The promise was simple: cloud software would make everything faster and cheaper. The reality? Companies are now juggling dozens of disconnected tools, each solving one small problem while creating three new ones. Departments buy software without asking IT, data lives in silos across platforms, and what should have been cost savings has turned into budget chaos. Meanwhile, IT teams are stuck trying to secure and support a sprawling ecosystem they never designed and can barely track. As it turns out, the tools meant to simplify business operations have made them exponentially more complex.
The irony is almost painful: companies are drowning in the very software they bought to make work easier.
We at Nintex wanted to determine just how pervasive a problem software sprawl has become, what leaders are doing about it, and determine how organizations can regain control of their software and their efficiency.
The SaaS sprawl snapshot 2025
We surveyed 2,000 IT decision-makers from mid-market organizations (250–2,500 employees) across Australia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States to understand just how much SaaS sprawl is affecting their organizations.
Here’s what we found: Software sprawl is more than just an inconvenience; it’s a systemic issue undermining efforts to optimize productivity, reduce costs, and serve customers. Around the world, organizations are up against:
- Unchecked SaaS growth: 41% are adding new tools every one to three weeks.
- Tool overload: 51% of mid-market organizations report having 100-300 SaaS tools in their tech stack.
- Ballooning budgets: 87% report SaaS sprawl has a moderate to major financial impact on their organization.
- Operational roadblocks: Security risks (43%), increased manual data entry (38%), and workflow delays (38%) are among the top challenges created by software sprawl.
- Customer experience crises: Nearly a third of IT leaders (28%) identify disconnected systems as a major contributor to subpar customer experiences.
Sound familiar? You’re far from alone. And while finding a path out of software sprawl can seem daunting, it isn’t impossible. It does, however, mean rethinking your processes, your platforms, and your priorities as an organization.
“No amount of AI or SaaS tools can fix a broken process,” said According to Niranjan Vijayaragavan, Chief Product Officer at Nintex. “Chasing efficiency with a sprawling tech stack is like building on shifting sands — today’s quick wins become tomorrow’s operational risks. Real progress demands more than tools; it requires disciplined orchestration, intelligent workflows, and a strong, integrated foundation.”
The future favors organizations that turn SaaS sprawl into structured scalability
If software sprawl is holding your organization back, it’s time to act: IT leaders must focus on orchestrating workflows, integrating systems, and prioritizing processes over just adding more tools to the stack.
Ready to discover the answer to software sprawl?
