When the Covid-19 pandemic forced organizations to shift to a remote workforce, there was tremendous growth in SaaS usage to support a growing body of remote and hybrid employees. However, the current recession is creating a lot of economic uncertainty, causing more organizations to pare back their SaaS budgets. 

Companies reportedly waste up to 35% of their cloud and software spend, with redundant apps making up a significant portion of wasted funds. Having the right software and tools is critical for growth, but it’s important to balance that growth with smart budgeting, especially during uncertain economic times. 

The key to better SaaS budgeting is understanding your SaaS usage, accounting for the right tools in your budget planning, and prioritizing the tools your team needs most. 

Understanding your SaaS usage

On average, companies have over 250 apps in their tech stacks, but use less than half of them regularly. It can be difficult to know which apps are essential and which ones are redundant without understanding how your team is using them. That’s where SaaS usage tracking comes in. 

Tracking your team’s SaaS usage helps you:

• Understand how your team uses your tools
• Avoid unnecessary spending
• Consolidate your tech stack
• Create more efficient processes

Use GoLinks to track SaaS usage

GoLinks can help you optimize your tech stack with visibility into your teams’ app usage with trackable, short links to all of your tools and software platforms. With GoLinks’ analytics platform, you can see which tools your team uses most. 

More importantly, you can easily scan which tools aren’t being used within your organization. For tools with low usage, pay attention to who is using them. Some tools may be essential for smaller teams, even if they aren’t being utilized company wide. With GoLinks analytics, you can explore app usage by role to quickly see what teams are utilizing different tools. 

Using GoLinks to track your SaaS usage can help reduce unnecessary spend and revenue leakage. The two major causes of revenue leakage are productivity loss and unnecessary SaaS spend. GoLinks helps with both, by saving your team time searching for tools and information and providing detailed visibility into your tech stack usage. 

Tips for SaaS Budget Planning

If the uncertainty of the current economic climate is making you think twice about your SaaS budget, you’re not alone. The good news is, there are a few steps you can take to consolidate your tech stack and make the most out of your SaaS budget moving forward.

Conduct a SaaS audit. 

Take a close look at your tech stack to identify redundant or underused tools. Are there isolated teams using different tools that do the same thing? Are you using tools that integrate with each other? Gather as much information as you can about what tools are in your tech stack and how your team is using them.

Negotiate contracts with your vendors. 

Reach out to your SaaS vendors to see if there are smaller subscriptions available to meet your needs. You may be able to secure better pricing and terms on the tools you’re currently using. 

Prioritize essential tools and services. 

There are tons of tools available, but not all of them are essential to your team’s functions. Prioritize the tools your team needs in order to do their jobs effectively and efficiently. 

Maximize tool utilization. 

If you’re investing in incredible tools, but your team isn’t using them to their fullest extent, allocate resources for training and onboarding. This ensures that your team is fully utilizing your tech stack and improves process consistency across teams.

Tools for SaaS Budget Planning

While it may seem counterintuitive to recommend more SaaS tools while you’re paring back your tech stack, these four tools can help you plan a lean SaaS budget and get the biggest bang for your buck.

GoLinks

GoLinks allows you to track SaaS usage in our analytics dashboard, giving you visibility into your entire tech stack to help you consolidate, prioritize, and reduce spend. This tool also helps you boost productivity and save time with easier workflows. 

Cloudability SaaS

Cloudability SaaS helps you understand, manage, and optimize your SaaS portfolio, enabling your team to make data-driven investment decisions without disrupting business performance.

Maxio

Maxio, formerly SaaSOptics, is a financial operations platform that enables B2B SaaS teams to calculate revenue and manage SaaS subscriptions and billing. 

ChartMogul

ChartMogul’s analytics platform calculates all of your core SaaS metrics by importing, cleaning, and analyzing data from your billing sources to help you forecast SaaS revenue.

Gain SaaS usage visibility with GoLinks

Your team needs SaaS tools in order for your company to grow, but uncertainty in the economy requires a more agile approach to SaaS budget planning. GoLinks is a powerful tool to help you track SaaS usage and reduce unnecessary spend. Schedule a demo today to learn more.