SaaS Subscription Audit: How Much Are You Actually Spending?
# saas# costanalysis# audit# opensource
RoyceSaaS Subscription Audit: How Much Are You Actually Spending? The average company uses 130+...
SaaS Subscription Audit: How Much Are You Actually Spending?
The average company uses 130+ SaaS tools. Most don't know what they're paying — or that open source alternatives exist for 80% of them.
The SaaS Spending Problem
| Company Size | Average Annual SaaS Spend | Average Tools |
|---|---|---|
| 1-50 employees | $50,000-150,000 | 40-80 |
| 50-200 employees | $150,000-500,000 | 80-120 |
| 200-1000 employees | $500,000-2,000,000 | 120-200 |
Most companies discover 30-40% of subscriptions are underused or redundant.
Step 1: Find Every Subscription
Where to Look
- Credit card/bank statements — Search for recurring charges
- Expense reports — Individual team purchases
- Email receipts — Search "subscription", "invoice", "receipt"
- SSO dashboard — Shows connected apps
- Browser extensions — Installed by team members
- IT admin consoles — Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 app lists
Common Categories to Check
| Category | Common SaaS Tools | OSS Alternatives |
|---|---|---|
| Team chat | Slack ($8.75/user) | Mattermost, Rocket.Chat |
| Project management | Jira ($8.15/user), Asana ($13.49/user) | Plane, Taiga |
| Documentation | Notion ($12/user), Confluence ($6.05/user) | Outline, BookStack |
| Analytics | GA360 ($50K+), Mixpanel ($28/user) | Plausible, PostHog |
| CRM | Salesforce ($25/user), HubSpot ($20/user) | Twenty, EspoCRM |
| Email marketing | Mailchimp ($20+), SendGrid ($20+) | Listmonk |
| Customer support | Zendesk ($19/user), Intercom ($39/user) | Chatwoot |
| Design | Figma ($15/user), Adobe CC ($55/user) | Penpot, Inkscape |
| Scheduling | Calendly ($12/user) | Cal.com |
| Forms | Typeform ($29+) | Formbricks |
| Link management | Bitly ($35+) | Dub |
| Monitoring | Datadog ($15/host), PagerDuty ($21/user) | Grafana, Uptime Kuma |
| Authentication | Auth0 ($23+) | Keycloak, Authentik |
| Storage | Dropbox ($15/user), Google Drive ($12/user) | Nextcloud |
| Video calls | Zoom ($13.33/user) | Jitsi Meet |
Step 2: Calculate True Cost Per Tool
For each subscription, calculate:
True Annual Cost = (Monthly Per-User Cost × Users × 12)
+ Add-on Costs
+ Overage Charges
+ Admin Time Value
Example: A 50-Person Team's SaaS Stack
| Tool | Per User/Mo | Annual Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Slack Pro | $8.75 | $5,250 |
| Jira Standard | $8.15 | $4,890 |
| Notion Plus | $12 | $7,200 |
| Confluence | $6.05 | $3,630 |
| Figma Professional | $15 | $9,000 |
| Zoom Business | $13.33 | $7,998 |
| Calendly Teams | $12 | $7,200 |
| 1Password Teams | $4 | $2,400 |
| Mailchimp Standard | — | $3,600 |
| Intercom Starter | — | $9,480 |
| Google Analytics | — | $0* |
| Datadog (10 hosts) | — | $3,960 |
| Total | $64,608/year |
GA4 is "free" but costs user data and requires CMP.
Step 3: Identify Replacement Candidates
High-Impact Replacements (Save >$3K/year each)
| Replace | With | Annual Savings |
|---|---|---|
| Slack Pro → Mattermost | Self-hosted | $5,094 |
| Notion → Outline | Self-hosted | $7,092 |
| Figma → Penpot | Self-hosted | $8,892 |
| Jira → Plane | Self-hosted | $4,782 |
| Zoom → Jitsi Meet | Self-hosted | $7,842 |
| Calendly → Cal.com | Self-hosted | $7,092 |
| Intercom → Chatwoot | Self-hosted | $9,372 |
Total potential savings: $50,166/year (78% reduction)
Self-Hosting Costs
| Servers Needed | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| 3 VPS (Hetzner, 4-8 GB each) | $21-42 |
| Backups (Backblaze B2) | $5 |
| Domains | $5 |
| Total infrastructure | $31-52/month ($372-624/year) |
Step 4: Prioritize by ROI
Score each potential switch:
| Factor | Weight | How to Score |
|---|---|---|
| Annual savings | 40% | Dollar amount saved |
| Migration effort | 25% | Hours to migrate (lower = better) |
| Feature gap | 20% | What you lose (smaller gap = better) |
| Team impact | 15% | How many people are affected |
Prioritization Example
| Switch | Savings | Effort | Gap | Impact | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calendly → Cal.com | $7,092 | Low (2h) | None | Medium | 🟢 Do first |
| 1Password → Vaultwarden | $2,346 | Low (1h) | None | High | 🟢 Do first |
| Slack → Mattermost | $5,094 | Medium (4h) | Small | High | 🟡 Phase 2 |
| Notion → Outline | $7,092 | High (8h) | Medium | High | 🟡 Phase 2 |
| Figma → Penpot | $8,892 | High (16h) | Medium | Medium | 🔴 Phase 3 |
Step 5: Plan the Migration
Phase 1 (Week 1-2): Quick Wins
- Tools with easy migration and no feature gap
- Cal.com, Vaultwarden, Uptime Kuma, Plausible
Phase 2 (Month 1-2): Core Tools
- Communication and project management
- Mattermost, Plane, Chatwoot
Phase 3 (Month 2-4): Complex Migrations
- Tools with data migration needs
- Outline (Notion), Penpot (Figma)
The Bottom Line
Most 50-person teams can save $40,000-60,000/year by replacing SaaS with open source. Start with the quick wins — you'll save thousands in the first week.
Find the best open source alternative for every SaaS tool at OSSAlt.