The SaaS Spend Index (Q3 2026)

Updated 17 August 2026

The SaaS Spend Index tracks what companies actually pay for software, measured from real, anonymized company payments on Cledara — not list prices or surveys. As of 17 August 2026, the typical company runs 32 paid tools. Reported separately for UK (GBP), EEA (EUR) and US (USD) buyers, with no currency conversion. Data as of 17 August 2026.

The SaaS Spend Index — UK

As of 17 August 2026, UK companies' median software spend is up 28% versus a year ago.

Median per-company software spend, indexed to 100 at Jul 2020. Headline values are a trailing 3-month rolling median; months with incomplete data coverage are excluded and shown as gaps.

How much companies spend on software

Half of UK companies spend between £26k and £154k a year on software, with a median of £74k.

The typical UK company runs 32 paid tools (17–46 for the middle half).

Categories with the fastest-rising spend

The SaaS Spend Index — EEA

As of 17 August 2026, EEA companies' median software spend is up 30% versus a year ago.

Median per-company software spend (EUR), indexed to 100 at Jul 2021. Months with incomplete data coverage are excluded and shown as gaps.

Half of EEA companies spend between €14k and €152k a year on software, with a median of €56k.

The typical EEA company runs 28 paid tools (11–43 for the middle half).

The SaaS Spend Index — US

As of 17 August 2026, US companies' median software spend is up 24% versus a year ago.

Median per-company software spend (USD), indexed to 100 at Jan 2023. Months with incomplete data coverage are excluded and shown as gaps.

Half of US companies spend between $60k and $346k a year on software, with a median of $141k.

The typical US company runs 36 paid tools (23–53 for the middle half).

The shift to usage-based billing

As of 17 August 2026, 67% of software payments follow a usage-based billing cadence.

Methodology

Source: real, anonymized company payments made through Cledara — not surveys, list prices or estimates. "Spend" means the actual payment amounts companies made for their software subscriptions.

Currencies are never converted or blended. UK buyers are reported in GBP, EEA buyers in EUR and US buyers in USD, so each figure is a true single-currency measurement rather than an FX-blended estimate.

Every figure aggregates at least 20 companies, and we publish only the 25th percentile, the median and the 75th percentile — never averages, extreme percentiles, or any individual company's data.

Coverage gate: a month enters the index only when its transaction data covers at least 90% of calendar days, including the first and last days of the month. Months with incomplete coverage are excluded entirely and appear as gaps in the chart — the line is never interpolated across missing months.

Smoothing: the headline index line is a trailing 3-month rolling median of the monthly figures, which damps single-month noise. The raw monthly values are shown as a faint underlay so nothing is hidden.

We do not claim to measure vendor list prices, and no individual company is ever identifiable in any figure on this page.

Frequently asked questions

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