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12/06/2026 9:24 pm
TL;DR: Software cost reduction can improve budget discipline, but Zluri’s analysis shows the real savings come from controlling licence sprawl, shadow IT, renewal decisions, and usage visibility rather than treating spend as a one-time procurement exercise. The governance lesson is that cost control and identity control now overlap, because unmanaged access and underused subscriptions are often the same problem in different forms.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Zluri: SaaS Management Top 10 Software Cost Reduction Strategies for 2026
By the numbers:
- 72% of organisations have experienced or suspect they have experienced a breach of non-human identities, 46% confirmed and 26% suspected.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams reduce SaaS costs without creating access risk?
A: Start by treating every subscription as an access object as well as a cost object.
Q: Why do SaaS renewals often preserve waste instead of removing it?
A: Because many renewal processes rely on historical spend and informal ownership rather than current usage and lifecycle evidence.
Q: What do organisations get wrong about shared software licences?
A: They often assume shared licences are just a pricing model, when they are actually an entitlement model with timing and accountability requirements.
Practitioner guidance
- Create a live SaaS entitlement inventory Map every subscription to a business owner, a technical owner, and the active identities consuming it.
- Gate renewals on current usage evidence Require recent usage data, offboarding status, and named approval before any contract renews.
- Align shared licensing with reclamation rules Set concurrency thresholds, reclaim windows, and exception handling for pooled licences.
What's in the full article
Zluri's full blog post covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- The article breaks down specific SaaS cost reduction tactics such as open-source substitution, trial evaluation, outsourcing, and licence consolidation.
- It gives product-oriented guidance on Zluri's discovery methods and how they expose shadow IT, redundant apps, and unused licences.
- It explains renewal monitoring, usage tracking, and negotiation support for teams that need implementation detail rather than governance framing.
- It includes practical examples of how subscription management data can support cost analysis and procurement decisions.
👉 Read Zluri's software cost reduction strategies for SaaS management →
SaaS cost reduction: the governance gap teams keep missing?
Explore further
12/06/2026 11:25 pm
Software cost reduction fails when organisations treat licences as procurement objects instead of governed access objects. The article’s core point is that usage, ownership, and renewal timing must be visible before savings are credible. In identity terms, a subscription is only economical when the access behind it is current, justified, and reclaimable. Practitioners should read cost reduction as a governance discipline, not a finance-only exercise.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 1 in 4 organisations are already investing in dedicated NHI security capabilities, with an additional 60% planning to do so within the next twelve months, according to The State of Non-Human Identity Security.
- 85% of organisations lack full visibility into third-party vendors connected via OAuth apps, including 38% with no or low visibility and a further 47% with only partial visibility.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who should own software rationalisation decisions in an identity-led programme?
A: Business owners, IT, finance, and identity governance should share the decision, but the access evidence has to come from the identity side. Without a trusted view of who has access, who is using the app, and who left the organisation, software rationalisation becomes guesswork.
👉 Read our full editorial: Software cost reduction is really SaaS and identity governance
