INSIGHTS
Renewals, negotiation, benchmarks, license utilization, and the operating rituals that keep finance, IT, and procurement aligned. Written for the person who keeps getting blindsided by renewals.
Most 200-person companies are running 6+ overlapping AI tool subscriptions with no central inventory. Here's how to consolidate the spend without blocking the AI adoption your CEO is pushing for.
Sandbox fees, premier support, overage charges, true-up adjustments. Most are negotiable or removable. Most finance teams pay them anyway. Here's how to read the invoice.
Most security review processes optimize for the worst-case vendor and tax every other purchase. Here's a tiered model that catches the risk without taxing the org.
Vendors push multi-year because it locks in net retention. Sometimes you should take the deal. Most of the time you shouldn't. Here's how to tell the difference.
When the cost target lands in week 10 of a quarter, you don't have time for a six-month consolidation. Here are the five reclamation plays that close before quarter end.
Most SaaS forecasts are last year plus 10%. That's how teams miss a 28% true-up. Here's the driver-based model FP&A leads use to forecast software accurately enough to defend.
Renegotiating three overlapping tools usually saves 12–20%. Consolidating to one saves 40–60%. Here's how to know which move applies, and when to leave well enough alone.
Approval workflows fail when they're slower than buying with a corporate card. Here's how to design one that's fast enough to comply with and strict enough to govern.
When SaaS spend leaks, it's almost never one team's fault. It's the absence of a shared cadence between finance, IT, and procurement. Here are the five rituals that fix it.
A login isn't a use; an active session isn't a value. Here's how to measure SaaS utilization correctly, and the 60-day rule we apply before recommending a seat cut.
Most SaaS contracts auto-renew on terms you wouldn't accept on a fresh signature. Here are the six clauses that quietly compound year over year, and the redlines we use.
Public SaaS pricing pages are aspirational. Here's what 200 mid-market companies actually paid in the last 12 months — and how to use a benchmark without burning your vendor relationship.
SaaS renewal management is the single highest-leverage workflow in software procurement. Here's how the discipline works in 2026, what to measure, and where AI for SaaS renewals actually moves the number.
The SaaS your IT team doesn't know about almost always shows up first in the AP ledger. Finance is in a better position to find shadow IT than the team that's nominally responsible for it.
SaaS contract management isn't legal CLM with a SaaS skin. It's a finance workflow built around renewal dates, usage data, and vendor leverage. Here's how the discipline works in 2026.
A good counter-offer is three asks, one paragraph of evidence, and a credible walk-away — written so the vendor's manager can approve it without a meeting. Here's the template.
You don't need a six-week consulting engagement to find the 20% of your SaaS stack that's leaking money. Here's the week-long audit we run with finance leads at 200-person companies.
Most SaaS renewals are lost in the last two weeks because the work that mattered should have started 90 days earlier. Here's the checklist we run for every contract.