SaaS Adoption Statistics (2026): Spend, App Sprawl, Cloud Waste & What Nonprofits Should Do

Software-as-a-service is now the default way most organizations buy software, from donor databases to scheduling tools and volunteer sign-up forms. This report pulls together the most credible 2026 figures on SaaS spending, app sprawl, license waste and AI adoption, and explains what they mean for nonprofit and church leaders who run volunteer programs on these tools. It is part of our statistics hub, where we track the data behind volunteer safety and program operations.

Key takeaways

Market growth: SaaS is the largest slice of cloud spending

SaaS has held the top position in public cloud budgets for several years. In its May 2024 forecast, Gartner projected that SaaS spending would grow about 20% to reach $247.2 billion in 2024, while noting that SaaS remained the largest cloud segment by end-user spend. A later Gartner forecast, reported by Yahoo Finance, put SaaS spending at $299.1 billion in 2025, up from $250.8 billion in 2024. These are buyer-side spending forecasts, not vendor revenue, and the two Gartner vintages use slightly different baselines.

Overall software budgets are still climbing. Gartner's 2026 figure of $1.44 trillion in worldwide software spending, up 15.1%, is cited by SpotSaaS, which attributes it to Gartner. That total covers all software, so it does not isolate SaaS.

Portfolio size: how many apps organizations actually run

App counts are the clearest sign of adoption depth. Zylo's 2026 SaaS Management Index, built from $75 billion in analyzed spend across 40 million licenses, puts the average portfolio at 305 applications, with a median of 240. The gap between average and median shows that a small number of very large portfolios pull the mean upward. For a typical small or mid-sized nonprofit, the median is the more realistic benchmark.

Waste and unused licenses: where the money leaks

Buying is easy; governing is hard. Zylo's index finds that 36% of SaaS licenses go unused, which the same summary estimates costs the average company $19.8 million per year. Flexera's 2026 State of the Cloud report, based on 753 respondents, shows a related blind spot: 8% of organizations do not track SaaS costs at all, up from 5% a year earlier.

Flexera's waste figure has moved over time. Ideatives, which compiled Flexera's reports, lists a 2022 peak of 32%. Waste then fell to 28% in 2023 and 27% in 2024, and held near that level through 2025 before rising again in 2026.

What organizations say they struggle with most

Flexera's respondents rank cost management above security and license management. The share naming each as a top challenge is shown below, drawn from the Flexera cloud cost management analysis.

AI is reshaping SaaS stacks and billing

The newest change is AI. BetterCloud's 2026 State of SaaS report finds that businesses now deploy an average of 27 AI-powered SaaS applications, counting both AI-native tools and AI add-ons. Its excerpts also say that 22% of current tech stacks are AI-powered, and that more than a third of those AI tools are billed only on usage or token consumption, which makes budgets harder to forecast.

Nonprofit adoption and the wider workforce

Nonprofit-specific adoption data is thinner than enterprise data. The most useful large-sample benchmark we verified is TechSoup's global study, which surveyed 11,758 civil society technology decision-makers in 135 countries and found that COVID-19 pushed organizations toward cloud-based apps, while planning, skills and resources remained gaps. That study dates to 2021, so treat it as a directional baseline rather than a current measure.

On the labor side, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that software publisher employment will grow 19.3% between 2024 and 2034, from about 645,700 to about 770,300 jobs. Software publishing is one of the fastest-growing industries in the economy, which means vendors will keep adding products and features that nonprofits must evaluate.

What this means for your volunteer program

Most nonprofits now run volunteer sign-ups, shift schedules, and donor records in SaaS tools. The same waste and visibility problems in the data above apply to volunteer systems: unused licenses, untracked tools, and unclear ownership of who can see personal data. Volunteer screening adds a second layer. A volunteer record without a verified background check is a gap that no software license count will reveal. Our volunteer risk management guide and volunteer safety benchmark show how to assess those gaps, and digital transformation statistics cover the nonprofit tech picture.

A practical starting point: list every tool that touches volunteer data, confirm an owner for each, and remove unused seats. Then set a written standard for who must be screened before access is granted. Our volunteer screening policy guide and how to screen volunteers article walk through that standard. VolunteerBadge offers $5 FCRA-compliant background checks with identity verification and no monthly fees. You can import your volunteer roster, review identity verification options, and compare pricing. Our nonprofit page and the VolunteerBadge Academy offer more training.

Screen every volunteer before they get access.

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