SaaS Buying Insights Report: October 2022 edition

October is officially over, which means it’s time to swap out the ghost decor for your end-of-year holiday arrangements.

It also means we can officially look back on last month’s SaaS buying activity that our Executive Buyers and Procurement Specialists observed helping the world’s fastest growing companies manage their SaaS stacks. 

Welcome to the first monthly edition of our SaaS Buying Insights Report. Part of our mission at Vendr is to help companies save on SaaS, and by surfacing this data, that’s exactly what we’re hoping to achieve.

Keep reading for a preview of the qualitative and quantitative insights we’ve gathered over the last 31 days.

Want to jump straight into the report instead? Get yourself a copy here.

October’s theme? Inflation, uplifts, incentives, oh my!

It comes as no surprise that the SaaS stack continues to face scrutiny from Finance teams with talks of a looming recession. As a result, buyers and sellers are at odds: buyers are expected to purchase need-to-have tools with solid business cases; sellers are offering more incentives to lock customers in long term. 

Here are just three of the many trends we’re seeing right now:

‍1. The heat is turning up for stakeholders

With Finance less likely to entertain purchase requests as quickly, stakeholders are expected to prepare firmer business cases given overall increased SaaS costs. 

“Mission-critical products are still being purchased. If you want to buy a fringe product, you should be prepared to put together a business case for your Finance team.” – Michael Murray, Enterprise Account Executive

2. Software negotiations need to be strategic

With continued economic uncertainty hanging over our heads, buyers and sellers have differing priorities. Buyers looking for shorter payment terms need to ask themselves: should you save on risk in the short-term or save money in the long-term with higher incentives?

“Customers who are looking to lock in better contracts in times of uncertainty are signing two-year deals with their vendors or trying to commit to slight growth to show a give/get with discounts.” - Aubrey Zimmerman, Senior Executive Buyer

3. Wallets are still open for great SaaS products

Budget freezes, stack consolidation, and longer sales cycles may be real, but that’s not stopping companies from investing in the top products purchased and renewed in October.

“Marketing and operations are seeing the most cuts — video tools, sales enablement, etc.” - John Merklinger, Manager, Executive Buying

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Ready for more? Get the full list of October’s qualitative trends and data-backed insights here.

If you’re seeing other recent trends we didn’t catch, start a conversation with us by emailing hello@vendr.com or tagging us on LinkedIn.

See you here next month!