How to get more out of Asana with Stitchflow

Why Asana alone isn’t enough

For most teams, adopting Asana feels like a breakthrough. Suddenly, the chaos of spreadsheets and endless email threads is replaced with a clean, collaborative platform where everyone knows what they’re working on and when it’s due.

It’s no surprise that Asana has become one of the most widely adopted project management tools in modern organizations. From marketing campaigns to product roadmaps and HR onboarding, Asana touches nearly every department.

But here’s the reality many IT and finance leaders face: what starts as a productivity win for employees becomes a governance challenge at scale.

• Costs creep up as licenses multiply without oversight.
• Ex-employees and guest accounts linger, creating compliance risks.
• Shadow workspaces spin up outside IT’s control.
• IT spends hours reconciling usage data that’s incomplete at best.

The result? Asana’s promise of productivity is undercut by waste, inefficiency, and hidden risks.

The question isn’t whether Asana is valuable. It’s this: how do you maximize the benefits of Asana while keeping costs under control, users informed, and IT’s workload manageable?

That’s where Stitchflow comes in. By combining Asana license management, SaaS management, and Asana data governance, Stitchflow turns Asana from another siloed app into a fully governed, cost-optimized part of your SaaS ecosystem.

The challenge of Asana at scale

A tool that spreads faster than governance

Asana’s beauty lies in its ease of adoption. A single department can start using it with a credit card, and before IT realizes it, dozens of projects and hundreds of licenses are active. But the same ease of adoption is what makes it a governance headache.

Where Asana creates problems for IT and finance

1. Ex-employees with active accounts
   Offboarding may happen in core systems like Microsoft 365 or HRIS, but Asana often falls through the cracks. Former employees retain access, creating both compliance risks and unnecessary spend. (We cover this problem in more detail in our blog on automating SaaS offboarding.)
   
2. Unknown or duplicate accounts
   Without a centralized system of record, IT often discovers multiple licenses tied to the same user or accounts that no one claims ownership of.
   
3. Underutilized seats
   Managers tend to over-purchase licenses “just in case,” but without clear usage data, IT can’t right-size. This mirrors the same challenge many companies face in Zoom license optimization.
   
4. Guest account sprawl
   External collaborators invited for one project remain indefinitely, exposing sensitive project data.
   
5. Shadow workspaces
   Departments spin up separate Asana instances, bypassing IT and fragmenting governance.

Why is Asana license management different from other apps

When people think of license management challenges, they often consider Microsoft 365 or Salesforce, big-ticket apps with obvious cost implications. Asana often flies under the radar because per-user costs are lower.

But here’s the trap:

• A single Asana seat might cost less than an M365 E5 license.
• However, when spread across hundreds or thousands of employees, the waste adds up quickly.

👉 A 500-employee org typically wastes $32,100 annually on unused or underutilized Asana licenses. And because IT can’t rely on Asana’s reporting to prove usage, renewal cycles often turn into guesswork. Teams argue to keep their current license tier “just in case,” while finance is left wondering why SaaS spend is climbing.

This is where a broader approach to software renewal management makes all the difference.

The SaaS management perspective: Asana doesn’t exist in isolation

Another reason traditional Asana license management falls short is that Asana isn’t the only tool employees are using.

• Developers might use Jira for ticketing.
• Marketers might run campaigns in Monday.com.
• Everyone is communicating in Slack or Teams.
• Projects often overlap across multiple platforms.

This creates duplication, redundancy, and cost bloat. For example:

• A team member with both Asana and Jira licenses might only be active in one.
• Contractors could be added to both Slack and Asana, but offboarded from neither.
• Departments may unknowingly purchase overlapping licenses across apps.

This is why SaaS management is critical. It’s not enough to optimize Asana licenses alone; you need a unified view across your SaaS ecosystem.

Stitchflow integrates Asana into the broader IT Graph, showing how Asana usage overlaps with other apps. That way, IT can see not just who has a license, but how it fits into the bigger picture of SaaS adoption. (We explore this more in our guide on SaaS management platforms.)

Asana data governance: Beyond license cleanup

When most people hear “license management,” they think cost savings. But Asana data governance is equally important.

Governance risks without Stitchflow

• Compliance risk: Ex-employees still active in Asana may have access to sensitive projects.
• Security risk: Guest accounts are rarely audited, leading to unmanaged external access.
• Financial risk: Without license allocation data, finance can’t track SaaS spend by department.

How Stitchflow enforces governance

1. Ex-employee sweeps
   Automatically identifies users who left HR systems but remain in Asana.
2. Guest account audits
   Flags external collaborators for review and removal.
3. License allocation views
   Finance can see spending by department, cost center, or manager.
4. Shadow workspace detection
   Stitchflow spots ungoverned instances of Asana and brings them under IT’s oversight.

This governance-first approach is the same principle we highlight in enterprise software license management: visibility without remediation isn’t enough; you need governance that closes gaps.

How Stitchflow helps you get more out of Asana

Smarter license allocation

Instead of treating licenses as static, Stitchflow continuously monitors usage. Idle seats can be reclaimed or downgraded.
—> Outcome: 62 underutilized seats reclaimed = $18,600 saved annually.

Automated compliance closure

By sweeping ex-employees and unknown accounts, Stitchflow closes compliance gaps that Asana’s API misses.
—> Outcome: 45 gaps closed across a mid-size enterprise.

End-user-friendly reclamation

Rather than IT chasing employees, Stitchflow automates Slack/Teams nudges asking users to give up unused licenses. This reclaims seats without friction.

Data-driven renewal planning

Finance views provide clean, department-level license allocation, so renewals become data-driven instead of guesswork.

Covering API gaps

Stitchflow’s upcoming automated browser agent ensures governance even where Asana’s API falls short.

Real-world impact of Stitchflow on Asana

Across 100+ organizations (200–2,000 employees):

• 107 compliance/security gaps closed
• $32,100 saved annually (avg. for 500-employee orgs)
• 17 days of IT time reclaimed

“Everyone wants an Asana license, but [before Stitchflow] we had no idea who was really using them. We always scrambled before renewal. With Stitchflow, I have full visibility into Asana utilization. The Slackbot makes it great to reclaim unused licenses.” — IT Manager

Why Stitchflow is more than an Asana integration

Unlike point tools that only optimize Asana, Stitchflow is a SaaS management platform. That means Asana doesn’t sit in isolation; it’s part of a governed, cost-optimized SaaS ecosystem.

Stitchflow helps IT and finance:

• Simplify renewals: Clean data well before renewal negotiations.
• Automate offboarding: Remove ex-employees from Asana and every other app. (Check out our blog on software license optimization for why this matters at scale.)
• Pass audits easily: Provide proof of license usage and deprovisioning.
• Predict spend: Map SaaS costs by department and cost center.

Conclusion: Get more out of Asana with Stitchflow

Asana is one of the most powerful collaboration tools available today. But left unmanaged, it becomes another source of SaaS sprawl, draining budgets, creating compliance risks, and wasting IT time.

The good news? With Stitchflow, you don’t just use Asana; you get more out of it.

• More savings.
• More compliance coverage.
• More IT time back.
• More value for employees without adding friction.

That’s the power of combining Asana license management, SaaS management, and Asana data governance in one platform.

👉 Ready to see it in action? Book a demo with Stitchflow today.