Updated November 2026
SaaS Spend Benchmarks 2026: How Your Company Compares
Benchmark data from Zylo's SaaS Management Index and Deloitte's technology-budget research in one vendor-neutral reference, each figure linked to its source.
$9,455
Median spend per employee/yr
305
Avg apps per company
36%
SaaS licenses unused
108%
AI-native SaaS spend growth YoY
SaaS Spend by Industry and Company Size
Zylo publishes its $9,455 median as an all-company figure. We have not found a free, primary source that breaks SaaS spend per employee down by industry or by company size, so this page does not show a per-industry table. The one size split Zylo does publish for 2026 is on AI: AI-native application spend rose 108% year over year overall and 393% in organizations with more than 10,000 employees.
Source: Zylo, 2026 SaaS Management Index.
IT Spend as Percentage of Revenue
Deloitte's 2023 Global Technology Leadership Study found the average technology budget was 5.49% of revenue in 2022. That covers all technology spending, not just SaaS subscriptions. Deloitte's earlier figures show the trend:
| Year | Tech budget as % of revenue |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 3.28% |
| 2018 | 3.64% |
| 2020 | 4.25% |
| 2022 | 5.49% |
Sector spread is wide. In Deloitte's 2016-2017 Global CIO Survey, technology spending ranged from more than 7% of revenue in banking and securities to less than 2% in construction and manufacturing. We have not found a newer free sector table, so use that ordering as context rather than a current target.
Sources: Deloitte, 2023 Global Technology Leadership Study (1,179 technology leaders); Deloitte CIO Insider, November 2017.
Shadow IT: Spend Outside IT's Control
Most SaaS spend is now bought outside central IT procurement. That creates untracked spend, duplicate subscriptions, and security and compliance gaps. Zylo's 2026 index puts numbers on the scale:
81%
Spend Controlled by Business Units
Business units control 81% of SaaS spend; IT directly manages 15%.
21
New Apps per Month
Organizations add an average of 21 applications per month.
267%
Expense-Based Spend Growth
SaaS bought on expense reports grew 267% year over year, with ChatGPT now the most-expensed app.
Source: Zylo, 2026 SaaS Management Index.
Where SaaS Waste Comes From
Zylo's 2026 index finds organizations leave 36% of their SaaS licenses unused. How that splits across the three sources below depends on your own license and usage data; we have not found a free public source that splits it for the average company.
Unused Licenses
Employees who have seats but have not logged in for 30+ days. Common with tools purchased during hiring surges or onboarding of acquired teams.
Duplicate Tools
Multiple teams paying for competing products that serve the same function. The classic example is three different project management tools (Jira, Asana, Monday) used by different departments in the same company.
Auto-Renewed Contracts
Annual subscriptions that renew automatically for tools that are no longer actively used. The renewal passes through finance without anyone questioning whether the tool is still needed. Common after team restructuring or project completion.