SaaS Statistics 2026

Software 1,464 15.2 1,679 14.6

Software 1,464 15.2 1,679 14.6

Overall IT 6,391 14.5 7,352 15.0

Cloud Application Services (SaaS) 250,804 18.1 299,071 19.2

Cloud Application Services (SaaS) 250,804 18.1 299,071 19.2

BOSTON, March 4, 2026 — Global spending on public cloud services is forecast to surpass $1 trillion in 2026—growing over 21%—and is expected to double by 2029, according to the latest update of International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Worldwide Software and Public Cloud Services Spending Guide .

SaaS Anchors Market Scale SaaS will remain the largest public cloud deployment category in 2026, accounting for more than half of global spending.

Regional Outlook United States : Spending will reach $647 billion in 2026, supported by large-scale enterprise migrations, hyperscaler AI infrastructure investment, and strong demand from regulated industries.

Western Europe : The market will total $255 billion, driven by cloud modernization programs, sovereign cloud adoption, and regulatory-led investment in data protection and AI governance.

Median SaaS spend per employee is $9,455, as rising AI adoption continues to influence SaaS economics.

As of Q3 2026, the average company spends $9,450 per employee per year on SaaS, up 1.4% from $9,324 in Q2.

Organizations spend an average of $55.7M annually on SaaS.

Despite flat portfolios, total SaaS spend increased 8% year over year.

Business units now control 81% of SaaS spend, while IT directly manages just 15%, reducing centralized oversight at a time of increasing pricing volatility.

Built on analysis of more than 40 million SaaS licenses and $75 billion in spend under management, the report shows AI-native applications as the fastest-growing spend category, with spend up 393% year over year in organizations with more than 10,000 employees and up 108% overall.

Expense-based SaaS spend increased 267% year over year, with ChatGPT now the most expensed application, highlighting how AI tools are entering organizations outside formal procurement and governance.

The average company manages 305 SaaS applications.

Within large enterprises, organizations add an average of 21 applications per month, suggesting ongoing tool turnover as teams make room for AI apps.

The modern organization now operates 831 applications on average, but only a fraction of them are truly governed.

At enterprise scale, the average portfolio reaches 2,191 apps.

Global Benchmark 40 Apps Per Employee Across all company sizes, the average employee interacts with 40 apps to do their job.

In 2025, 26 out of 50 of the top shadow IT apps were pure-play AI tools.

Although the proportion of enterprises with internet access was at similar near saturation levels in most EU countries, more than half (52.74%) reported that they used paid cloud computing services, with an increase of 7.42 percentage points (pp) compared with 2023 (see Figure 1).

The share of enterprises using paid cloud computing services was particularly high among large enterprises where 84.67% reported purchasing such services in 2025, an increase of 6.9 pp compared with 2023.

Among small businesses, the share of enterprises using paid cloud computing services increased in the same time period by 7.48 pp to 49.3% (Figure 3).

Among the enterprises that reported using paid cloud computing, some 85.15% relied on a cloud solution for their e-mail (see Table 1).

Most importantly, via the cloud, enterprises have access to relatively more sophisticated end customer software applications, for finances/accounting (58.16%), for planning their processes and resources (enterprise resource planning - ERP) (30.12%) and for managing information about their customers (customer relationship management – CRM) (27.91%).

In Finland (79.21%), Italy (75.6%), Malta (74.87%), Ireland (73.04%) and Sweden (72%) at least 70% of enterprises used paid cloud computing services.

79% of IT leaders encountered price increases at SaaS renewal in the past 12 months.

In the last 12 months, 78% of IT leaders reported unexpected charges tied to consumption-based or AI pricing models, and 61% were forced to cut projects due to unplanned SaaS cost increases, according to a survey of 218 IT leaders.

After peaking at 16.4% in June 2026, SaaS inflation fell to 12.9% in July and 12.7% in August, the lowest monthly rate since April.

More than a quarter of SaaS vendors still use shrinkflation tactics: Despite a year of gradual improvement, roughly 1 in 4 SaaS vendors still uses some form of shrinkflation.

Microsoft 365 Business Basic 16% $6.00 $7.00

Microsoft 365 Business Standard 12% $12.50 $14.00

Microsoft 365 E3 8% $36.00 $39.00 Microsoft 365 E5 5% $57.00 $60.00

Microsoft 365 F1 33% $2.25 $3.00

Agentic AI is set to disrupt enterprise software revenue models, with up to $234 billion of enterprise application spending exposed to agentic arbitrage between now and 2030, according to Gartner, Inc, a business and technology insights company.

By 2030, this will account for roughly 20% of enterprise application software-as-a-service (SaaS) spending.

Our renewal rate was 98% for each of the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024 and 2023.

Gross Revenue Retention Rate Our growth in subscription services revenues attributable to existing customers is further reflected by our gross revenue retention rate of approximately 97% as of January 31, 2026.

As of January 31, 2026, our attrition rate, excluding Slack self-service and current year acquisitions, was approximately eight percent.

The online monthly average churn for our Online customers was 2.9% per month for both the three months ended July 31, 2026 and 2025, and 3.0% and 2.9% per month for the six months ended July 31, 2026 and 2025, respectively.

For SaaS specifically: The Recurly network shows a median overall annual churn rate of 3.04% for software businesses, with top-quartile performers at 1.78% or below.

For enterprise SaaS: Within the $250+ ARPC cohort on the Recurly network, median annual churn sits at 3.54%, with involuntary churn at just 0.18%.

The top-quartile company with high NRR (higher than 106%) generates an incremental $4M in ARR through customer expansion.

Meanwhile, a bottom-quartile company (less than 98%) loses $1M due to churn.

Measured against industry-recommended utilization levels, organizations leave an average of 36% of their SaaS licenses unused, compounding cost pressure as AI-driven pricing expands.

Over 61% of apps are Shadow IT discovered through usage, browser activity, or direct signup, not procurement.

AI-enabled SaaS often: Scales usage dynamically Introduces new pricing models Creates indirect data exposure risks Delivers value that’s harder to quantify The data highlights just how quickly this is evolving: AI software importance surged from 1.94 to 3.13 on a 5-point scale Only 31% of organizations have visibility into AI software, compared to 66% of organizations that have visibility into their SaaS environment That makes traditional SaaS management practices feel outdated.

At the same time, 59% of respondents say wasted AI spend has increased year over year, highlighting rising cost pressures as enterprises adopt AI at scale and it becomes a core spending category.

Key findings from the latest Flexera 2026 State of ITAM Report include: Technology visibility is declining: Complete IT asset visibility dropped to 36% , reflecting growing complexity across AI, SaaS and cloud environments.

Audit activity remains high and costly: Nearly half (48%) were audited in the last year and only slightly less (44%) report spending over $1 million on software audits over the past three years, a figure that has stayed stagnant for the past three reports.

Microsoft is most frequently cited for audit activity across vendors : 64% of respondents reported that Microsoft audited their organization in the past three years, remaining at the top of the list for the past several reports.