About the Report
The 2026 SaaS Management Index is built on the industry’s largest and most robust body of SaaS data. Now in its eighth year, the report analyzes how organizations purchase, manage, and optimize subscription software at scale, drawing from Zylo’s extensive, real-world dataset.
SaaS licenses under management
SaaS spend under management
of SaaS spend, license and usage data
AI Is Transforming How Software Is Built, Priced, and Managed
AI is reshaping software faster than organizations can respond. For AI-native applications—apps where AI is core to the product—Zylo’s data shows spend jumped 108%, with large enterprises surging 393% in a single year. Use of applications across the broader Artificial Intelligence category grew 181%, the fastest expansion in the entire dataset.
AI experimentation is no longer an isolated event; it’s becoming the industry norm. The 2025 SaaS Benchmarks Report by High Alpha finds that 64% of SaaS companies now embed AI as a supporting feature, 36% say AI is core to their product, and 92% have launched or plan to launch AI features. Vendors are rebuilding their software around AI and rewriting pricing models as they do it.
The result: rising volatility. AI add-ons and usage-based tiers are reshaping cost structures mid-contract, making spend harder to predict and harder to control. Leaders face new exposure as AI shows up inside existing tools long before governance teams identify it.
The message is clear: nearly every app is becoming an AI app, and the financial and security implications are accelerating. Without a disciplined SaaS Management program, organizations will fall behind—paying more, carrying greater risk, and losing visibility as AI spreads through their portfolios.
Portfolios Make Room for New AI Investments— But It Comes at a Cost
SaaS portfolios have flattened, but costs keep rising. In 2026, organizations now spend an average of $55.7M on SaaS annually, a 8% increase year over year. At the same time, portfolios hold steady at 305 applications, with overall app counts dipping a meager 0.07%. Growth is no longer coming from more software—it’s coming from how that software is priced, packaged, and expanded over time.
The signal is unmistakable: new AI investments and market dynamics—not sprawl—are increasing pressure on budgets. Vendors are layering in AI tiers, shifting to consumption pricing, and charging premiums that inflate spend without adding new tools. As AI features are embedded into existing platforms, contracts that once felt predictable now scale in unfamiliar ways, often outside traditional budgeting cycles. Even well-governed portfolios are absorbing these increases, leaving CIOs, SAM, and Procurement teams exposed to unplanned mid-contract costs.
Teams with mature SaaS Management practices are better positioned to respond. Strong visibility, governance, and renewal discipline help contain volatility before it compounds and spreads across future budgets. For organizations without these controls, rising AI investment steadily erodes budget flexibility, limits negotiating leverage, and makes every renewal more consequential than the last—turning routine decisions into long-term financial commitments.
License Complexity and Consumption Costs Disrupt the Status Quo
SaaS pricing models are evolving quickly, and many organizations are feeling the strain. In the past year, 78% of IT leaders reported unexpected charges tied to AI features or consumption-based pricing. Another 61% cut projects due to unplanned SaaS cost increases. These shifts reflect a marketplace where pricing can change based on usage patterns, AI-driven activity, or tier adjustments that occur long after a contract is in place.
At the same time, managing licenses has become more demanding. Even with improvement in waste reduction, organizations continue to uncover unused seats, overlapping tools, and feature tiers that expand cost without delivering clear value. As more applications embed AI, usage patterns become harder to anticipate, introducing new variables into financial planning and renewal preparation.
This environment is prompting closer alignment between ITAM and FinOps, as both teams rely on accurate usage data, shared processes, and a unified system of record to maintain clarity around spend. Their combined perspective supports more reliable forecasting, stronger renewal preparation, and better decisions about where to allocate resources.
The pace of change across pricing and licensing underscores the need for consistent, programmatic SaaS Management. Organizations with strong visibility and renewal discipline are better positioned to adapt as SaaS economics become more dynamic.
What’s Next: Predictions for 2026
AI will quietly replace human effort across the enterprise, shifting costs from payroll to software. What looks like efficiency will mask a growing pool of usage-based spend with no clear owner, weak controls, and limited predictability.
Usage-based pricing will bring value into sharper focus. Leaders will evaluate AI tools on outcomes rather than activity, accelerating consolidation at renewal and raising expectations for vendors to demonstrate durable, defensible business impact.
As AI pricing fragments into tokens and workflows, leaders will lose a clear line between spend and outcomes. Organizations that can’t tie usage-based SaaS and AI costs to measurable business value will struggle to defend spend, forcing renegotiations or outright abandonment of tools.
As portfolios stabilize but churn accelerates, SaaS velocity will define governance risk. Leaders who establish intake discipline and ownership clarity will better manage spend and risk as applications enter and exit the stack at increasing speed.
AI Is Raising the Stakes—And SaaS Management Can’t Wait
AI is rewriting SaaS economics in real time. Every month you delay, costs rise and visibility narrows. This report gives you the data and direction to respond immediately—and stay ahead of the shifts already reshaping your portfolio.
Download the 2026 SaaS Management Index to get:
- Benchmarks that show how SaaS spend, licensing, and AI adoption are changing
- Insights to help you strengthen financial control and reduce exposure
- Practical guidance to improve renewals, governance, and cross-functional alignment
Frequently Asked Questions about the SaaS Management Index
The 2026 SaaS Management Index is Zylo’s annual benchmark report on enterprise SaaS statistics, trends, and benchmarks. These FAQs help CIOs, IT, Procurement, and FinOps leaders understand the data behind the report and how to apply the insights to manage SaaS spend, risk, and governance.
What is the SaaS Management Index, and why is it considered an industry benchmark?
The SaaS Management Index, published annually by Zylo, is an industry benchmark that tracks how enterprises buy, manage, and optimize SaaS at scale. Built on Zylo’s proprietary dataset of real SaaS spend, usage, and license data, it provides an objective view into SaaS economics, risk, and operational maturity.
What SaaS statistics and benchmarks are included in the 2026 SaaS Management Index?
The SaaS Management Index includes enterprise SaaS statistics on spend, portfolio size, license utilization, renewals, AI adoption, pricing volatility, and security risk, giving leaders a clear view of how SaaS environments are changing year over year.
How is the SaaS Management Index different from other SaaS reports or benchmarks?
Unlike survey-based SaaS reports, the SaaS Management Index is built on the industry’s largest SaaS dataset—$75B+ in spend and 40M+ licenses—from Zylo’s platform. It reflects how organizations actually buy, use, and renew software.
What are the most important SaaS spend and cost trends highlighted in the 2026 report?
The 2026 report shows SaaS costs are increasingly driven by AI features, hybrid pricing, and usage-based models, creating spend volatility throughout the contract lifecycle and making traditional budgeting models less reliable.
How is AI changing SaaS pricing, usage, and overall spend benchmarks?
AI is shifting SaaS pricing away from seats toward tokens, actions, and consumption-based charges, increasing spend variability. Zylo’s data shows AI-driven pricing is now one of the fastest-growing sources of SaaS cost volatility.
Why is SaaS spend rising even though portfolios are stable?
SaaS spend is rising because existing applications are becoming more expensive, not because organizations are adding more tools. AI tiers, usage-based pricing, and contract expansions are increasing the cost of stable SaaS portfolios.
How do companies use SaaS benchmarks to reduce spend and risk?
Enterprises use SaaS benchmarks to validate spend levels, prioritize renewals, identify inefficiencies, and strengthen governance, enabling more confident negotiations and data-driven decisions across IT, Procurement, and Finance.
What SaaS trends should CIOs, Procurement, and SAM leaders prepare for in 2026?
Key SaaS trends include AI-driven pricing volatility, faster application churn, higher renewal stakes, and closer alignment between IT, Procurement, Finance, and FinOps as SaaS management becomes a core operating discipline.
How is the SaaS Management Index data collected and validated?
The SaaS Management Index is based on anonymized data from Zylo’s SaaS Management Platform, including spend, licenses, usage, contracts, and discovery data, supplemented by enterprise IT surveys and third-party risk scoring.
Who should read the SaaS Management Index, and how can different leaders use it?
The SaaS Management Index is designed for CIOs, IT leaders, Software Asset Management, Procurement, Finance, and Security teams seeking benchmarks to control SaaS spend, reduce risk, and improve governance.