According to a recent survey, over 85% of businesses now use SaaS products, and the global SaaS market is expected to reach a staggering $716.52 billion in 2027.
With such a high demand for SaaS products, it is important to have a streamlined SaaS procurement process for a seamless software buying experience.
With so many options in the market, a SaaS procurement manager must evaluate all viable SaaS buying software before choosing the right one.
This article will provide an in-depth look into the best SaaS procurement software options available today, enabling you to make an informed decision when purchasing.
What is SaaS procurement?
SaaS procurement refers to the process of purchasing software as a service (SaaS) products for your business.
The process involves:
- Identifying the specific SaaS products your business needs.
- Evaluating the available options.
- Negotiating the terms of the subscription.
- Finalizing the purchase.
The SaaS buying process is designed to help businesses identify and purchase the software tools and services they need to operate effectively and achieve their goals.
SaaS purchasing software
SaaS buying process will be incomplete without a software. Manual SaaS procurement processes are prone to delays and errors. This is why businesses are actively adopting SaaS procurement software to streamline SaaS purchasing,
Why do you need software for SaaS procurement?
SaaS procurement software streamlines the SaaS buying process. From the point of raising the request, approving it, negotiating with the vendor, and purchasing it, a SaaS procurement solution simplifies the otherwise complex task.
Procurement processes are often subject to bottlenecks and a lack of visibility. The requester would have no idea who to direct his request to, and the procurement team would not know who should approve the requests. But a SaaS purchasing software prevents all these bottlenecks by making the process transparent.
With SaaS procurement software in place, organizations can facilitate better procurement decisions while mitigating the risks associated with SaaS contracts.
Best SaaS purchasing softwares in 2023
1. CloudEagle
CloudEagle is a comprehensive SaaS procurement software to help organizations streamline their SaaS purchasing process.
For organizations looking for a centralized SaaS spend management system, CloudEagle is the right choice. Its robust integration capabilities enable the platform to provide 100% app and spend visibility, accurate usage data, cost optimization insights, and effective contract and renewal management.
Procurement workflows
CloudEagle enables procurement teams to break down silos in the purchasing process and simplify it using automated workflows. A workflow will be triggered when a purchase request is raised, and all relevant stakeholders will be notified via Slack, emails, or in-app notifications.
The workflow will progress as each task, including budget review, compliance review, contract and negotiation preparation, etc., is completed. Finally, the procurement issue will be approved, and the procurement team can proceed with the purchase.
Slack integration
Slack for procurement is what differentiates CloudEagle from other SaaS procurement solutions. Users can raise a purchase request in Slack, and the relevant workflow will be triggered, alerting the stakeholders.
You can also create a private Slack channel where the stakeholders can converse and make informed purchasing decisions.
The entire procurement process and stakeholder conversations will be visible to the user who raised the request. He can check the progress in real-time; this increases accountability and prevents delays in the SaaS buying process.
Vendor research
You don’t need to spend time on search engines looking for vendors and their reputations and reviews. Leverage the vendor research module of CloudEagle to find suitable vendors, talk to their customers, read relevant reviews, and evaluate their reputation without leaving CloudEagle.
Or if you specify your requirements, the AI-powered vendor recommendation engine will recommend the right vendors for you, making vendor research easier.
Assisted buying
Effective negotiation is crucial when dealing with SaaS vendors, as they often employ tactics to convince buyers to pay the product's listed price. Avoiding a vendor's trap is only possible through skillful negotiation.
If your team lacks negotiation bandwidth, CloudEagle’s on-demand SaaS buying experts will take over, perform vendor research, negotiate on your behalf, and purchase the right product at the right price.
Set up auto-provisioning workflows based on relevant roles and departments. You don’t have to visit each application to provision apps to users when they join. The users will be provisioned to the apps automatically when they join, and likewise, their access will be revoked automatically when they quit.
Contract management
Centralize your SaaS contracts in one place for easy review and retrieval. CloudEagle will create a renewal calendar based on the contract dates and send reminders 90 days in advance. It’ll escalate among various stakeholders until one of them renews the contracts.
Additional features
- Identify duplicate, redundant, and unused applications.
- Re-allocate licenses based on priority.
- Create workflows for all kinds of hardware and software.
- Custom reports with historical data.
- Price benchmarking data
- Check the softwares used by your peers and connect with them.
- Identify SaaS and non-SaaS apps.
- SSO, finance, HRIS, Contract management, and Direct integrations(600+).
Services
- Saas buying services.
- Dedicated SaaS buyer and customer success manager.
- Competitive intel on 10,000+ SaaS vendors.
CloudEagle is not just a SaaS procurement platform. It can help organizations automate their entire SaaS lifecycle.
The Starter plan is priced at $1000/month. Pricing plan vary based on your total annual spend.
2. Vendr
Vendr offers a comprehensive SaaS purchasing platform that allows companies to buy software at lightning speeds with guaranteed savings. Among the most notable features are a streamlined purchase process with customizable visibility settings, advanced business intelligence capabilities, and cutting-edge APIs.
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As user-friendly as it is efficient, Vendr also offers features such as safe document storage and automated workflows with one-click approvals. However, some drawbacks of Vendr include limited data reporting functions and hard-to-navigate tools.
Current users also lack functionality, such as being able to add comments or notes for buyers, leaving some unnecessary questions unanswered.
Despite these shortcomings, Vendr is still leading the industry’s digital transformation regarding software purchases by offering cutting-edge solutions at unbeatable speeds and prices.
Features
- Identify overlapping and underutilized licenses
- Renewal negotiation assistance
- Centralized contract management
- Department-wise and vendor specific spend visibility
- Price benchmarks
- App catalog of 19,000 applications.
Pricing
The starter plan is priced at $36,000 per year.
3. Sastrify
Sastrify is an innovative software-as-a-service procurement service that enables digital-first companies to streamline their SaaS tool management and costs.
In particular, its best features include the ability to easily monitor the usage of all SaaS tools across the business, including consolidated billing and automated user license management.
This maximizes visibility and savings, ensuring all cloud products are used efficiently and effectively. Furthermore, it provides central control for teams to manage the distribution of access for their users with just a few clicks.
Sastrify is an all-in-one procurement automation tool that can benefit CFOs, finance teams, and procurement teams. You can use the in-depth app insights to improve your negotiation process or enlist the help of Sastrify's negotiation experts to handle the grunt work while you buy the appropriate app.
Features
- Automated procurement workflows
- Expert negotiations services
- Workflows for contract renewals
- Reselling partnership with vendors
- Price benchmarks
Pricing
The plans start at $2,990 per month and $35,880 per year.
4. Zluri
Zluri is an enterprise SaaS management platform (SMP) that gives IT teams the power to control their cloud-based services. This platform allows users to discover, manage, and optimize their SaaS stack from a single dashboard.
Moreover, Zluri eliminates the need for inefficient processes like manual spreadsheet updates and allows for centralizing data in one place, so teams can utilize it across multiple deployments.
It also has an intuitive user interface where multiple stakeholders can collaborate effectively on projects.
However, its lack of detailed analytics and reports sometimes limits its effectiveness. Nevertheless, Zluri remains a popular choice for larger enterprises wanting to get a better handle on managing their SaaS stack.
Features
- Comprehensive app usage data
- Identify duplicate, redundant and unused applications
- Centralized contract and renewal management
- Department-wise and category-wise spend data
- M365 adoption for license management
- Approval workflows and SaaS buying experts
Pricing
Contact the sales team for pricing details.
5. Spendflo
Spendflo is a SaaS procurement and optimization app for hyper-growth businesses.
Their platform is designed to offer an assisted purchasing experience, streamlined approval workflows, efficient management of contracts, fast-tracked vendor and security compliance, and comprehensive tracking of SaaS usage.
The best features of Spendflo include its customer-centric approach tailored to each business's unique needs as well as its easy-to-use dashboard that makes managing digital product lifecycles simple.
Features
- Sentiment hub
- Manage SaaS contracts in place
- Renewal reminders
- Monitor SaaS spending across users and teams
- Identify and remove unused licenses and duplicate apps
- Price benchmarks and SaaS buying services
- Renewal workflows.
Pricing
Customizable pricing plans based on your annual spend.
6. Zylo
Zylo is a powerful tool that allows companies to maximize the value of their SaaS investments by effectively organizing, optimizing, and automating the automated management process.
It provides IT teams valuable insights into software adoption rates, cost savings opportunities, and usage trends based on aggregated data across departments and users.
Additionally, it allows for customizable workflows and policies in order to ensure compliance and centralize all SaaS-related operations. A notable advantage of Zylo is its intuitive user interface, which makes it easy to find the necessary information quickly and efficiently.
However, one of its drawbacks is that there are currently not enough customization options available for Zylo's app catalog, ultimately limiting how much control an organization has over organizing its technology stack.
Nevertheless, Zylo offers an effective system for managing businesses' SaaS investments and can be a valuable asset to any organization.
Features
- SaaS buying services
- Cost optimization insights
- Slack and email notifications for renewal alerts
- Check historic spend data
- License management
- Onboarding and offboarding workflows
- Workflows for reclaiming and reassigning licenses.
Pricing
You can request a customized quote.
7. Tropic
Tropic offers a comprehensive end-to-end procurement solution to optimize every dollar of a business's software expenditure.
From streamlining spend management and automating procurement workflows to fully outsourcing procurement and renewals for all SaaS contracts, Tropic can provide maximum value for the organization's money.
However, they may need to contact their support team from time to time to make adjustments to their workflows if anything changes.
Nevertheless, Tropic provides businesses with the edge when it comes to SaaS procurement, as it truly is a competitive advantage for those who choose this service.
Features
- Approval workflows and SaaS buying experts
- Price benchmarking data
- Spend visibility and cost optimization insights
- Renewal alerts
- License management
Pricing
It has customizable pricing plans based on annual spend.
Conclusion
To stay relevant in the market, businesses have started to use multiple SaaS applications to gain a competitive advantage. So, it's more important than ever to have software in place to simplify your SaaS buying process and save time.
With hundreds of SaaS buying platforms on the market, finding the one that fits your procurement needs can be hard. That's why we researched it for you and listed the best software for SaaS procurement.
If you're looking for affordable, automated, and comprehensive SaaS procurement software to streamline your procurement process, look no further than CloudEagle.
Click here to sign up for a free demo and see how our SaaS purchasing software tool can make it easier for you.
Aside from CloudEagle, Vendor, and Spendflo are great options for your SaaS procurement needs. Choose wisely, as this can save millions on your SaaS spend.
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