{
    "question": "How much cloud spending is wasted?",
    "answer": "Cloud buyers estimate that 29% of their cloud spend is wasted, by their own reckoning rather than a measurement, in Flexera's 2026 State of the Cloud survey of more than 750 cloud decision-makers (18 March 2026). It is the first rise in five years, after a fall from 32% in 2022 to 27% in 2024 and 2025; Flexera links it to AI workloads.",
    "period": "2026 report",
    "key_numbers": [
        {
            "value": "29%",
            "label": "Cloud spend wasted, by respondents' own estimate",
            "note": "Flexera State of the Cloud 2026",
            "stat": "saas/cloud-spend-wasted-estimate"
        },
        {
            "value": "32%",
            "label": "The high, in the 2022 report",
            "note": "Flexera State of the Cloud 2022"
        },
        {
            "value": "76%",
            "label": "Large enterprises spending over $5 million a month on cloud",
            "note": "Flexera State of the Cloud 2026",
            "stat": "saas/large-enterprises-cloud-spend-over-5m-monthly"
        },
        {
            "value": "81%",
            "label": "Respondents whose organization uses generative AI",
            "note": "Flexera State of the Cloud 2026",
            "stat": "saas/organizations-using-generative-ai-cloud"
        },
        {
            "value": "24%",
            "label": "Wasted software spend in the public cloud",
            "note": "Flexera State of the Cloud 2024 and 2025"
        }
    ],
    "tables": [
        {
            "id": "flexera-2026",
            "title": "Cloud spend and AI in Flexera's 2026 State of the Cloud survey",
            "columns": [
                "Measure",
                "Share"
            ],
            "rows": [
                [
                    "Large enterprises spending over $5 million a month on cloud services",
                    "76%"
                ],
                [
                    "Respondents using generative AI (72% a year earlier, 47% in 2024)",
                    "81%"
                ],
                [
                    "Respondents using generative AI extensively (36% a year earlier)",
                    "45%"
                ],
                [
                    "Say managing cloud spend is a top challenge",
                    "85%"
                ],
                [
                    "Have established FinOps teams",
                    "63%"
                ],
                [
                    "Operate a Cloud Center of Excellence",
                    "71%"
                ],
                [
                    "Large enterprises establishing dedicated AI governance teams or leaders",
                    "47%"
                ]
            ],
            "row_ids": [
                "spend-over-5m",
                "genai-use",
                "genai-extensive",
                "spend-challenge",
                "finops-teams",
                "ccoe",
                "ai-governance"
            ],
            "note": "Flexera press release, 18 Mar 2026; global survey of more than 750 cloud decision-makers and users. Vendor survey; Flexera sells cloud cost management software.",
            "source": "flexera"
        },
        {
            "id": "history",
            "title": "Estimated wasted cloud spend, by Flexera State of the Cloud report",
            "columns": [
                "Report",
                "Estimated wasted cloud spend",
                "Respondents"
            ],
            "rows": [
                [
                    "2021",
                    "30%",
                    "Not given (2021 report not read)"
                ],
                [
                    "2022",
                    "32%",
                    "753"
                ],
                [
                    "2023",
                    "28%",
                    "750"
                ],
                [
                    "2024",
                    "27%",
                    "753"
                ],
                [
                    "2025",
                    "27%",
                    "759"
                ],
                [
                    "2026",
                    "29%",
                    "More than 750"
                ]
            ],
            "row_ids": [
                "waste-2021",
                "waste-2022",
                "waste-2023",
                "waste-2024",
                "waste-2025",
                "waste-2026"
            ],
            "note": "Respondents' own estimate of the share of their cloud spend that is wasted; the 2024 and 2025 reports describe it as spend on IaaS and PaaS. Each report is published early in the year. The 2021 figure is as stated in the 2022 report (\"up from 30 percent last year\"); the 2021 report itself was not read. Flexera's 2025 report puts the 32% high \"four years ago\", its 2024 report \"in 2022\"; the 2022 report gives 32%.",
            "source": "flexera"
        }
    ],
    "sources": [
        {
            "name": "State of the Cloud Report",
            "publisher": "Flexera",
            "type": "vendor",
            "url": "https://www.flexera.com/"
        },
        {
            "name": "SaaS Management Index",
            "publisher": "Zylo",
            "type": "vendor",
            "url": "https://zylo.com/"
        }
    ],
    "content_changed_on": "2026-10-31",
    "page_url": "https://digitaltreed.com/statistics/saas/cloud-spending-waste",
    "csv_url": "https://digitaltreed.com/statistics/saas/cloud-spending-waste.csv"
}