Reclaim Your 2026 IT Budget by Cutting the Cord on SaaS Waste

SaaS—Software as a Service—is a hugely effective tool for businesses of all sizes. That said, like any tool, it can quickly become a weapon against your success… slowly cutting into your business until you suddenly realize your budget has been bleeding out.

Let’s talk about what makes SaaS either a great tool or your biggest internal threat, depending on how you manage it.

How SaaS Works, In Principle

With SaaS, you subscribe to each instance of a given software on a monthly basis, as compared to the old method of periodically buying a new version of this same software every year. In many ways, this is a great option for businesses:

• You have access to a constantly improving tool without having to update it yourself.
• You have much more control over the number of subscriptions you have compared to the old way of batch-purchasing licenses.
• You and your team can access your software from anywhere you can establish an Internet connection, making remote work much more accessible.

That said, there are a few key drawbacks that a poorly managed SaaS implementation usually features that can quickly cut away the benefits that you see from it and turn it into a major problem.

How SaaS Works, If Poorly Managed

It’s the classic issue with subscriptions, on a business-wide scale. There are simply so many to juggle nowadays that what once saved you money could end up costing you more.

Let’s say you subscribe to a basic business suite using SaaS to ensure everyone on your team has the basic software they need—email, cloud storage, word processing, spreadsheet generation, and presentation building. Of course, some departments might need other, additional tools for their roles. HR needs payroll processing software, Sales needs inventory tools, and different industries may have unique software needs that must be filled.

Each of these subscriptions costs you on a monthly basis, maybe $20 per seat, maybe $12.50, maybe higher. In the scale of things, these expenses are relatively minor… literally just the cost of doing business.

However, life goes on in and around your business, meaning that circumstances change.

Let’s say that Sue in marketing accepts an administrative position at her kid's school, or your head of HR is poached by a big business a few states over. Maybe Joe’s role transitions between departments, so instead of being part of your sales team, he’s now leading operations and fulfillment. Or perhaps your business as a whole switches service providers and, as a result, starts using different programs en masse. Maybe you've outgrown the software you’ve been using and need a more robust option to meet your needs.

In any of these situations, SaaS is great until someone forgets to adjust the subscription to account for these changes.

If nobody makes these changes, you could still wind up paying for all the software Sue used with your company, or have HR tools waiting for your former department head’s unlikely return. Jeff might still be able to work on sales when he should be focusing on fulfilling orders. You may have subscriptions to multiple service providers and their offerings… even if they just don’t work for you any longer.

It doesn’t matter that nobody’s using all this software… you still have to pay for it. These kinds of mistakes could lead to dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of unnecessary expenditures each month. Is that something your budget can absorb?

For All Its Benefits, Software as a Service Can Lead to Financial Leakage

First and foremost, too many tools can create operational friction by default. How much time does each member of your team spend navigating different browser tabs, moving data between platforms, and chasing down files? Remember, every minute they spend on this kind of thing is a minute less that could potentially bring in revenue.

There are other ways that SaaS can ultimately cost you money if you aren’t organized about managing it:

• Failure to properly offboard departing employees or to consider what a role change will require can lead to a phenomenon called ghost seats. Sue won’t need an account on your customer relationship management software once she’s answering phones in the district office, after all.
• Generally speaking, everyone in the business should be on the same page, and the basic tools they use should be part of that measurement. If one department uses Collaboration Platform Q while another uses Collaboration Platform L, they are not only missing opportunities to work together, they’re forcing you to double-dip into your operational budget.
• Lately, many business-facing software tools are shifting toward pay-per-use models (thanks a bunch for that, AI), making it so that any duplicated work means you’re being charged double. You need to pay attention to ensure that such tools are being used as efficiently as possible—a task that becomes much easier when you have standardized tools for everyone to use.

Ultimately, inefficiency is only going to become a bigger threat to your business, which means that the more efficiently you invest in your operations, the more effectively you can advance them. We can help you accomplish this goal.

We’ll Help You Keep a Leash on Your SaaS Spending

Part of our IT services is to ensure you aren’t investing in redundancy. We’ll not only help you identify where two tools are being used where one would do, but we’ll also ensure that any unused investments are eliminated so they can be reallocated appropriately.

That’s not all, either. We can also use our connections and relationships to help you get enterprise-friendly rates, saving you even more via SaaS.

Why wait and pay any more than you need to, even for a moment longer? Give us a call at (403) 210-2927 now to set up an audit so we can help you maximize your efficiency and efficacy!