8 SaaS purchasing best practices for making better decisions

Your company needs more new software. On top of that, new corporate mandates want to eliminate Shadow IT – requiring IT involvement in the buying process for all SaaS apps. Where do you start? How do you ensure your company makes the best SaaS buying decisions with its limited resources? Stay with us as we unravel your challenge with eight SaaS buying best practices every organization should follow.

Read on to learn:

• How companies are evolving to IT-managed SaaS
• SaaS purchasing best practices every company should follow
• The role of SaaS management platforms
• How BetterCloud’s BetterRenewal reports simplify software buying

First things first, though. Buying new SaaS or software is a different beast than making software renewals. We’ll explain why and what’s driving it..

Shift from Shadow IT to IT-managed SaaS apps

Control of SaaS apps within an organization has come a long way since the heady growth of the late teens’ and early 2020s. Back then, regardless of any financial or security risk it might introduce, users simply pulled out the credit card and subscribed to the tool they wanted.

Little by little, IT is regaining control of the SaaS sprawl the organization uses.

According to the BetterCloud 2025 State of SaaS report, 41% of organizations say more apps have become IT-managed over the year before.  And when it comes to buying, only 30% say that IT has an effective SaaS purchasing or renewal process.

But buying is different from renewing. After all, when you’re dealing with renewals, you have your own data and experiences from which to draw. You already know if the software helped the organization meet its goals, and whether it helped you save money or provide other kinds of value. 

With buying new software, you must rely on other people’s experience – be it conversations with colleagues who use similar tools, reviews, or contract pricing benchmarking reports – as your best teachers.

For this reason, buying a new app the right way is a long process. According to the Gartner 2025 Software Buyers Trend Report, the average amount of time it takes from evaluation to a purchase decision is about 4.6 months.

With that, let’s look at what should happen when the need for an entirely new SaaS app arises. What best practices should you follow to lead to transparent, good software buying choices?

SaaS purchasing best practices

When adding new technology, especially for large software or SaaS deployments, organizations usually include a few key best practices.

1. Form your buying committee

If you need some guidance on this SaaS purchasing best practice, recent research helps show the way.

• According to Gartner, 83% of all software purchases are made by teams.
• The BetterCloud 2025 State of SaaS reports that 63% of companies have a formal process for buying and renewing now that includes finance, operations, business users, and IT.
• The G2 2025 Buyer Behavior Report, says that on average, the buying committee is made up of between 5-8 people for most organizations.
• In the Fortune Business Insights’ 2024 Software as a service SaaS market, 44% say their finance team is part of the process most of the time.

Be sure to include stakeholders from IT, finance, legal, and the business function using the software.

For example, if the new SaaS app is for marketing, the buying committee includes marketing leadership and users. If the new software is for accounting, you’ll obviously need to include members of the accounting team.

Once you’ve got your committee, the next SaaS purchasing best practice is to get down to business assembling requirements.

2. Document business requirements

Getting clear on what the business needs is the first software buying best practice. Consider your business strategy, long and near-term business goals, as well as growth plans.

Think about whether you expect this new technology investment to help increase profitability, revenue, productivity or cut costs.

Estimate licenses quantities by:

• Number of users upon contract signing by role
• Company size change, either up or down – over the contract period

In addition, define:

• A budget range for the app
• A budget range for other non-app costs to become fully operational, including deployment, training, and all other costs
• Expectations for return on investment

For the next best practice, we’ll look at what goes into technical requirements.

3. Determine non-functional requirements

These characteristics focus on how an app performs, and not on the features and functions themselves. It’s a SaaS purchasing best practice to define non-functional or technical requirements so they’re clear, concise and most importantly, measurable.

As such, IT is generally heavily involved in defining them, as well as how well a potential SaaS vendor meets each one.

• Deployment: How long it takes to become fully operational
• Performance: How fast an app responds to user actions
• Reliability and availability: Limitations on downtime
• Scalability: Ability to handle increasing loads
• Security: Data and access protection
• Integration and extensibility: Other apps or systems this app to integrate should integrate with
• Data storage location: Storing data in certain geographic locations
• Data portability: Ability and ease of porting your data from an app
• Compatibility: How well it works with different endpoints, operations systems, and browsers
• Compliance: Industry-specific, regulatory, or legal standards an app must meet (usually around software updates and patching)

Pay close attention to integrations and extensibility. After all, in the Gartner 2023 Global Software Buying Trends Report, 39% of buyers identified integration with existing software as the most important factor when choosing a software provider.

Closely related to integrations is how IT plans to manage this new app. It’s important to know how much you’ll integrate the new app with existing infrastructure. For example, do you need your SaaS management platform (SMP) to manage it? If so, you need to see how well you can integrate this app into your SMP. Is there a native integration with the SMP or do you need to create a custom one? 

4. Define and prioritize functional requirements

This is the hard part. To follow this crucial SaaS purchasing best practice, you need to write down what the new SaaS app should do. List out the features and functions your company needs, making sure these requirements align with your overall business goals.

User stories can help 

This is where user stories come in. For example, have app users state what they need like: “As a user, I want to receive Slack notifications when offboarding workflow execution is complete.”

This means the app needs to integrate with Slack. The app also needs to have robust automation capabilities to accommodate complex offboarding process.

Get clear on priorities

Like everything else you buy, choosing the most appropriate tool and making a good software decision requires trade-offs. So it’s a best practice to state clear priorities, so it’s much easier to choose vendors to consider.

Before you talk to vendors, think about which features and functions are high priority. What can’t your team live without? What’s nice to have? What can you live without?

Avoid the temptation of skipping this step and going straight to solution shopping. In the end, it’ll make the buying process more difficult and time-consuming.

Besides, it can lead you to buy a SaaS app that you’ll later regret. Again, according to Gartner’s 2025 Software Buying Trends Report, 59% of buyers regret at least 1 SaaS purchase they’ve made in the last 18 months, which they’ve then had to swap out later.  

Without clear and well-considered functional requirements, you run the very real risk of making a software investment that your company fails to maximize, and switches from without achieving ROI.

5. Write your Request for Proposal (RFP)

An RFP length should be roughly equivalent to the amount of financial investment and operational risk an app represents. For example, a social media graphics app doesn’t bring a lot of risk nor is it expensive.

On the other hand, what are the business-critical software apps that do bring significant risk and/or require a bigger investment? Cloud productivity suites, ERP systems, CRMs, accounting tools are all good examples.

When buying a new business critical app, it’s a SaaS buying best practice to create a comprehensive RFP. At a minimum, it should contain:

• RFP purpose
• Score of work
• Vendor instructions on the response, including due dates for questions and final submissions, as well as pricing requirements, including deployment services, any customization, licenses, any embedded licenses, and support fees
• Evaluation criteria (e.g., your technical and functional requirements)

6. Explore software options for further evaluation

Chances are good you’ll find way more SaaS options – for even obscure needs – than you expected. And for precisely this reason, it’s a SaaS buying best practice to research before interacting with any salesperson.

Most people begin the hunt for a new app by speaking with colleagues who’ve had previous experience to lean on. These days, AI searching, vendor websites, and studying review sites like G2 or Gartner Peer Insights help to develop an initial list of 6 to 10 vendors.

Pay closer attention to reviews from companies like yours. After all, reviews generally do a great job of talking about what it’s like to be a customer of a SaaS vendor. From contracting, onboarding to meeting tool expectations, to customer support and customer success teams, reviews shed light on the product, as it does the experience.

Scrutinize vendors and determine if they are a good match for your budgetary, technical, and functional requirements. And then, once you’ve narrowed software options to a shortlist of 5 or 6 vendors, begin engaging with sales.

7. Engage with sales teams for all shortlisted vendors and distribute RFP

As no two are identical, comparing SaaS or software tools is a notoriously difficult undertaking.

In addition to pricing models, license tiers, and features and functions of all shortlisted vendors, you’ll want to learn and carefully consider:

• Security and compliance certifications
• Initial deployment options and associated costs
• Tech support options
• Quality of support
• Ease of use and user training
• How long it takes to be fully operational and accrue value
• Total cost of ownership, e.g., of being “all-in.”

Thus, making the best SaaS or software decision requires a holistic approach. Once you’ve weighed the pros and cons of each vendor, a few vendors will very likely fall from your list.

Proceed to RFP distribution with the 2 or 3 software or SaaS vendors that made the cut.

8. Negotiate using data-driven software pricing intelligence

Once you get vendor responses, it’s time to negotiate. In addition to prices, contract durations, and license counts, depending on the software vendor, organizations can negotiate some contract terms and conditions.

While it might require a bit more time, don’t be afraid to negotiate with multiple software vendors at the same time.

And remember one handy SaaS buying best practice – that fiscal quarters and years may not be tied to a calendar year, so take the time to learn a vendor’s fiscal quarter or year end. This is when you’re certain to get the best deal. 

We’d be remiss if we didn’t bring up an obvious point: it’s hard to know when you’re getting a decent deal.

Getting contract and pricing intelligence is an emerging SaaS buying best practice.

As SaaS has become the dominant software delivery approach and market leadership among key business applications has emerged, it’s become easier to find good sources of contract pricing intelligence. In fact, even pricing by license type is becoming increasingly available.

Getting your hands on data-driven SaaS app contract pricing intelligence can greatly reduce uncertainty and the perils built into the software buying process.

Ease SaaS buying processes with a SaaS management platform

Making great and confident SaaS buying and renewal decisions is easier when your company uses a SaaS management platform (SMP) capable of detailed SaaS spend management. One reason is that it all but eliminates the possibility of buying an app you already have or functionality that’s already somewhere in your stack.

Over recent years, as IT assumes more control of the organization’s SaaS apps, SMPs have become essential. A main reason is that you get complete visibility into all software already in use at your company.

In total, SaaS management platforms improve IT efficiency and optimize resource use. In an easy-to-use dashboard, you can see insights around:

• Your entire SaaS stack
• Apps categorized and described by what they do
• SaaS license usage by department and employee to optimize license utilization
• Compliance certifications
• Key renewal or cancellation dates
• SaaS contract pricing benchmarks

While not necessarily part of the SaaS buying process, as it’s more related to renewals, you can even use a SaaS management platform to find out how employees feel about the software applications your organization uses. Using built-in employee survey functionality, you can quickly find out if your employees love the software they must use.

By using an SMP, you’ll never buy another duplicate app, have the insights to make better renewal decisions, and bring discipline and control back to software budgets.

BetterRenewal: Make good software buying decisions with contract pricing insights

There’s one additional SaaS purchasing best practice that would help IT, finance, and procurement make better SaaS buying decisions– it’s partnering with BetterCloud, a 2025 Gartner^® Magic Quadrant™ Leader for SaaS Management Platforms, and consistent G2 Grid winner across many SaaS management platform categories.

Our SaaS management platform tackles pain points related to managing the SaaS user lifecycle, which of course, includes managing users, securing files, ensuring compliance, and managing SaaS spending. 

Then within the BetterCloud SaaS management platform, there’s BetterCloud Spend Optimization. Specifically, BetterCloud Spend Optimization solves problems around uncovering Shadow IT, managing multitudes of unwieldy SaaS contracts and spending, optimizing license utilization and budgets, and understanding employee preferences around the software in use.

This module is a comprehensive suite of industry-leading functionality for:

• SaaS spend management
• Usage management
• License management
• Contracts management
• Vendor management

Another key BetterCloud Spend Optimization feature that the entire buying committee loves is BetterRenewal.

Our SaaS app database contains contracts for more than 70 market leading SaaS apps from buyers like you. Simply upload your contract and in real-time receive an automated comparison report. These benchmarking data reports provide pricing, contract terms, and other hard-to-find insights about today’s most common, market-leading SaaS tools.

By using BetterCloud Spend Optimization and BetterRenewal, you’ll be fully informed with data-driven intelligence on products, pricing, and contracts to confidentially negotiate your next SaaS app purchase.

Can BetterCloud help your company make better SaaS purchase decisions? Upload a contract, join a live demo, or reach out to sales now.