SaaS spending is projected to grow by 17.9% to a total of $197 billion in 2023, representing a significant portion of enterprise IT budgets. Gartner predicts that, by 2025, over 95% of organizations will use a SaaS management platform to streamline their SaaS operations and reduce costs.

SaaS management platforms provide centralized control and visibility over an organization's SaaS ecosystem, enabling businesses to manage and optimize their investments effectively.

In this blog post, we will talk about the following:

• Why do companies need SaaS management?
• The features of SaaS management platforms
• Best SaaS management platforms
• Considerations when choosing a SaaS management platform

Why do companies need SaaS management platforms?

SaaS management platforms are tools that offer a centralized solution to gain visibility into SaaS usage, streamline workflows and ensure compliance. 

With the rapid adoption of SaaS applications, businesses require robust management platforms to drive efficiency and control expenses. 

SaaS management platforms streamline onboarding and offboarding processes, making provisioning and deprovisioning user access to SaaS applications easier. 

Moreover, these platforms enforce security policies and help maintain compliance with licensing agreements, safeguarding sensitive data and ensuring regulatory adherence.

Features of SaaS management platforms

Some of the features of SaaS management platforms include:

1. SaaS discovery and inventory

SaaS management tools simplify the process of finding the ideal software solution by providing an intuitive interface. 

For instance, Spendflo enables businesses to catalog and analyze their SaaS applications, gaining a comprehensive overview of their software ecosystem. Through its vendor risk assessment feature, the tool helps collaborate with vendors and review necessary documents, flag issues and make informed vendor selections.

2. Usage analytics and optimization

These platforms analyze SaaS usage patterns and provide insights to identify unused licenses and recommend cost-saving measures. 

Spendflo's powerful analytics engine goes a step further by providing detailed usage analytics and actionable recommendations, enabling businesses to achieve significant cost optimization and drive up to 30% savings on its SaaS expenses.

3. Cost tracking and allocation

SaaS management platforms track and allocate costs associated with different SaaS tools, enabling businesses to monitor and control their spending. 

Their robust cost tracking and allocation capabilities provide real-time visibility into SaaS costs, empowering organizations to achieve cost transparency.

4. Contract and license management

Businesses can also manage SaaS contracts and licenses via SaaS management platforms, ensuring compliance with terms and avoiding unnecessary penalties or overages. 

Spendflo offers a consolidated contract administration solution that streamlines contract management processes such as renewals and cancellations.

5. Security and compliance management

SaaS management tools offer security controls, data privacy features and compliance monitoring to protect sensitive information and meet regulatory requirements. It also safeguards data integrity and ensures adherence to industry standards and regulations.

6. Integration with other systems

SaaS management platforms seamlessly integrate with other systems, such as identity and access management tools, to streamline user provisioning and enhance security measures. 

Businesses can use them with their existing IT infrastructure, simplifying user management and improving the overall security posture.

7. Automated workflows

Spendflo streamlines the software approval process with its efficient workflow system to authorize SaaS tool purchases. Onboarding and offboarding employees are automated by SaaS management platforms, thus reducing manual effort and minimizing the risk of errors.  Avoid last minute negotiations with timely renewal reminders. 

Businesses can design and customize approval workflows and define roles and grant access based on organizational needs.  

Best SaaS management platforms

Here are the top 17 SaaS management platforms to maximize the value of SaaS investments:

1. Spendflo

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Spendflo is an intuitive SaaS management platform designed to help companies efficiently identify, optimize and secure their SaaS tools, resulting in significant cost savings of up to 30%. Spendflo analyses your SaaS stack to gauge potential savings. Based on this analysis, Spendflo helps negotiate SaaS contracts to right-size your spends. 

It simplifies request submission, contract renewal and vendor communication. The platform also provides complete visibility into tools, contracts and security documents, allowing informed decision-making based on benchmark data and organizational insights. Spendflo also allows you to leverage employee sentiment, thereby increasing the adoption of purchased SaaS tools. 

By integrating with key enterprise systems and pooling in all your SaaS spend and usage data, Spendflo ensures a smooth experience for users. Trustworthy vendor relationships and easy payment options further enhance the platform's value. 

Top features

• Optimizes subscriptions to minimize expenses and identify cost-saving opportunities
• Intuitive interface and trust scores
• Efficient contract and vendor management with consolidated administration solutions
• Effortless approval workflow design
• Analysis of customer feedback with the sentiment hub
• Save up to 30% with assisted SaaS buying software

Pricing

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Rating - 4.7 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐⭐️(70 Reviews on G2)

Checkout Customer Case Studies on how Spendflo is helping companies  save thousands on their SaaS Procurement

1. Learn how Drip Capital achieves 4X ROI & saves 100+ hours in Procurement
2. How Airmeet achieved 3X faster procurement and SaaS spending optimization.

2. Vendr

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Vendr helps enterprises effectively manage subscription services, cut costs, automate processes and streamline vendor administration. By analyzing their current or past year's SaaS purchases, Vendr provides insights on potential cost savings. Companies simply provide details such as supplier names, annual amounts and renewal dates. 

Vendr then helps align SaaS spending with overall budget goals, making room for new purchases and establishing a compliant buying process. Leveraging their extensive experience with thousands of SaaS transactions, Vendr negotiates fair prices, resulting in reduced unit rates, increased users or plan tiers and improved payment terms. 

Top features

• Centralizes subscription management for easy tracking and control
• Optimizes subscriptions to minimize expenses and identify cost-saving opportunities
• Automates subscription tasks like renewals, cancellations and vendor communications

Pricing

• Starter: starting price of $36,000 for companies with $400K - $1M annual SaaS spend
• Growth: starting price of $78,000 for companies with $1M-$5M annual SaaS spend
• Enterprise: starting price of $120,000 for companies with $5M+ annual SaaS spend

Related Read: Explore more on Vendr vs Spendflo

3. Torii 

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Torii provides insights into application usage, integrates with popular tools like Salesforce and Slack and automates tasks. Users can monitor usage, costs and identify optimization opportunities. 

Through automation, Torii streamlines processes such as onboarding, offboarding and contract renewals. It covers various applications, from CRM to communication tools, ensuring continuous updates and identifying unusual financial activities. 

Torii serves as a comprehensive documentation center, providing detailed information on tool functionalities, billing contacts, payment methods, user details and contract statuses. 

Top features

• Proactively identify and notify administrators of SaaS-related threats, issues, incidents and requests
• Grant administrators control over SaaS privileges and access for enhanced security and compliance
• Efficiently manage SaaS contracts with features for renewal, pricing tracking and term analysis

Pricing

Contact the sales team. 

4. Zluri

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Zluri offers enterprise IT professionals a single console to efficiently manage, discover, ensure compliance and optimize their SaaS solutions. Users gain a holistic view of their SaaS environment, allowing them to identify redundant applications, effectively manage licenses and automate the onboarding and offboarding processes. 

The SaaS management platform provides insights into both managed SaaS tools and shadow IT, allowing organizations to create automations for provisioning and de-provisioning. Zluri ensures control and full visibility of all SaaS applications used within the organization, facilitating effective budget management and transaction tracking.

Top features

• Manage app visibility, roles, propose apps, real-time updates and automate workflows
• Streamline onboarding, offboarding and provide accurate suggestions for new employees
• Granular app information, removal of unapproved apps, deep insights into SaaS consumption and elimination of duplicates

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Pricing

Zluri offers three plans–Growth, Scale and Enterprise. However, pricing is hidden.

Related Read: Explore more on Zluri vs Spendflo

5. Cledara

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Cledara simplifies SaaS management by providing a single platform for purchasing, administration and cancellations. With the integration of virtual cards API, Cledara streamlines the onboarding process, eliminating the need for manual reviews. 

Through the virtual card ledger, Cledara efficiently issues virtual credit cards, enabling the creation of a primary card for the entire business and sub-cards for individual SaaS subscriptions. This approach allows for flexible spending limits, with the primary account having a high spend limit while dynamically allocating limits to sub-cards. 

With just a few clicks, administrators can control spending at the virtual card, user or subscription level, resulting in improved compliance processes and significant time savings. 

Cledara's adoption of Bond's solution for software subscription management improves efficiency and ensures better compliance.

Top features

• Effortlessly track all subscriptions, including SaaS products and cloud services, in one place
• Categorize expenses automatically and gain insights into software subscription costs
• Set and manage budgets for different software subscriptions and receive alerts when approaching limits

Pricing

• Essential: $271 per month 
• Plus: $542 per month
• Pro: Contact the sales team

6. Lumos

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Lumos centralizes SaaS app management and governance. Designed for both innovative startups and established enterprises, it provides IT, Security, Compliance and Finance teams with complete visibility into app usage, entitlements, spending and actionable insights. 

This self-service platform enhances efficiency by reducing support tickets and accelerating access requests and approvals. It offers visibility into SaaS applications and spend, automates workflows for eliminating unused licenses and streamlines the access process. 

It also provides an efficient and secure solution for managing access requests and licenses, enabling companies to streamline processes and reduce manual workload.

Top features

• Streamline IT processes, reduce tickets and improve productivity with self-service capabilities
• Enhance security by granting appropriate and time-limited cloud and app access
• Optimize costs by eliminating unnecessary vendors and improving renewal management

Pricing

Contact the sales team.

7. Productiv

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Productiv enhances SaaS app engagement and adoption while optimizing costs. By enabling frictionless fulfillment experiences, it increases employee app adoption. 

It utilizes data-driven app governance and operations, employing intelligent automation and benchmarks for informed decision-making. 

With proactive governance, it analyzes app engagement and feature usage to determine the ROI of applications. Through this approach, it empowers teams to make better-informed decisions and maximize the value of their app investments.

Productiv enables enterprises to achieve significant cost savings, with an average business of up to 4,000 employees potentially saving $2.7M in total app spend. By combining extensive feature-level app engagement data, vendor contract information and organizational context, Productiv ensures companies extract maximum value from their SaaS investments.

The platform facilitates collaboration between IT, finance, and procurement teams by leveraging the power of data. 

Top features

• Identify and address non-compliant SaaS applications with ease
• Streamline app discovery by identifying and comparing apps with similar functionalities
• Monitor and manage SaaS expenses and ensure compliance in real time

Pricing

Contact the sales team.

8. Axios Systems Assyst

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Axios Systems is a global IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions software, which is designed to align with ITIL processes, delivering continuous value to organizations worldwide. 

With Axios assyst, teams can collaborate effectively, streamline service delivery and achieve business goals. The platform enables the rapid creation of new services, faster service delivery and end-to-end lifecycle management. 

Enterprises can leverage ITSM tools to harness cross-platform automation and machine learning to drive transformative change. By analyzing and resolving issues using AI-powered bots, businesses can free up resources, eliminate mundane tasks and focus on innovation and digital transformation.

Axios assyst serves as a primary service desk tool, supporting various functionalities such as change management, problem management and asset management. Its deployment has enabled enterprises to streamline and enhance their IT service management processes effectively.

Top features

• Automate repetitive tasks to free up IT teams for more impactful work
• Empower your workforce with digital capabilities and foster collaboration
• Create a one-stop shop for all internal services, improving employee experience

Pricing

Contact the sales team.

9. Zylo

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Zylo helps companies discover and monitor various SaaS tools, enhancing staff productivity and ensuring compliance. The platform streamlines procurement processes and provides data-driven insights to eliminate redundant solutions. 

It also helps manage SaaS licenses, create a renewal calendar, foster IT collaboration, enhance security measures, control costs and drive disruptive innovation to prepare for future growth.

Zylo's extensive range of integrations with popular platforms and applications such as Dropbox, Aha!, Asana, DocuSign, GSuite, Office 365, GitHub, Onelogin, PagerDuty, Zoom and Zendesk enable users to maximize the value of their mission-critical SaaS investments.

Top features:

• Scans for underused software and shadow IT, removing unnecessary licenses for cost optimization
• Optimizes portfolio based on priority, monitors SaaS spending and improves efficiency and user satisfaction
• Centralizes SaaS insights to empower data-driven procurement decisions for the procurement team

Pricing

Contact the sales team.

Related Read: Explore more on Zylo competitors and alternatives for 2023

10. ActivTrak

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ActivTrak is a SaaS management platform that provides visibility over which tools are being used by employees, how often and how they impact productivity.  

Top features

• Customize or automate the classification of common SaaS applications and websites within its platform
• Shores up security gaps
• Reduces application management overhead
• Combines workforce activity data with key applications and data sources to understand the broader business context

Pricing

• Free
• Essentials: $10 per user per month (billed annually)
• Professional: $17 per user per month (billed annually)
• Enterprise: Contact the sales team

11. Quolum

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Quolum empowers IT and finance teams to effectively manage their SaaS app expenses. Enterprises can proactively prevent excess spending on SaaS applications. Users can identify and eliminate overpaying for underused and redundant apps, resulting in significant cost savings. 

Finance and accounting teams can easily locate invoices on the dashboard for efficient reconciliation. 

The platform manages pro-ration letters, refund invoices, and payment receipts. It serves as a centralized repository for contracts, storing structured meta-data such as vendor details, renewal dates, cancellation windows and legal information. 

Quolum tracks costs, cancels trials and consolidates vendor invoices into a single bill. It also offers detailed reports for product, team or departmental analysis, facilitating effective planning for recurrent purchases and renewals.

Top features

• Complete record of all SaaS apps, licenses, vendors, users and compliance data
• Holistic app discovery to identify all apps used in the organization
• Track log-ins and usage of software, including granular feature tracking
• Overview of spend and upcoming renewals for effective cost management
• Simplify identification and cancellation/downgrading of unused software licenses
• Convenient payment processing and seamless invoicing and reporting

Pricing

They offer two plans: Starter and Super Saver. For details, contact the sales team.

12. Genuity

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Genuity provides IT teams with a comprehensive suite of tools to effectively manage various aspects such as SaaS and vendor spend, contract management and IT asset management. With its unified platform, Genuity offers a versatile solution that allows teams to choose the specific features they need, avoiding unnecessary complexity.

One of the key advantages is its transparent payment structure, as Genuity charges users a flat fee, eliminating any hidden costs or surprises. This approach simplifies budgeting and ensures clarity in financial planning. 

By leveraging Genuity's suite of tools, IT teams can streamline operations, optimize spending and enhance overall management efficiency.

Genuity offers a comprehensive view of SaaS and vendor expenses, aiding in cost management. With various integrations, it helps eliminate unused applications and instances, streamlining operations. Companies can track contract lifecycles and automate manual processes, ensuring efficient management in one central location. 

Automatic alerts prevent missed deadlines, while centralized visibility keeps teams on track with IT investments. Genuity also monitors warranties, performance and bugs, facilitating upgrades when needed. 

Top features:

• Compatibility with fixed line infrastructure for seamless integration and communication
• Alerts and escalation mechanisms for timely response and issue resolution
• Efficient management of procurement processes for streamlined purchasing and vendor management
• Pre-designed email templates for quick and consistent communication with stakeholders

Pricing

• $29.99 per month per company, unlimited users 
• Genuity offers the first 30 days free. 

13. G2 Track

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G2 Track allows businesses to manage SaaS spend, usage, licenses, contracts and compliance from a single platform by providing a centralized dashboard. Users can easily identify the apps being used, track usage duration and understand associated costs.

Organizations can streamline vendor data management, including invoices, renewals and compliance updates. This unified approach simplifies contract management and provides deeper insights for optimizing product usage, billing and contract renewals. 

G2 Track offers a discovery feature that provides users with an accurate and complete view of their SaaS apps. This is made possible by leveraging G2.com's extensive SaaS product taxonomy. 

It facilitates seamless integration with various systems, including single sign-on (SSO) and popular accounting apps. These integrations ensure fast and accurate metrics and reports, enabling users to make data-driven decisions. 

G2 Track delivers actionable insights through intuitive dashboards. Users can access detailed information on their SaaS applications, usage, spend, engagement and even employee sentiment. 

Top features:

• Comprehensive management of SaaS applications, licenses, vendors, users and compliance data
• Holistic app discovery to track all applications used in the organization
• Usage tracking for insights into software utilization and cost optimization
• Insights into upcoming SaaS renewals for effective expense management
• Streamlined cancellation and downgrade of unused software licenses
• Convenient payment processing and simplified invoicing and reporting

Pricing

G2 Track offers a free version and a Premium plan, for which the price is hidden. 

14. Snow

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Snow is a technology intelligence platform that provides organizations with complete visibility and contextual insights into their software, SaaS and cloud environments. 

It offers a range of services, including software asset management for SaaS and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), a spend calculator to track and manage costs, a risk monitor to identify and mitigate potential risks and a productivity optimizer to enhance operational efficiency. 

Snow is ideal for IT teams to optimize SaaS costs and mitigate vendor sprawl. By reducing unnecessary spending and consolidating vendor relationships, organizations can effectively manage their SaaS costs and improve overall operational efficiency.

Top features:

• Efficiently manage software assets in hybrid environments with software asset management
• Monitor and control spending across various cloud platforms with cloud cost management
• Optimize spending by eliminating redundant licenses and reducing cloud costs with total cost optimization
• Proactively mitigate enterprise risks by identifying and addressing them with risk mitigation

Pricing

Contact the sales team for a quote.

15. Flexera One

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Flexera One is a SaaS-based IT management solution that caters to organizations operating in complex hybrid environments. It offers IT visibility by leveraging advanced capabilities such as discovery, normalization and unified data visualization.

With its comprehensive IT asset management features, encompassing software, hardware and SaaS, organizations gain the ability to optimize license consumption, make informed hardware decisions and maximize the usage of SaaS applications. 

Flexera One offers deep insights into cloud usage and costs, automates governance processes and delivers actionable intelligence for cloud migration and modernization initiatives. 

The platform helps enterprises save 25% reduction in budgeted spend through the identification and reclamation of inactive accounts licenses. 

Top features:

• Visualize and allocate SaaS spend usage, optimize costs and efficiently manage hybrid IT estate
• Navigate the cloud confidently with actionable spend recommendations and intelligence for successful cloud migration
• Rightsizing recommendations and cost-saving strategies for cloud resources

Pricing

Contact the sales team.

16. Eracent

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Eracent assists enterprises in overcoming challenges and achieving substantial cost savings. By leveraging cross-platform discovery, application recognition and software utilization analytics, it provides valuable insights to optimize asset management. 

With flexible integration capabilities, data from various sources can be seamlessly shared and normalized, ensuring complete ownership and overall efficiency in managing software assets. Organizations can reduce audit and security risks while establishing a robust and streamlined software asset management process.

Eracent helps businesses centrally manage all aspects of their SaaS software, including subscription agreements, license assignments and associated costs, payments and chargebacks.

The system employs various methods to gather application usage information, ensuring broad coverage in a single solution. This includes pre-built Eracent Data Extractors (EDEs) for major applications like Salesforce and Office365, discovery of locally installed components and tracking client-accessed URLs for specific applications. 

Top features:

• Efficiently track and manage inventory of SaaS applications for visibility and control
• Streamline supplier relationships and collaborations for effective SaaS management
• Gain insights into SaaS costs for better financial planning and optimization
• Manage and customize configurations of SaaS applications for optimal performance
• Centralize contract and license management for compliance, renewal tracking and cost optimization

Pricing

Contact the sales team for a quote.

17. LeanIX

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LeanIX is a powerful spend optimization tool designed to track, manage and benchmark subscribed SaaS platforms. With its advanced capabilities, LeanIX empowers enterprises to optimize their SaaS spending by identifying and eliminating unused, underused, or mismanaged licenses and subscriptions. 

By leveraging automated tracking and analysis, LeanIX helps companies achieve significant cost savings, potentially up to 30% of their total SaaS spending. 

LeanIX helps enterprises understand technology management, application portfolio management, data flow and integration architecture from a business perspective. 

• Enterprise architects use LeanIX to spot risks arising from obsolete IT components that form the core of their applications. 
• LeanIX Visualizers let enterprises explore their applications, interfaces and the protocols used to exchange data. 
• LeanIX Value Stream Management (VSM) provides rapid visibility into all cloud environments. 
• LeanIX Application Portfolio Assessment enables enterprises to create a holistic overview of their global IT landscape in a short period of time. 
• LeanIX allows enterprises to establish transparency in IT, manage their IT landscapes efficiently and make better decisions about their IT systems.

Top features:

• Automated discovery with integrations for seamless integration with key enterprise systems
• Monitoring and alerting for proactive identification and resolution of issues
• Spend analysis for in-depth insights into SaaS spending and cost optimization
• Integration with critical applications to streamline workflows and enhance productivity
• Financial planning and analysis to effectively manage SaaS budgets and investments
• Budget enforcement to enforce spending limits and ensure fiscal discipline
• Application engagement analytics for measuring user adoption and optimizing SaaS usage

Pricing

Contact the sales team for a quote.

Related Read: Explore more on LeanIX Competitors and alternatives for 2023

Considerations when choosing a SaaS management platform

Enterprises need to carefully evaluate several key factors to ensure they make the right choice. These considerations include:

1. API integration

Assess the platform's ability to integrate with third-party applications and APIs. This allows seamless data exchange and automation of workflows across different systems.

2. Customization and configuration

Determine if the platform offers customization options to tailor to your organization's requirements. Configuring settings, workflows and notifications can enhance the platform's effectiveness.

3. Data migration

If you already have existing SaaS applications and data, evaluate the platform's data migration capabilities. It should support smooth data transfer without data loss or disrupting your business operations.

4. Multi-cloud support

Consider whether the platform can manage and monitor SaaS applications across multiple cloud providers. This is especially relevant if your organization uses a hybrid or multi-cloud environment.

5. Mobile accessibility

Check if the platform provides mobile access and a responsive user interface. This enables convenient SaaS management and monitoring on the go.

6. Automation and orchestration

Look for automation and orchestration features that can help streamline common tasks, such as user provisioning, license management and policy enforcement. This reduces manual effort and increases operational efficiency.

7. Scalability and performance

Assess the platform's ability to handle a growing number of SaaS applications and users without compromising performance. Ensure it can accommodate your organization's scalability requirements.

How can Spendflo be your best choice?

Spendflo helps businesses negotiate better pricing during vendor discussions, maximizing cost savings. With its centralized platform, organizations gain comprehensive control over SaaS purchases, spending and compliance, streamlining operations and optimizing resource allocation.

The platform simplifies workflows with rule-based processes across multiple channels, including seamless Slack integration. Customized approval rules based on spending thresholds, project requirements or stakeholders ensure transparency and accountability.

By leveraging Spendflo's expertise and unified platform for SaaS buying and optimization, businesses can save up to 30% on their SaaS stack, maximizing the potential of cloud cost optimization and driving unparalleled financial efficiency.

Get a free savings analysis with us today.

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