SaaS spend management and shadow IT: what IAM teams miss

TL;DR: SaaS management platforms that map renewals, app usage, licenses, and shadow IT can improve spend visibility, but the operational limit is still manual data entry and incomplete discovery, according to Zluri’s review of Sastrify alternatives. For IAM and NHI teams, that means procurement control and identity control now overlap more than most programmes assume.

NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Zluri: SaaS Management Top 7 Sastrify Alternatives For SaaS Spend Management [2026]

By the numbers:

• Only 20% have formal processes for offboarding and revoking API keys, and even fewer have procedures for rotating them.

Questions worth separating out

Q: How should security teams handle SaaS subscriptions that sit outside identity governance?

A: Security teams should bring SaaS subscriptions into the same governance model used for identities, access, and offboarding.

Q: Why do shadow IT apps create identity and spend risk at the same time?

A: Shadow IT creates two problems at once.

Q: What do organisations get wrong about renewal calendars and licence reviews?

A: They often assume a renewal calendar is enough to enforce control.

Practitioner guidance

• Reconcile app ownership with account ownership Map each SaaS application to a business owner, a technical owner, and the identity source that governs accounts and licences.
• Treat offboarding as licence recovery plus access removal When an employee departs, reclaim the seat, disable the app account, and confirm any connected API or delegated access has been revoked.
• Set a data-quality threshold for spend decisions Require contract, owner, usage, and renewal fields to be complete before the platform is allowed to drive cancellation or right-sizing decisions.

What's in the full article

Zluri's full blog post covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:

• Vendor-by-vendor feature comparison across the seven Sastrify alternatives
• Detailed product capabilities for procurement, renewals, and spend reporting
• Customer rating snapshots from G2 and Capterra for each platform
• Specific examples of how each tool supports licence reclamation and SaaS buying

👉 Read Zluri's comparison of seven Sastrify alternatives for SaaS spend management →

SaaS spend management and shadow IT: what IAM teams miss?

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