Build vs Buy Software Statistics 2026: SaaS Spend, Waste and the Shift to Custom Builds

The build or buy decision changed in 2026 because building got cheaper. This page collects what 2026 sources actually measured about software spending, waste and the move toward custom builds.

It is a statistics page, not an argument. Where a number comes from a company that sells something related, it is marked.

How to read these numbers

Every figure on this page comes from a source published in 2026, and each one links to the page where we read it on 9 October 2026.

Surveys of executives at large companies and counts of all firms measure different things, so their numbers differ widely. Vendor data describes that vendor's own customers. Forecasts are forecasts. Each line says which kind it is.

SaaS spending statistics 2026

• The average company in Zylo's dataset manages 305 SaaS applications. (Zylo, 2026 SaaS Management Index, vendor data)
• Organisations in the same dataset spend an average of $55.7 million a year on SaaS, an 8% increase year over year. (Zylo, 2026 SaaS Management Index, vendor data)
• Median annual SaaS spend across those organisations is $20.6 million. (Zylo, SaaS statistics from the 2026 Index, vendor data)
• Median SaaS spend per employee is $9,455. (Zylo, 2026 SaaS Management Index, January 2026, vendor data)
• SaaS cost per employee was approximately $9,100 at the end of 2025, up from $8,700 in 2024. (Vertice, SaaS Inflation Index 2026, vendor data)
• Business units control 81% of SaaS spend, while IT directly manages 15%. (Zylo, 2026 SaaS Management Index, January 2026, vendor data)
• Large enterprises add an average of 21 applications per month. (Zylo, 2026 SaaS Management Index, January 2026, vendor data)

Zylo's figures describe its own customers, which are mostly large organisations. They do not describe a 20 person company.

Unused SaaS licence statistics 2026

• Organisations leave an average of 36% of their SaaS licences unused, measured against recommended utilisation levels. (Zylo, 2026 SaaS Management Index, January 2026, vendor data)
• Licence utilisation rose from 47% in 2024 to 54% in 2025. (Zylo, SaaS statistics from the 2026 Index, vendor data)
• Average licence waste fell 5.3%, from $20.9 million to $19.8 million per organisation per year. (Zylo, SaaS statistics from the 2026 Index, vendor data)

SaaS price inflation statistics 2026

• The SaaS inflation rate reported by Vertice is 13.2%. (Vertice, SaaS Inflation Index 2026, vendor data)
• 61% of IT leaders were forced to cut projects because of unplanned SaaS cost increases, in a survey of 218 IT leaders. (Zylo, 2026 SaaS Management Index, January 2026, vendor data)

Custom build statistics 2026

• 35% of respondents have already replaced at least one SaaS tool with a custom build, in a survey of 817 builders. (Retool, Build vs Buy report, February 2026, vendor data)
• 78% of the same respondents expect to build more of their own tools in 2026. (Retool, Build vs Buy report, February 2026, vendor data)
• Workflow automations (35%) and internal admin tools (33%) are the SaaS categories most often replaced by custom builds. (Retool, Build vs Buy report, February 2026, vendor data)
• 49% say their custom built tool saves six or more hours per week. (Retool, Build vs Buy report, February 2026, vendor data)
• 60% of builders built something outside IT oversight in the past year. (Retool, Build vs Buy report, February 2026, vendor data)
• 32% of respondents say their organisation decided against buying at least one software product or feature because it could be built in house with agentic coding tools, in a survey of 1,719 participants. (McKinsey, The State of AI: Global Survey 2026, 25 August 2026)

Retool sells a platform for building internal tools and surveyed an audience that includes its own customers. The McKinsey figure comes from a general executive survey and points the same way.

Software spending forecast 2026

• Worldwide IT spending is expected to reach $6.15 trillion in 2026, up 10.8% from 2025. (Gartner, IT spending forecast, 3 February 2026, a prediction)
• Worldwide software spending is forecast at $1,433,633 million in 2026, growth of 14.7%. (Gartner, IT spending forecast, 3 February 2026, a prediction)
• The global custom software development market was valued at $45.4 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $178.9 billion by 2033, a compound annual growth rate of 18.8% from 2026 to 2033. (Grand View Research, Custom Software Development Market Report, 2026 to 2033 forecast, a prediction)

What no public source measures

We looked for 2026 data on the questions buyers ask most and found none that can be traced to a method and a sample:

• A break even point at which building becomes cheaper than buying.
• The average cost of a custom internal tool across the market.
• Return on investment multiples for custom tools against SaaS.
• Migration costs when leaving a SaaS vendor.
• SaaS spend per employee for companies under 500 people.

If you see a precise number for any of these, ask where it came from.

What this means for a build or buy decision

The 2026 data supports a narrow claim: more teams are building small tools themselves, mostly workflow automations and admin tools, and a third of executives say they have skipped a purchase because of it. It does not support a general rule that building is cheaper.

The honest way to decide is to price your own case. List the subscriptions a custom tool would replace, the hours your team loses to the gap between them, and a fixed quote for the build. Our internal tools ROI calculator does that arithmetic, and custom internal tools at HouseofMVPs start at $5,000 fixed, so the build side of the comparison is a known number.

How this page is maintained

Every figure was read on the linked source on 9 October 2026. The page is reviewed when a source publishes a new edition. Corrections are welcome at sales@houseofmvps.com and are recorded in the update note at the top.