{ "question": "How much do companies spend on SaaS per employee?", "answer": "Median SaaS spend was $9,455 per employee in 2025, according to Zylo's 2026 SaaS Management Index, built from its customers' data (40 million licenses, $75 billion in spend). That is a median; Zylo's previous index gave an average of $4,830 for 2024, a different measure. On average, 36% of licenses went unused.", "period": "2025", "key_numbers": [ { "value": "$9,455", "label": "Median SaaS spend per employee", "note": "Zylo 2026 index, 2025 customer data (vendor)", "stat": "saas/saas-spend-per-employee-median" }, { "value": "36%", "label": "Of SaaS licenses go unused on average", "note": "Zylo, against recommended use levels", "stat": "saas/saas-licenses-unused" }, { "value": "81%", "label": "Of SaaS spend is controlled by business units; IT manages 15%", "note": "Zylo 2026 index", "stat": "saas/saas-spend-controlled-by-business-units" }, { "value": "108%", "label": "Rise in spend on AI-native apps in a year", "note": "393% in organizations with 10,000+ employees", "stat": "saas/ai-native-app-spend-growth" }, { "value": "78%", "label": "Of IT leaders were hit by unexpected AI or usage-based charges", "note": "Zylo survey of 218 IT leaders", "stat": "saas/it-leaders-hit-by-unexpected-ai-pricing-charges" } ], "tables": [ { "id": "index-2026", "title": "Zylo SaaS Management Index 2026: key figures (2025 data)", "columns": [ "Measure", "Value" ], "rows": [ [ "Median SaaS spend per employee", "$9,455" ], [ "SaaS licenses left unused, on average", "36%" ], [ "Share of SaaS spend controlled by business units", "81%" ], [ "Share of SaaS spend managed directly by IT", "15%" ], [ "Growth in spend on AI-native apps, all organizations", "108%" ], [ "Growth in spend on AI-native apps, organizations with 10,000+ employees", "393%" ], [ "Growth in expense-based SaaS spend (ChatGPT the most expensed app)", "267%" ], [ "Apps added per month in large enterprises, on average", "21" ] ], "row_ids": [ "spend-median", "licenses-unused", "business-units", "it-managed", "ai-native-growth", "ai-native-growth-large", "expensed-growth", "apps-per-month" ], "note": "Zylo customer data: more than 40 million SaaS licenses and $75 billion in spend under management. Unused licenses are measured against industry-recommended use levels. Vendor data, not a random sample of companies.", "source": "zylo" }, { "id": "it-leaders", "title": "IT leaders and SaaS costs, last 12 months", "columns": [ "IT leaders who", "Share" ], "rows": [ [ "Faced unexpected charges from consumption-based or AI pricing", "78%" ], [ "Had to cut projects because of unplanned SaaS cost increases", "61%" ] ], "row_ids": [ "unexpected-charges", "cut-projects" ], "note": "Zylo survey of 218 IT leaders, published with the 2026 index (29 Jan 2026).", "source": "zylo" }, { "id": "by-index", "title": "Zylo's last three SaaS Management Index releases", "columns": [ "Measure", "2024 index (Feb 2024)", "2025 index (Jan 2025)", "2026 index (Jan 2026)" ], "rows": [ [ "SaaS spend under Zylo's management", "$34 billion", "$40 billion", "$75 billion" ], [ "SaaS licenses in the data", "30 million+", "40 million+", "40 million+" ], [ "Unused licenses", "$18 million a year wasted on average; 49% of licenses used", "$21 million a year wasted on unused licenses, on average", "36% of licenses unused, on average" ], [ "Who controls SaaS spend", "Not stated", "Lines of business 70%, IT 26.1%", "Business units 81%, IT 15%" ], [ "Growth in AI-native app spend", "Not stated", "75.2%", "108%" ] ], "row_ids": [ "index-spend-managed", "index-licenses", "index-unused", "index-control", "index-ai-native" ], "note": "Each release covers the previous year's customer data. The customer base and the measures change between releases (average in 2025, median in 2026; wasted dollars vs share of licenses unused), so read across a row with care: it is not a trend.", "source": "zylo" }, { "id": "by-size", "title": "Average SaaS spend and apps per company, by size (2024 data)", "columns": [ "Company size", "Average SaaS spend a year", "Average number of apps" ], "rows": [ [ "Smallest band (Zylo: \"1-500\")", "$11.5 million", "152" ], [ "10,000+ employees", "$284 million", "660" ] ], "row_ids": [ "size-small", "size-large" ], "note": "Zylo SaaS Management Index 2025 (16 Jan 2025). Averages for Zylo's own customer base, not for all companies of that size.", "source": "zylo" }, { "id": "build-vs-buy", "title": "Developers building software to replace paid vendors", "columns": [ "Measure", "Respondents", "Share" ], "rows": [ [ "Built in-house software in the past year, or plan to, to replace paid vendors", "2,482", "18.6%" ] ], "row_ids": [ "replace-vendors" ], "note": "Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2026, question BuildTool, n = 13,338; self-selected online survey, fielded June to August 2026. Over half of these developers use AI to build the replacement.", "source": "stack-overflow" } ], "sources": [ { "name": "SaaS Management Index", "publisher": "Zylo", "type": "vendor", "url": "https://zylo.com/" }, { "name": "Stack Overflow Developer Survey", "publisher": "Stack Overflow", "type": "survey", "url": "https://stackoverflow.co/" }, { "name": "State of the Cloud Report", "publisher": "Flexera", "type": "vendor", "url": "https://www.flexera.com/" } ], "content_changed_on": "2026-10-30", "page_url": "https://digitaltreed.com/statistics/saas/saas-spend-per-employee", "csv_url": "https://digitaltreed.com/statistics/saas/saas-spend-per-employee.csv" }