$915,000. Every Year. Gone.
That's not a typo or a cherry-picked stat. According to Vertice's 2025 analysis, organizations with 100–500 employees waste an average of $915,000 per year on unused and underutilized software subscriptions.
Let that sink in. Nearly a million dollars annually — on tools nobody opens.
Where the Money Goes
The waste breaks down into three buckets:
1. Unused Licenses (the obvious one)
30–53% of SaaS licenses go unused in any given month. That's not "underutilized." That's licenses that literally nobody logs into. You're paying for ghost users.
2. Feature Waste (the hidden one)
The average company uses a fraction of the features in their SaaS tools. You bought the Enterprise tier because you needed one feature. You're paying for 99 others. Every month.
3. Duplicate Tools (the embarrassing one)
The average company has 15 duplicative online training apps, 11 project management tools, and 10 team collaboration apps. Not because anyone planned it that way. Because every team bought what they needed without checking what already existed.
The Per-Employee Math
SaaS spend per employee hit $4,830 in 2025 — up 21.9% from the previous year. For a 200-person company, that's nearly $1 million in total SaaS spend. And at least 30% of that is waste.
The industries with the highest per-employee SaaS spend:
If you're in healthcare or tech with 200+ employees, your SaaS waste is likely well over $1M annually.
What Actually Works
Step 1: Audit. You can't fix what you can't see. Most companies genuinely don't know what they're spending on SaaS. Shadow IT and decentralized purchasing mean the real number is 2–3x what finance thinks it is.
Step 2: Eliminate the obvious waste. Kill unused licenses. Consolidate duplicate tools. This alone recovers 15–25% of spend.
Step 3: Replace, don't just optimize. SaaS optimization platforms (Zylo, Vendr) help you negotiate better deals. But you're still renting. For your highest-cost tools — especially workflow automation, internal admin tools, BI dashboards, and CRM overlays — a custom replacement built for your specific workflow can save 73% over three years.
The Replacement ROI
Here's a concrete example:
| SaaS (3 years) | Custom Build (3 years) | |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $78,000 | $48,000 (build + maintenance) |
| Year 2 | $85,800 (10% increase) | $8,000 (maintenance only) |
| Year 3 | $94,380 (10% increase) | $8,000 (maintenance only) |
| Total | $258,180 | $64,000 |
| Savings | $194,180 (75%) |
That's one tool. Most mid-size companies have 5–10 tools that are candidates for replacement. The compounding savings are enormous.
Want to know exactly which tools in your stack are wasting money? Get your free SaaS audit. We'll show you the numbers in 24 hours.