finance's accounts payable for larger annual contracts

Create a simple spreadsheet: Tool Name | Monthly Cost | Annual Cost | Owner | Last Login Check Date

Step 2: Map Every Tool to a Job to Be Done

For each tool, write one sentence: "We use [Tool] to [do X] for [who]." If you can't write that sentence, the tool is a candidate for cancellation.

Categories to create:

• Communication (Slack, Teams, email)
• Project management (Asana, Monday, ClickUp, Notion)
• CRM and sales (Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive)
• Marketing automation (HubSpot, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign)
• Analytics (Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Amplitude)
• Security and access (1Password, Okta, Cloudflare)
• Dev tools (GitHub, Datadog, Jira, Linear)

Step 3: Find the Overlap

The most expensive mistake is paying for two tools that do the same thing. Common overlaps we find in audits:

• Project management × 2-3: Asana + Notion + ClickUp. Pick one.
• CRM + Marketing Hub: Salesforce + Marketo + HubSpot. HubSpot alone often covers all three.
• Video + docs: Loom + Confluence + Notion. Notion with embedded Looms replaces Confluence.
• Multiple password managers: LastPass enterprise + 1Password + personal Dashlane. Consolidate to one.

Step 4: Check Actual Usage

Most SaaS admin dashboards show last login dates. Go through your user list and flag:

• Seats for people who left the company
• Users who haven't logged in for 60+ days
• Licences assigned to roles that don't actually use the tool

Benchmark: If less than 60% of your paid seats logged in last month, you're overpaying on seat count.

Step 5: Score Each Tool (Keep / Negotiate / Cancel)

Rate each tool on a simple 1-5 scale across three dimensions:

• Usage: How often is it used, by how many people?
• Replaceability: How hard would it be to switch or remove?
• ROI: Does the value clearly exceed the cost?

Decision matrix:

• High usage + high ROI + hard to replace = Keep, negotiate better rate at renewal
• Low usage + replaceable = Cancel or downgrade to free tier
• Duplicate functionality = Consolidate — pick the higher-used one
• High cost + medium usage = Negotiate hard at renewal

Step 6: Act on the Findings

Cancellations: Set a 30-day wind-down period. Export data before cancelling. Check if there are annual contracts with cancellation penalties.

Downgrades: Contact the vendor. Many will let you downgrade mid-contract to avoid losing you entirely. Ask: "What's the minimum plan that keeps [specific feature we actually use]?"

Negotiations: For tools you're keeping, use renewal time to renegotiate. See our SaaS negotiation scripts for exact language.

What a Typical Audit Finds

Based on SaaSpare's analysis of 50+ SMB audits:

• Average number of tools found vs tools IT knew about: 24 vs 16 (33% shadow IT)
• Average unused licences discovered: 22% of total seats
• Average tools with functional overlap: 4.2 duplicate pairs
• Average annual saving from audit: $31,000 for a 50-person company