How to Build a Savings Pipeline for SaaS Renewals

SaaS budgets are tight, and you’re being asked to reduce spend without slowing your roadmap. But if you’re like most IT and procurement leaders, you don’t have a reliable view of all software across your organization, what it costs, or how it’s used. That lack of clarity makes renewals unpredictable and hides the savings you know are there.

A SaaS savings pipeline brings order to messy renewals and turns them into a repeatable, measurable source of cost reduction. With every renewal visible, prioritized, and backed by usage data, you can forecast savings, avoid last-minute fire drills, and walk into vendor negotiations with real leverage.

What Is a SaaS Savings Pipeline?

A SaaS savings pipeline is a structured, prioritized view of upcoming SaaS renewals that shows where you can reduce software spend. Companies can accomplish this by:

• Cutting waste and unnecessary spending
• Reclaiming unused licenses ahead of renewal
• Actively negotiating better terms with SaaS vendors

It works like a sales pipeline, but instead of forecasting revenue, you’re forecasting savings opportunities across your SaaS stack. In SaaS Management, this pipeline gives you the visibility and predictability you need to plan, sequence, and execute savings throughout the year.

Why Managing SaaS Spend Is More Important Than Ever

SaaS costs are accelerating faster than most IT budgets, and you’re doubtless feeling that pressure every renewal cycle.

• Vendors are raising list prices
• AI add-ons are showing up on contracts
• Consumption-based or hybrid pricing models make it harder to anticipate actual costs

Gartner forecasts show that software spend will only continue growing, predicting 15.2% growth in 2026 to $1.43T. Zylo data shows the same trend. Today, annual SaaS spend averages $49M per organization and costs will skyrocket as application sprawl increases.

License waste and unexpected costs only compound the problem. According to the 2025 SaaS Management Index, organizations use just 47% of their licenses on average, driving an average of $21M in waste annually. In addition, 65% of IT leaders we surveyed reported unexpected charges tied to consumption-based or AI pricing in the last year.

SaaS spending has become more unpredictable. Without reliable visibility into what you use and pay for, these shifts translate directly into overspend. A savings pipeline helps you identify waste early, anticipate financial risk, and stay ahead of price increases rather than reacting to them after they hit your budget.

Cost-Savings as a Strategic Outcome of SaaS Management

Cost savings is one of the most tangible business outcomes of SaaS Management that results in improved financial performance and positive impact on budgets. It occurs at time of renewal, which is effectively the only moment to achieve savings, outside of consumption-based models. That’s because—at that moment—you can make changes to contract terms or cancel applications altogether.

Measuring savings wins over time and reporting them to leadership demonstrates financial discipline and illustrates program ROI. This helps:

• Tie savings to clear, defensible changes
• Reinforce operational efficiency across the software lifecycle
• Support leadership priorities without requesting additional budget

5 Steps To Building A SaaS Savings Pipeline

To build a SaaS savings pipeline around renewals, focus on these five steps, which should be repeated for each renewal:

1. SaaS spend review
2. Application prioritization to maximize cost savings
3. Process definition and change management
4. Renewal execution and license reclamation
5. Value reporting

Watch the full webinar below, where D. Wayne Poole and Delainey Trost expand upon these steps.

Step 1: SaaS Spend Review

Your savings pipeline starts with an accurate view of what you are actually buying. A SaaS spend review helps you understand:

• When renewal dates occur
• A breakdown of spend by applications, departments, and source
• Where hidden waste resides

To build a solid foundation, you should:

• Aggregate SaaS spend from AP, expense systems, and card transactions into one view.
• Identify long-tail SaaS apps and decide which should be consolidated or retired before they renew.
• Assign clear ownership for every application so someone is accountable at renewal time.
• Capture contract terms, renewal dates, notice periods, and license counts in a single system of record.

Start with financial discovery, like Zylo’s, so you can capture every dollar and subscription, including long-tail SaaS apps and shadow IT. These tools often renew quietly, duplicate capabilities you already own, and can make it harder to control overall spend. 

Step 2: Application Prioritization to Maximize Cost Savings

With a clean inventory in place, determine which applications should be prioritized. Follow these steps:

1. Identify all the renewal dates over the next 12 months.
2. Determine your priority applications based on your highest-cost or IT-owned applications. Focus on contracts with the greatest savings potential.
3. Map the renewal dates for your selected applications. This is your SaaS savings pipeline.

The average organization has 247 renewals annually, so it’s ineffective to manage all of them with the same level of rigor. By prioritizing your applications, you can focus on the contracts with the greatest savings potential.

For additional context on prioritization, you can align this step with Zylo’s principles for strategic portfolio management.

Step 3: Process Definition and Change Management

When your organization has inconsistent renewal processes, it can be difficult to realize consistent outcomes. Define a standard renewal process—with cross-functional buy-in—to turn your savings pipeline into a true operational motion.

To make that motion stick, you should:

• Define how license reclamation fits into the renewal timeline so it happens before you negotiate.
• Clarify responsibilities across app owners, IT, procurement, and finance so decisions are not left to the last minute.
• Keep ownership, usage data, contracts, and renewal dates current so teams are working from trusted information.
• Establish renewal alerts and workflow steps that trigger well before key dates.

Change management is what makes this process usable in the real world. Sharing success stories from peers who improved renewal discipline through SaaS change management and SaaS Ops can help reinforce why a defined renewal process matters. Zylo’s broader guidance on SaaS Operations shows how this function becomes part of everyday work.

Step 4: Renewal Execution and License Reclamation

The execution of every renewal should follow the same milestones, so that you avoid automatic renewals, rushed timelines, and locking in unnecessary waste.

A simple but effective timeline looks like this:

• 120 days before renewal: Align with the app owner on whether the tool still fits current and future needs.
• 90 days before renewal: Reclaim unused or low-use licenses and validate entitlement accuracy.
• 60 days before renewal: Benchmark pricing, compare alternate packaging, and model different license counts.
• 45 days before renewal: Enter negotiations using verified usage, spend history, and market expectations.

At each renewal, ground the conversation in three key questions:

• Does this application still justify its place in the portfolio?
• Are you paying for licenses that no one is using or needs at a higher tier?
• Does the current price and contract structure reflect how your organization actually uses the tool?

Approaching renewals this way turns them into structured opportunities for hard cost savings and cost avoidance, rather than recurring risks. 

Step 5: Value Reporting

Transparent reporting: 

• Closes the loop between renewal execution and the cost-savings outcomes executives care about
• Helps forecast future savings
• Justifies continued investment in SaaS Management 

Effective reporting should:

• Highlight realized savings and cost avoidance in a format that finance and executives recognize.
• Track progress against quarterly and annual savings goals so you can adjust your pipeline.
• Attribute outcomes to specific actions such as reclamation, consolidation, or renegotiation.
• Provide role-based views so CIOs, procurement leaders, and app owners see what matters to them.

Data storytelling and executive dashboards make it easy to communicate how your SaaS savings pipeline is performing and where the next wave of savings will come from. Over time, this reporting proves that renewals are a durable source of SaaS cost savings.

How Everbridge Operationalizes Renewals for Cost Savings

Everbridge faced what many companies do: an incomplete picture of their SaaS landscape. Shadow IT, redundant apps, and unassigned owners led to overspending and inefficient renewals. Without a reliable system of record or clear accountability, cost savings were nearly impossible to realize.

The Solution

Led by Alisa Lavrentyeva, Procurement and Facilities Manager at Everbridge, the team took a proactive, programmatic approach:

• Cleaned and centralized SaaS data in Zylo.
• Secured CIO-level backing and top-down accountability.
• Ran hands-on, data-driven sessions with app owners to validate usage and ownership.
• Turned renewals into a strategic process powered by insights, not guesswork.

The Results

• Immediate cost savings by eliminating unused, redundant, and shadow applications.
• Faster renewals, with accurate data and documentation in place before deadlines.
• Increased visibility into SaaS spend and ownership across departments.
• Stronger collaboration between procurement, IT, and business stakeholders.
• New guardrails for software purchasing, including policy updates for credit card use.

Watch the full webinar below to see how Alisa walks through their process step by step, and how you can apply the same strategy to your renewal process.

Create a Repeatable Savings Engine with Zylo

A SaaS savings pipeline is most effective when supported by the right data, workflows, and governance. With complete visibility into your SaaS spend, renewal dates, and unused licenses, you can prioritize savings opportunities with confidence—and act before you miss them. Zylo helps your team build the operational rhythm powered by data and automation to turn your renewal calendar into a predictable engine for savings.

Find the spend. Prioritize your renewal calendar. Start saving. Explore how Zylo supports your cost-savings goals with its SaaS spend management solution, or schedule time with our team to see how it works in practice.

Frequently Asked Questions about SaaS Savings