You open your SaaS usage dashboard. Everything seems fine. A few apps are underused. Some contractors haven’t logged in lately. Your next renewal? Still two weeks away.
So, no urgency—until there is.
Then comes the familiar scramble: chasing department heads for confirmation, digging through Jira tickets, pinging managers on Slack, waiting on approvals that never come. Days pass. Finance clears the invoice.
Again.
Most IT teams aren’t lacking data. They’re overwhelmed by it. What’s missing is the ability to act on it, quickly and confidently. This is the quiet failure of most SaaS license oversight. By the time you've reconciled what’s truly in use, the spend is already locked in.
To fix this, modern IT teams are turning to license tracking software platforms that not only provide visibility but also enable action before it’s too late.
License tracking isn’t optional anymore
The SaaS stack is no longer centralized. It’s sprawling.
In 2025, the average organization uses 371 SaaS applications, driven by digital transformation and scattered app procurement across departments. Even mid-sized companies often juggle 200–300+ tools, many purchased outside official channels. This level of complexity makes it nearly impossible for IT to manage licenses manually, setting the stage for significant waste, security gaps, and compliance challenges. Ownership is often decentralized: business units spin up tools without IT involvement, teams trial software on the company credit card, and contractors receive access without ever being logged into the HRIS.
Over time, this creates a fragmented web of licenses, users, and usage that’s nearly impossible to manage manually.
Gartner reports that organizations underestimate their actual SaaS footprint by 2–3x due to unmanaged renewals, shadow IT, and siloed ownership.
This sprawl leads to:
- Unused licenses quietly renewing
- Orphaned accounts persisting post-offboarding
- Costly feature tiers are going underutilized
- Limited audit readiness across your stack
Trying to manage this complexity with spreadsheets, disconnected tools, or dashboard-only SaaS managers? You’ll always be behind.
What real software license tracking tools deliver
Modern license tracking software needs to go far beyond simply counting users and displaying usage reports. It needs to:
- Discover everything in your environment
- Tie licenses to real activity
- Drive cleanup automatically
Let’s break that down.
1. Discover every app — even the ones IT didn’t know about
Visibility is the first step, but most teams don’t know how much they’re missing. If your tool only looks at SSO logs or invoice history, you're not seeing:
- Tools purchased outside procurement
- Duplicate accounts across org units
- Trial apps are still active long after testing ended
Stitchflow uses multi-source discovery, combining HRIS data, IDP logs, expense reports, API integrations, and browser telemetry, to uncover:
- Shadow IT
- Orphaned app instances
- Duplicate environments
This approach identifies shadow IT, unused trial apps, and duplicate data — even across departments. It’s the same foundation recommended in our guide on License Management Best Practices for Business Sprawl, which outlines how to reclaim visibility across fragmented SaaS ownership.
“We thought we had about 90 tools in use. Stitchflow found 150, including some bought with marketing cards that had never gone through procurement. Some had never even been used.”
— Chris Tucker, Director of Strategic Technology
2. Track real usage — not just license assignments
Knowing who has a license is only part of the picture. The real value lies in understanding:
- Who’s actually logging in (and how often)
- Whether users are leveraging premium features
- Whether users are assigned the right tier
- Where there’s duplicate tool usage across functions
Stitchflow connects usage data directly to assigned licenses, offering:
- Inactivity thresholds (e.g., no login in 30 days)
- Tier optimization (e.g,. downgrade from Enterprise to Pro)
- Redundant license detection (e.g,. Canva + Figma for the same team)
This kind of license activity mapping helps IT reclaim spend with confidence — and without the usual manual follow-up.
One global engineering firm utilized Stitchflow to analyze 7,000 accounts in 15 minutes, reclaim over 375 licenses, and save more than $ 60,000, all without relying on spreadsheets or manual review.
“Before Stitchflow, we were just guessing. Now it’s all there: usage logs, login history, and even input from the user. One click, and we know what to do.”
— Edwin Katabaro, CISO, Turing
This aligns with the lifecycle discipline outlined in our guide on Software License Management: Automating Reconciliation for Modern IT Teams, enabling usage-based reclamation to become a repeatable and reliable process.
3. Automate cleanup before spend hits your books
Data alone doesn’t save money. Action does. The real test of any license tracking software is whether it can turn insights into workflows.
With Stitchflow, license cleanup becomes a background process:
- Dormant licenses are automatically flagged
- End-users are prompted to confirm if access is still needed
- If they don’t respond, requests go to their manager, with full usage context
- Access is revoked and licenses released when offboarding triggers a fire
- Finance is alerted with license savings data before renewals are paid
This isn’t just automation for the sake of efficiency; it’s how you make license cleanup part of daily IT operations, rather than a last-minute scramble.
“We used to prep for renewals in a panic with spreadsheets, Slack threads, and status meetings. Now, Stitchflow surfaces stale licenses early and handles the cleanup. We’re done in minutes, not days.”
— IT Operations Manager, Fintech Company
That’s the kind of real-world efficiency seconded in our License Management Policy Guidelines for Modern IT, which recommend automated, policy-driven cleanup to ensure licenses aren’t floating idle post-offboarding.
Why Stitchflow is different: From dashboards to done-for-you
Most software license tracking tools stop at reporting. Stitchflow is designed to solve the problem.
It’s not just a tracker, it’s a full-service automation layer for SaaS access, cleanup, and compliance. From discovery through license release, Stitchflow ensures your team isn’t just informed, they’re unburdened.
Here’s how it works across every layer of your stack:
Real customer outcomes with Stitchflow:
- 375+ unused licenses reclaimed
- 200+ offboarding gaps closed
- 1 full IT FTE’s time saved
- Access reviews completed in <24 hours (previously took 3+ weeks)
These outcomes reflect what top tools deliver in our roundup of the Best 10 Software License Management Tools in 2025, but with automation that closes the gap between data and action.
Final thoughts: Real-time license tracking isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s a survival
License waste doesn’t make noise. It creeps in silently — a few inactive seats here, a forgotten app there, a contractor still showing up in your Zoom logs.
By the time it shows up in a quarterly report, the damage is already done.
Modern IT teams can’t afford to wait. License tracking must be instant, connected, and built to drive action.
Stitchflow was built for this exact moment. For teams juggling hundreds of apps, thousands of users, and little time to chase spreadsheets, it’s the full-service engine that keeps your stack clean, your team focused, and your budget in check.
👉 Book a demo and see how quickly you can shrink your SaaS stack, reclaim wasted spend, and give your team back hours of time each week.
Jane is a writer at Stitchflow, creating clear and engaging content on IT visibility. With a background in technical writing and product marketing, she combines industry insights with impactful storytelling. Outside of work, she enjoys discovering new cafes, painting, and gaming.
