The 12-Step SaaS Audit Checklist for Small Teams

Most SaaS audit articles are 3,000 words of throat-clearing wrapped around a vague promise to "rationalize your software stack." This isn’t that.

Below is the exact 12-step checklist we use when helping 10–50 person companies audit their SaaS spend. Block 4 hours. Open your bank statements. Go.

Step 1 — Pull 90 days of bank statements

Download CSV exports from every account that pays for software. Most small companies have 2–3: the company card, the founder’s card, and a Stripe or PayPal account. Concatenate them.

Time: 15 minutes. Output: one spreadsheet with every transaction.

Step 2 — Filter to recurring charges only

Sort by vendor. Anything that hit your card more than once in 90 days is a subscription candidate. Don’t forget annual contracts — those won’t show twice, so cross-check against your accounting software.

Step 3 — Match each charge to a tool, a department, and an owner

For every recurring charge, fill in three columns:

• Tool: the actual product name (the bank statement often shows the parent company)
• Department: which department uses it (Engineering, Marketing, Ops, etc.)
• Owner: the named human responsible. Not a shared inbox. Not "everyone."

If you can’t name an owner in 60 seconds, the tool has no owner. Mark it "orphan" and move on. Orphans get cancelled in step 11 unless someone claims them.

Step 4 — Pull seat counts from every vendor admin panel

Log into each vendor’s admin panel. Record total seats purchased. Yes, this takes an hour. No, there’s no shortcut.

Step 5 — Pull last-login data

Most SaaS admin panels show a "last active" column for each seat. If they don’t, estimate from internal usage signals (recent Slack messages, recent Notion edits, etc.).

Mark every seat with no activity in 90 days. That’s your reclaim list.

Step 6 — Mark inactive seats as "reclaim"

Resist the urge to actually cancel yet. Just mark them. Sometimes the "inactive" user is the CEO who logs in once a quarter to approve something. You want one batch decision at step 11, not 30 individual ones now.

Step 7 — List every renewal date for the next 12 months

For each subscription, find the next renewal date. Annual contracts: you need the renewal month and the notice period (usually 30 days). Monthly contracts: the next billing date.

Put each one on a shared calendar with alerts at 60, 30, and 7 days prior. The 60-day alert is your negotiation trigger.

Step 8 — Identify overlapping tools

Sort your list by category. Watch for stacks like:

• Two project management tools (Asana and Linear)
• Three chat apps (Slack + Teams + Discord)
• Two knowledge bases (Notion + Confluence)
• Multiple AI subscriptions on individual cards

These are consolidation candidates. Pick one per category, kill the rest, take the savings.

Step 9 — Find alternatives for everything >$50/mo

For any subscription over $50/mo, spend 10 minutes finding an alternative. Free, open-source, or just cheaper. You don’t have to switch — you just have to know the option exists when the renewal comes up.

We’ve done this research for the 88 most common SaaS tools — see our alternatives directory.

Step 10 — Book vendor calls for anything >$200/mo

Annual contracts over $200/mo are negotiable. Email the rep:

Hi — we’re reviewing our software stack ahead of renewal in [month]. Can you put time on the calendar this week to discuss pricing for our current usage? If we can’t justify the spend we’ll need to wind down.

Vendors will offer 15–30% off rather than lose a customer. They budget for this.

Step 11 — Cancel everything dead. Today.

Anything marked "reclaim" in step 6 with no owner stepping up, anything marked "orphan" in step 3 — cancel it now. Don’t schedule it. Don’t Slack the team. Cancel it.

The 7-day grace period to re-subscribe exists for a reason. Use it only if someone actually screams.

Step 12 — Schedule the next audit

Last Friday of next quarter. 30 minutes on the calendar. Same spreadsheet, same process. If you don’t schedule it now, you won’t do it.

What good looks like

On a first-pass audit, expect:

• 5–10 cancellations from orphaned tools and inactive seats
• 3–5 downgrades on over-provisioned plans
• 1–3 consolidations from overlapping tools
• 1–2 alternative swaps on expensive contracts
• 28–32% reduction in monthly SaaS spend

Frequently asked questions

How often should we audit SaaS spend?

Quarterly. Monthly is bureaucratic, annual misses renewal windows. Quarterly hits the sweet spot.

Who should run the audit?

Whoever owns the company credit card. Usually office manager, COO, or founder. No IT expertise required — just access and patience.

What’s the fastest way to find waste?

Pull last-login data for the three most expensive tools. Inactive seats there usually account for 50%+ of total preventable waste.