Quick answer: SaaS inflation is running at roughly 12.2% in 2026 — more than four times the UK's consumer inflation rate of 2.8% (ONS, May 2026). The average business now spends around $9,100 (approx. £7,200) per employee per year on software, up 45% since 2022. The main drivers are AI feature pricing, aggressive renewal uplifts, and "shrinkflation". The most effective responses are consolidating your tech stack onto integrated platforms, negotiating renewals early, and auditing unused licences.
SaaS prices are rising at approximately 12.2% year on year in 2026, according to the SaaS Inflation Index published by London-based procurement platform Vertice, which tracks over $30bn of processed software spend. The rate has been volatile — fluctuating between 12.2% and 14.5% in early 2026, with a peak of 14.7% in November 2025, timed suspiciously well with year-end enterprise renewal cycles.
For context: the UK Consumer Prices Index rose just 2.8% in the 12 months to May 2026 (Office for National Statistics). Your software vendors are raising prices more than four times faster than the wider economy.
And this is not a post-pandemic blip. When we first started tracking this topic in 2023, SaaS inflation stood at 12.7%. Three years on, it hasn't corrected — it has become structural.
By the end of 2025, SaaS spend per employee reached approximately $9,100 per year, according to Vertice. The trajectory tells the story better than any single number:
| Year | SaaS spend per employee (USD) |
|---|---|
| 2022 | ~$6,220 |
| 2023 | ~$7,900 |
| 2024 | ~$8,700 |
| 2025 | ~$9,100 |
That's an increase of nearly 15% in two years and over 45% since 2022 — far more than any other category of business expenditure. For a typical organisation, $1 in every $8 spent now goes to SaaS.
It remains remarkably rare to find a business with more than 100 employees that doesn't also run more than 100 SaaS products. From messaging tools to CRMs, software has become a non-negotiable line on every CFO's budget — which is precisely why vendors feel confident raising prices.
Three forces are driving software inflation well above general inflation in 2026:
1. AI feature pricing. Generative AI capabilities are now embedded across most enterprise software — and vendors are charging for them, whether through new SKUs, "AI access fees", or credit systems. Gartner projects worldwide software spending will reach $1.44 trillion in 2026, growing 15.1% — the second-fastest-growing category in all of IT, behind only AI data centre infrastructure.
2. Renewal leverage. Switching costs are real, contracts auto-renew, and vendors know it. Without an active negotiation strategy, the safe planning assumption for any contract without a fixed price cap is an 8–12% uplift at renewal.
3. Shrinkflation. This is the quiet one. In Q4 2025, 28% of SaaS contracts renewed globally reflected a reduction in value — fewer features, forced tier migrations, repackaged bundles — without a corresponding price decrease (Vertice). Worse, around 60% of vendors deliberately obscure their price increases, making it genuinely difficult to know whether you're getting a fair deal.
SaaS shrinkflation is when a software vendor reduces the value of your subscription — by removing features, restructuring bundles, or forcing you onto different tiers — while keeping the price the same or higher. It's the software equivalent of the shrinking chocolate bar: you pay the same, you get less. Because it happens through packaging changes rather than headline price rises, it often goes undetected until well after renewal. Nearly a third of renewed contracts were affected by it in late 2025.
There's no single fix, but four strategies consistently work:
Consolidate onto integrated platforms. Every additional tool in your stack is another contract inflating at 10–14% a year, another renewal to negotiate, another vendor with leverage over you. Consolidating overlapping tools onto a single platform — one licence, one renewal, one negotiation — is no longer just an efficiency play; it's budget defence. This is the single biggest lever for most SMEs.
Negotiate early and cap increases in absolute terms. Surface renewals 120 days before the notice deadline, not 30. And note: a CPI-linked price cap is no longer protection — with UK CPI at 2.8% and SaaS inflation at 12%+, vendors will simply recover the difference through fees and SKU migrations. Push for a fixed cap of 3–5%, paired with a SKU-level price lock.
Audit your licences. Unused seats and shelfware are pure waste, and most organisations carry more of both than they realise. A quarterly usage audit routinely recovers 10–20% of spend.
Prefer outcome-based pricing where it exists. The most interesting counter-trend of 2026: some vendors are moving to pricing tied to results rather than access.
For many UK SMEs, yes — and for two distinct reasons.
First, consolidation. HubSpot is a genuinely integrated platform: Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, Content Hub and Operations Hub run on a single CRM, a single data model, and a single contract. Replacing four or five point solutions with one platform doesn't just simplify operations — it removes four or five separate 12% annual price rises from your budget. Its seat-based pricing model (introduced in 2024) also means you only pay for users who need full access, with free view-only seats for everyone else — a direct lever on that cost-per-employee figure. Smaller businesses can start on free or Starter tiers and scale to Professional or Enterprise as they grow, and the platform connects to over 1,500 apps in its marketplace.
Second, HubSpot is pricing AI the opposite way to most of the industry. While many vendors bury AI fees in bundles, HubSpot moved its flagship Breeze AI agents to outcome-based pricing in April 2026: the Customer Agent now costs $0.50 per resolved conversation (previously charged per conversation, resolved or not), and the Prospecting Agent $1 per qualified lead recommended for outreach. In HubSpot's words, you pay when it works. Standard CRM data enrichment, previously credit-based, is now included free with Core seats. In a market defined by hidden uplifts and shrinkflation, paying only for delivered outcomes is a meaningful structural difference — and worth weighing when you compare total cost of ownership against a fragmented stack.
The caveat: consolidation only delivers savings if the platform is implemented properly. A poorly configured portal simply becomes the most expensive tool in your stack. That's where working with an experienced partner pays for itself.
What is the SaaS inflation rate in 2026? Approximately 12.2%, fluctuating between 12.2% and 14.5% in early 2026, with a peak of 14.7% in November 2025 (Vertice SaaS Inflation Index).
How does SaaS inflation compare to UK inflation? UK CPI was 2.8% in the 12 months to May 2026 (ONS). SaaS inflation is running more than four times higher.
How much should I budget for SaaS renewals in 2026? Without a fixed contractual cap, assume an 8–12% uplift at renewal. With early negotiation and a fixed cap, 3–5% is achievable.
What is the global software market worth in 2026? Gartner forecasts worldwide software spending of $1.44 trillion in 2026, growing 15.1% year on year.
Does consolidating tools actually save money? Generally yes — each tool removed eliminates a separate contract inflating at 10–14% annually, plus the admin and integration overhead. The savings depend on proper implementation and licence right-sizing.
As a HubSpot Platinum Solutions Partner, Uspeh helps businesses consolidate fragmented tech stacks onto HubSpot — from CRM migrations (Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, Dynamics) to HubSpot portal optimisation and licence right-sizing. If your renewal is coming up, or you suspect you're paying for more tools than you use, book a free consultation and we'll give you an honest assessment — including whether HubSpot is actually the right answer for you.