Most SaaS stacks do not break all at once. They bleed you slowly.
One more tool. One more subscription. One more integration somebody swears will only take an afternoon. Then six months later your team is paying for overlap, living inside disconnected dashboards, and spending more time stitching systems together than using them.
In part one, Meeky and Matt break down the cost of SaaS sprawl, why cheap tools get expensive fast, and why “service as software” starts to make sense when the stack itself becomes the problem.
Okta’s Businesses at Work 2025 report says the average company now uses 101 apps. Zylo’s 2025 SaaS Management Index says organizations waste an average of $21 million a year on unused SaaS licenses. That is before you count the integration tax, the reporting mess, and the hours burned keeping brittle systems talking to each other.
💡 WHAT WE COVER:
✅ Why too many subscriptions create operational drag long before finance flags the line item
✅ How cheap tools turn expensive when each one adds another process, login, and integration
✅ The hidden cost of DIY tool stacks, and where the cleanup work actually lands
✅ Why discounted software can still be a bad deal if it adds complexity your team has to carry
✅ What “service as software” means in practice, and why internal products are back in the conversation
✅ Why consolidation is usually a workflow decision, not just a budget decision
📊 KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• The average company now uses 101 apps, up 9% year over year (Okta Businesses at Work 2025)
• Zylo’s 2025 SaaS Management Index says organizations waste an average of $21M annually on unused SaaS licenses
• Zylo’s updated shelfware data says businesses now average more than 305 SaaS apps in the portfolio, with 53% of licenses unused or underused
• The invoice is only part of SaaS cost. The rest shows up in integration work, reporting friction, duplicate workflows, and internal confusion
• Tool sprawl usually looks manageable right up until a team needs one source of truth and discovers it does not exist
• Consolidation is not anti-software. It is anti-friction
🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES:
Boozy Browsing: https://www.boozybrowsing.com/
Submit your site for a free 3E audit: https://boozybrowsing.com#submit
Matt Dorman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewdorman/
Meeky Hwang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meekyhwang
Full episode playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY0olkZyu52_N6UPh9c0PXRGDm_I0lF3F
🎯 Want us to look under the hood of your site? Submit at https://boozybrowsing.com#submit
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