Unused SaaS applications

What percentage of SaaS tools are unused or underutilized?

As of Q2 2026, 65% of all SaaS licenses are either entirely unused or underutilized – up from 62% a year ago. Almost all of that increase is coming from one source: tools being used, but not fully.

• Shelfware is actually improving slightly: Fully unused licenses fell from 15% to 14% over the past year, a modest but genuine improvement, suggesting companies are getting somewhat better at eliminating totally abandoned tools.
• Underutilization is doing all the damage: "Underutilized" here means less than 50% of purchased licenses are actually being used — so for every underutilized tool, more than half the seats a company is paying for sit idle. This category rose from 47% to 51% over the past year, now accounting for the majority of all licenses tracked. Since shelfware declined at the same time, underutilization alone explains the entire rise in total waste, and then some.
• The real number is likely higher: This 50% threshold only counts tools where the majority of licenses go unused. It doesn’t include those sitting just above that line, meaning the true scale of underused software is likely far higher.
• Waste peaked in December 2025: Combined waste hit a high of 69% in December 2025, possibly reflecting a year-end pattern of new purchases or renewals that hadn't yet ramped up in usage, before easing back to 65% by June 2026. Even with that improvement, current waste remains higher than it was a year ago.

Because underutilization is now the bigger and growing problem, spotting it requires more than checking whether a tool is used at all; it requires knowing how much of its capacity is actually being used. With over half of all licenses now falling into this category, right-sizing underutilized tools is one of the single largest savings opportunities available without cutting a single tool entirely – often alongside securing discounts on the list price.  

The best SaaS spend management software platforms provide usage analytics, flagging instances of underutilization and waste, in turn helping teams right-size tools before a renewal locks in the same overprovisioned contract for another term.

Data source: These insights are derived from over $75bn of global processed spend managed by Vertice in 2026.