According to a 2024 Gartner report, nearly 40% of SaaS spending goes unmonitored across organizations. That means a large share of software purchases happen outside approved channels, often without finance or IT ever knowing.

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This issue deserves attention because it doesn’t just affect budgets; it affects productivity, compliance, and trust within teams. When employees can’t find the right tools fast enough, they start finding their own.

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What Is Maverick SaaS Spend

Maverick spend (also called rogue or tail spend) happens when employees buy goods or software outside approved procurement channels. These off-process purchases bypass finance or IT review, making them hard to track. In SaaS buying, this leads to duplicate tools, wasted spend, and security risks.

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What causes maverick spend

Maverick spending often stems from frustration with slow or outdated systems. Employees turn to unapproved tools when the procurement process feels too rigid or time-consuming. Beyond the obvious budget and security risks, this behavior signals a breakdown in communication and trust between teams and the procurement function.

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Here are some of the most common drivers behind maverick SaaS spend:

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Limited or outdated approved tools

When sanctioned software doesn’t meet current needs, teams look elsewhere. If adding new tools takes too long or the approval steps aren’t clear, employees start to see self-purchasing as the faster option.

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Insufficient training and support

Even the most capable tools will go unused if employees don’t know how to use them effectively. Without proper onboarding and continued guidance, teams may assume the existing stack doesn’t work and find their own alternatives.

Rogue culture

If employees have successfully expensed tools in the past without accountability, it sets a precedent. Over time, this becomes an accepted workaround especially in fast-paced environments where productivity takes priority over process.

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Inefficient Approval Processes and Lack of Flexibility

A key contributor to maverick spend is a rigid approval system. When procurement or IT approval takes days or even weeks employees lose patience. They need immediate solutions to keep projects moving, and if they can’t get timely approvals, they’ll make purchases independently.

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The lack of flexibility is another factor. Not all departments work the same way, and one-size-fits-all tech stacks often fall short. Without room for team-specific choices or budget discretion, employees will find unofficial workarounds that fit their workflow better.

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What types of maverick spend exist

Types of maverick spend include employees expending tools on corporate cards without approval, charging SaaS to personal cards and getting reimbursed, departments purchasing their own instances of approved tools, employees continuing to use sunset tools, and expense fraud through falsified SaaS receipts.

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1.Unapproved corporate spend: 

The most blatant type of maverick spend is when employees use a company card to purchase new software without going through procurement. This is easier to catch but may make spend analysis noisy.

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2.Reimbursed personal spend: 

More insidious is when people pay for tools themselves and then expense it after the fact, categorized opaquely. This type of spend may slip through the cracks since it's disbursed.

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3.Rogue department licenses: 

Sometimes, maverick spend isn't a net new tool but rather a separate instance of one already in the stack. This fragments contract negotiations, user management, and data.

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4. Zombie spend: 

Another form of maverick spend is when people keep using a tool even after the official relationship has ended. The licenses may be grandfathered in or informally renewed.

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5.Fraudulent expenses: 

In rare cases, maverick spend may actually be expense fraud - either submitting doctored invoices for tools never purchased or for personal software passed off as a business expense. Strong expense reporting hygiene mitigates this.

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Maverick Spend vs Tail Spend: What’s the Difference?

Procurement teams often use maverick spend and tail spend interchangeably, but they describe different challenges. Understanding how they overlap and how they differ helps organizations design stronger spend control strategies.

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Tail Spend: Low-Value, High-Frequency Purchases

Tail spend refers to smaller, often low-value purchases that fall outside the company’s main supplier contracts. These are the long tail of transactions that individually don’t cost much but collectively add up.

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Typical examples include one-off software licenses, small vendor renewals, or niche tools purchased by individual departments. While tail spend isn’t always intentional policy-breaking, it still represents spend that escapes active management and negotiated savings.

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Maverick Spend: Policy-Violating, Off-Contract Purchases

Maverick spend is more serious. It involves purchases made outside of approved procurement policies or without using preferred vendors off-contract spend, in other words.

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In SaaS, this happens when employees buy or expense software that hasn’t been vetted or approved by IT or finance. Unlike tail spend, which can be managed with better visibility, maverick spend reflects a direct break from established procurement rules and introduces security and compliance risks.

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Why the Distinction Matters for Procurement Strategy

While both types of spend impact cost control, the difference between maverick and tail spend shapes how procurement teams respond.

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• Tail spend requires better tracking, automation, and supplier consolidation to cut hidden costs.
• Maverick spend, as a subset of tail spend, demands policy enforcement, faster approval processes, and cultural alignment to bring employees back into the system.

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Recognizing where spend falls off-contract vs tail spend helps teams prioritize efforts, reduce risk, and drive savings more effectively.

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How to Calculate Your Maverick Spend Costs

To calculate maverick spend costs, audit expense reports for unapproved SaaS charges, categorize the spend by department and purpose, extrapolate the data to estimate total maverick spend, factor in the time cost of IT needing to vet and secure shadow IT, and compare maverick spend to your official SaaS budget.

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To quantify the financial impact of maverick spend, take these steps:

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1. Audit employee expenses: 

Work with your finance team to pull a representative sample of expense data, scanning for software charges from non-approved vendors. You may need to cross-reference your official tools inventory.

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2. Categorize spend: 

Break down your maverick spend data into meaningful segments. Tabulate how much is coming from each department and the job functions the tools serve. Flag any purchases that overlap with existing tools in your stack.

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3. Extrapolate data: 

Take your sample analyses and scale them up to arrive at a ballpark for overall maverick spend. Depending on your company size, industry benchmarks can help sanity check your estimates.

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4. Factor IT costs: 

Don't just look at direct software costs. Consider the operational drag of IT needing to retroactively assess the security and compliance of rogue tools, set up proper access controls, and integrate data. Those hours add up.

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5. Compare to budget: 

Put the rogue spend number in context by calculating it as a percentage of your sanctioned software budget. Is it a nominal 5%? A whopping 40%? This helps articulate the scope of the problem.

Why Is It Important to Control Maverick Spend

Controlling maverick spend helps organizations stay within budget, protect data, and maintain process efficiency. When employees purchase unapproved tools, it doesn’t just create financial waste, it exposes the business to unnecessary risk and hidden costs.

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Unchecked maverick spend can lead to:

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1. Unbudgeted costs: Every unauthorized purchase eats into your planned budget. These small, untracked expenses accumulate over time and reduce the funds available for strategic investments.
2. Security risks: Unapproved software often lacks proper vetting for data privacy or compliance. Without IT oversight, sensitive information could be exposed to third-party vulnerabilities.
3. Siloed workflows: When different teams use their own tools, information becomes fragmented. Disconnected systems slow collaboration and make reporting inconsistent.
4. Avoid loss of negotiated savings and volume discounts: Centralized purchasing allows procurement to negotiate stronger vendor terms. When employees buy software independently, the organization loses those bulk pricing and volume discount opportunities, directly increasing overall spend.
5. Wasted spend: Duplicate tools and overlapping features mean you’re paying multiple times for the same function. This unnecessary spend adds up quickly and reduces your ROI.
6. IT support drain: Even if the software wasn’t approved, IT still ends up troubleshooting issues or migrating data later. This shifts focus away from proactive projects that deliver more value to the business.

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Consequences of Maverick Spend

Maverick spending may start as small, well-intentioned purchases, but its effects can be far-reaching. Over time, it erodes visibility, drives up costs, and introduces unnecessary risk into procurement and finance operations. When employees sidestep approved channels, the entire organization loses control over pricing, compliance, and efficiency.

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Below are the most common financial, operational, and compliance-related consequences of unmanaged maverick spend:

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Financial Consequences

Increased costs: Purchasing outside approved vendor agreements often means paying higher, non-negotiated prices. These off-contract buys also prevent companies from qualifying for volume-based discounts or bundled savings. The result is a higher average cost per purchase, and a direct hit to profitability.

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Budget overruns: Uncontrolled transactions make it difficult for finance teams to stay on top of actual spend. These hidden costs accumulate across departments, creating budget gaps and cash flow strain. Without accurate forecasting, leaders can’t plan strategically or allocate resources effectively.

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Inaccurate reporting: When maverick spend isn’t recorded through centralized systems, finance loses a clear view of total expenditures. This leads to incomplete or inaccurate reporting, making it harder to analyze spend patterns, forecast budgets, or identify savings opportunities. Over time, that lack of visibility weakens financial decision-making across the business.

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Operational and Strategic Consequences

Reduced quality and increased risk: Unvetted suppliers and unauthorized tools may not meet internal quality or security standards. Poorly integrated or low-performing software can disrupt operations, create compatibility issues, or even expose sensitive data. These risks grow as more employees adopt unapproved tools.

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Weakened supplier relationships: Working with unauthorized vendors can damage long-term partnerships with preferred suppliers. When contracts are breached or volumes decline, procurement loses leverage in negotiations, and trusted vendors may deprioritize future deals. This weakens the organization’s overall buying power and reputation.

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Lack of visibility and control: When purchases happen outside official procurement channels, leadership loses insight into what’s being bought, from whom, and at what price. This makes it nearly impossible to enforce compliance or spot inefficiencies. Without consolidated data, even simple tasks like vendor analysis or spend categorization become time-consuming.

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Inefficient use of resources: Finance and procurement teams waste valuable hours chasing receipts, reconciling rogue expenses, and cleaning up data discrepancies. Instead of focusing on strategic priorities like cost optimization, vendor strategy, or policy improvement they’re stuck in reactive mode, managing ad-hoc requests and exceptions.

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Compliance and Legal Consequences

Contractual breaches: Purchasing from unapproved vendors may violate existing agreements with preferred suppliers. These breaches can lead to penalties, loss of rebates, or even termination of long-standing contracts. It also weakens the organization’s ability to enforce terms like pricing protection or service-level guarantees.

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Regulatory non-compliance: In industries governed by strict data, security, or procurement regulations, maverick spend can expose the company to audit failures or regulatory fines. Using unvetted tools may lead to data handling violations, putting customer information or intellectual property at risk.

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Proven Strategies to Reduce Maverick Spend (2025)

Reducing maverick spend requires more than tighter controls, it calls for cultural change, smarter workflows, and leadership support. By combining automation, employee empowerment, and executive alignment, procurement teams can minimize off-contract purchases while maintaining flexibility for genuine needs.

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Below are proven strategies to help you regain control without slowing your teams down.

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1. Streamline Approvals

Slow approvals are one of the biggest triggers of maverick spend. Implement an e-procurement system or automate approvals within your ticketing tool to triage new requests quickly.

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Define service-level agreements (SLAs) so employees know how long requests take, and use approval routing logic to cut manual bottlenecks.

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2. Build a Self-Service Catalog of Approved Tools

Create an easy-to-access catalog of pre-vetted applications across common functions like project management, design, or collaboration. This gives employees freedom to choose from trusted tools without breaking policy, reducing the urge to go rogue.

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3. Allow Controlled Discretionary Spend

Give department heads a small annual budget for unique software needs. This “safe zone” for flexible purchasing empowers managers to address specialized requirements while keeping procurement visibility intact.

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4. Gather Continuous Employee Feedback

Run short quarterly surveys or feedback sessions to understand pain points in your current tech stack. When employees feel heard, they’re less likely to bypass approved processes. Early feedback also helps procurement teams proactively adjust the approved catalog.

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5. Partner Closely with Finance

Set up expense monitoring rules with finance to automatically detect SaaS transactions from unapproved vendors. This shared visibility ensures untracked purchases are caught early and routed for review, strengthening governance without extra admin work.

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Spot Buying: When It’s Not Maverick Spend

Spot buying refers to one-off or short-term purchases made outside long-term supplier contracts, often to meet immediate needs. Unlike maverick spend, spot buying is intentional and typically approved within a defined process.

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When Spot Buying Is Justified (Emergency, Short-Term, Sale)

Spot buying can be appropriate in situations such as:

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• Emergencies, where a tool or service is needed immediately to maintain operations.
• Short-term projects, where committing to a long-term vendor isn’t practical.
• Limited-time discounts or sales, where a quick purchase secures savings.

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In each case, these buys should be logged and reviewed through a clear emergency procurement process or temporary approval workflow.

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How to Track and Approve Spot Purchases Without Encouraging Rogue Spend

Establish a spot purchase policy with clear thresholds and documentation requirements. Use your procurement platform to flag and approve spot buys transparently. By distinguishing spot buying vs. maverick spend, teams maintain agility while staying compliant.

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How to Get Executive Buy-In to Reduce Maverick Spend

Quantify the Financial Impact for Leadership

Leaders respond to data. Present a clear picture of how maverick spend affects budgets, including lost discounts, higher costs, and hidden manual labor hours. Use hard numbers to make the financial case for stronger spend governance.

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Align Maverick Spend Reduction with Strategic Goals

Frame maverick spend reduction as part of larger business objectives such as cost optimization, compliance, or risk reduction. Showing how spend control contributes to growth or profitability helps secure executive support.

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Communicate Policies from the Top Down

Effective change starts with leadership visibility. Encourage executives to communicate procurement policies during company-wide meetings or leadership updates. A top-down message reinforces the cultural shift toward accountability and controlled purchasing.

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Recognize and Reward Compliance

Positive reinforcement goes a long way. Highlight teams that follow procurement guidelines or save through approved channels. Recognition public or private helps build buy-in and drives adoption organically.

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How to track maverick spend

To track maverick spend, regularly analyze expense data for unapproved charges, conduct quarterly reviews with departments to uncover shadow IT, implement spend management software to flag maverick purchases, create an amnesty program to disclose rogue tools, monitor app usage data to spot underutilized or redundant tools, and require security and legal sign-off for all new SaaS contracts.

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Keeping tabs on maverick spend is an ongoing process:

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1. Regularly analyze expenses: 

Schedule a recurring audit of your expense data to spot unapproved SaaS spend. Depending on your scale, this may be monthly or quarterly. Look for patterns by department or expense submitter.

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2. Conduct quarterly reviews with departments: 

Meet with department leads to proactively ask what unsanctioned tools may be percolating. Position it not as a witch-hunt but a chance to meet their needs through official channels. 

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3. Implement spend management software:

Consider investing in dedicated spend management software like Spendflo that uses machine learning to instantly detect and flag unapproved SaaS purchases. This automation streamlines oversight.

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4. Monitor app usage data: 

Maverick spend is often a response to insufficient or duplicative tools. By monitoring usage data, you can proactively sunset underperforming SaaS and replace it with solutions that meet needs.

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5.Require sign-off: 

Bake compliance checks into your SaaS procurement process. Any new tools, whether employee-initiated or not, must pass security vetting and contract review. This prevents spending from going rogue in the first place.

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Prevent Maverick Spend with Spendflo

Uncontrolled SaaS purchases may seem harmless at first, but they drain budgets, create compliance risks, and make it nearly impossible to track true spend. Many growing companies don’t realize how much they’re losing to off-contract software until it’s too late.

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One Spendflo customer, a mid-market SaaS firm with over 200 employees, uncovered nearly 27% of their software spend tied to unapproved tools. Within 60 days of adopting Spendflo, they centralized procurement workflows, reduced redundant apps, and reclaimed over $150,000 in annual savings.

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Without structure, maverick spend continues to grow quietly creating hidden costs, fragmented data, and compliance headaches. Spendflo brings control back where it belongs.

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Our AI-native procurement platform helps you:

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• Automatically detect and eliminate unapproved SaaS purchases
• Streamline approvals and make compliant buying effortless for employees
• Gain full visibility into renewals, usage, and vendor performance
• Save up to 30% on software spend guaranteed

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Don’t let maverick spend chip away at your budget and control.Book your free demo today and see how Spendflo helps you manage SaaS procurement the smarter way.

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Frequently Asked Questions on Maverick Spend

1. What's the difference between maverick spend and shadow IT? 

While often used interchangeably, maverick spend typically refers to the financial side of unapproved purchases, while shadow IT focuses more on the security and compliance risks of rogue apps.

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2. Who's responsible for preventing maverick spend?

Ultimately, it's a shared responsibility between IT, procurement, finance, and lines of business. IT owns vetting tools, procurement negotiates contracts, finance tracks expenses, and department heads communicate evolving needs.

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3. Is all maverick spend bad?

Not necessarily. Some maverick spend may point to innovative tools that should be officially adopted. But most rogue purchases carry more risks than benefits, which is why it's important to proactively manage.

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4. How much maverick spend is normal?

Maverick spend rates vary by industry and company size, but a general rule of thumb is that 20-30% of SaaS spend tends to be rogue in a typical organization. The goal should be to get that number below 10%.

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