How to Audit Your Software Stack (Before Your Next Renewal)

I’ve built marketing departments at four startups. More than once, I joined a department that had a software stack I didn’t choose. Some tools were absolutely essential. Some were paid for, renewed automatically, and used by almost no one. For example, I joined one company that used Marketo, an automation platform that wasn’t widely used or understood by the incumbent team.

For marketers, a marketing automation platform is fundamental to our ability to engage prospects and customers. In my situation, it was difficult to make a case for keeping the current platform, which created an additional task of identifying and implementing a replacement.

Unfortunately, this is a pretty typical scenario. Most tools are chosen by someone other than the people who use them every day. Of course, these decisions were made at a different time, for different reasons. By doing a software audit, you’ll find out what you’re paying for, and what’s truly working, before a renewal makes that decision for you.

What is a SaaS audit?

A SaaS audit is an organized review of every software tool a company pays for: what it costs, who uses it, what it overlaps with, and when its contract renews. The goal isn’t necessarily to cut costs, although that is often a welcome benefit. Instead, it’s to make sure every tool earns its place in your stack and budget. The tools that you keep should work together, rather than independently.

Why audit your software stack now

Software spending keeps growing, and much of it happens outside IT:

• Spend per employee is rising. Zylo’s 2025 SaaS Management Index, based on more than 40 million licenses, found that SaaS spend averages $4,830 per employee, up 21.9% year over year.
• Unused licenses add up. The same report found that organizations in Zylo’s data waste an average of $21 million a year on unused SaaS licenses.
• Most purchases happen outside IT. Individual departments and teams now account for 70% of SaaS spend, while IT is responsible for about 26%, according to Zylo.
• People juggle more apps than ever. In a 2023 Gartner survey, the average information worker used 11 applications, up from six in 2019.

AI is a growing share of new costs. Many vendors have added AI features with their own credits or tokens, add-ons, or usage fees. Those charges are easy to underestimate at purchase and challenging to forecast.

How to audit your software stack in 7 steps

You don’t need specific software to start. Instead, a spreadsheet and a few conversations will get most of the job done.

Step 1: Build a complete inventory

List every tool your company pays for. To start, ask your finance team to pull a year of software charges from accounts payable and corporate cards, since that’s where tools bought outside formal procurement processes show up. Then, cross-check against your single sign-on (SSO) app list and ask each team leader what their team uses.

For each tool, document:

• Tool name and owner (the person managing the contract)
• Team or department that uses it
• Annual cost and pricing model (per seat, usage-based, or flat fee; include AI spend)
• Number of paid seats
• Contract end or renewal date and notice period

Step 2: Confirm who actually uses each tool

Compare your paid seats to active users. Thankfully, most tools show this in their admin settings, and SSO logs can help fill in the gaps. If you’re paying for 100 seats on an app, but just 22 people logged in last month, reconsider whether you need it.

Look at active use, not just logins. For example, someone who opens a tool once a month to find an old file isn’t really a user.

Step 3: Group tools by the jobs they do

This is where overlap across your paid subscriptions shows up. Instead of listing tools by vendor or department, group them by the jobs they do. Here’s an example:

If three teams use three different tools for the same task, you’re paying three times for the same capability. Also, your information is split three ways.

Step 4: Add up the true cost of use

The license fee is only part of the cost. For each tool, be sure to include:

• AI add-ons, tokens, and credits, including what happens when you exceed your allowance
• Integrations and connectors that keep each tool in sync with others
• Admin time spent managing users, permissions, and settings
• Training and onboarding for new hires
• Price and renewal increases that were written into the contract

If you don’t have contracts or can’t access pricing, ask vendors for pricing in writing. In a 2025 TrustRadius survey, pricing transparency was the number one change B2B tech buyers wanted from vendors.

Step 5: Ask the people who use the tools

The people closest to the work know which tools help their daily work and which ones slow them down. However, they’re rarely asked. Send a short survey to each team with three questions:

1. Which tools do you use every week to do your job?
2. Which tools do you avoid, or work around?
3. Where do you go when you can’t find something?

The answers to question 3 are often the most revealing. If people go to Slack to find answers, your knowledge tools aren’t doing their job.

Step 6: Decide which tools to keep, consolidate, replace, or cut

Once you’ve collected data, make some decisions:

Be careful with the tools you classify as “consolidate.” Moving everything onto one platform only helps if that platform truly connects the work. A bundle of disconnected apps under one login is still siloed, just with a single bill.

Step 7: Work your renewal calendar backward

Document every contract end date and notice period on one calendar. Many software contracts will renew automatically unless you give notice 30 to 90 days ahead. So, start each review 90-120 days before the contract end date. That gives you time to collect usage data, talk to the team, compare options, and test drive a replacement, if you need one.

Software renewal checklist

Run through this list for every contract coming up for renewal:

☐ Confirm contract end date and notice period

☐ Compare paid seats with active users over the last 90 days

☐ Assess overlap with other tools that do the same job

☐ Calculate true cost, including AI add-ons, integrations, and admin time

☐ Check the renewal for price increases

☐ Gather feedback from the people who use it every day or week

☐ Test data exports, so you know you can leave if you need to

☐ Review alternatives, with pricing in writing

☐ Make a decision: keep, consolidate, replace, or cut

☐ Assign an owner for the next renewal

Questions to ask vendors before you renew

• What will we pay next year, all-in? Include seats, add-ons, AI usage, and any price increase.
• How is AI billed? Is it included, or metered in credits, tokens, or dollars? Do credits expire, and what is the time frame?
• Can we reduce seats at renewal? Are we locked into our current licenses?
• How do we export our data? In what format do we export it, and does it include a history and attachments?
• Can we test changes before we commit? Ideally, can we test them with our own content, rather than a demo account?

Common mistakes

• Auditing only what IT bought. Most software spend now sits with departments, so start with data provided by the finance team.
• Counting logins instead of real use. A login isn’t the same as daily or weekly use of a tool.
• Cutting tools without asking the people who use them. While you’ll cut costs on paper, you’ll lose the savings to workarounds.
• Consolidating without connecting. Working with fewer vendors doesn’t help you if your company information is still split across apps.
• Starting too late. Unfortunately, two weeks before an automatic renewal isn’t enough time to negotiate or switch.

Where NuHQ fits

NuHQ is an AI-native company HQ: a suite of connected apps for knowledge, product management, projects, and communication, built as one system. That means one login, one security review, and one bill, with apps that share context. AI is persistent (always-on) and also on-demand.

We also publish our pricing, and AI usage is metered at published rates. If you’re considering a switch, our test drive moves your own content into NuHQ and runs it side by side with your current tool. Try the switch before you make it.

See what one connected system costs

See NuHQ pricing, with no sales call required. To see how information moves across your current tools, take our free Sync Index, or join the waitlist for the private beta.