What to Watch During M&A: The Hidden Cost of Overlapping Contracts and SaaS Tools
Amy Daly
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2 minute read
“After the acquisition, we discovered we had three project management tools. And no one wanted to give theirs up.”
That came from an ops manager at a 120-person company that merged with a competitor last year. And it’s not uncommon. M&A activity is notorious for creating tech stack chaos—multiple tools doing the same job, nobody sure who owns which contract, and auto-renewals quietly draining budgets in the background.
Software overlap is just one piece of it. The real danger is in the fine print—renewal clauses, duplicate licenses, usage limits, and the lack of a shared system to manage it all.
Mergers and Acquisitions: A Prime Time for Waste
According to Zylo’s 2023 SaaS Management Index, the average company wastes around $17 million per year on unused software licenses. That number may skew large-enterprise, but the principle holds at any size: the more companies you combine, the more money leaks through the cracks—especially if no one’s watching the contract stack.
We’ve seen mid-sized businesses spend tens of thousands a year on duplicate software during post-acquisition chaos. Why? Because:
- Contracts live in scattered inboxes
- Renewals are set to auto-pilot
- IT and Finance teams are flying blind
One user put it like this:
“I thought we were cutting costs post-merger. But we had two Slack accounts, two Zoom accounts, and two CRMs. Turns out we were paying more.”
The 3 Most Common Post-M&A SaaS Headaches
1. Duplicate Tools That No One Wants to Cancel
When teams are used to certain software, they’ll dig in. And without a central view of what’s being used (and how much it costs), the easiest path is to keep both and sort it out later.
But “later” often turns into “next fiscal year,” and those redundant tools keep renewing.
BetterTracker Fix: Centralize every vendor and subscription across both companies. With all contracts in one dashboard, it’s easier to spot overlap and see where to consolidate.
2. Missed Renewals and Surprise Bills
During integration, contract owners leave, departments shift, and email forwarding gets messy. Meanwhile, vendors keep billing. Those quiet renewals can lead to big surprises—especially if terms changed during the contract handoff.
We once heard from a company that got hit with a $24,000 auto-renewal because the cancellation email bounced. The original contract owner had left six months earlier.
BetterTracker Fix: Automated renewal alerts and shared access help ensure no renewal sneaks by—no matter who’s managing it.
3. No Clear Ownership Over Licenses and Contracts
Who’s responsible for renewing that analytics tool? Who manages licenses for the password manager? If the answer is “we’re not sure,” you're already exposed.
Without ownership, vendors don’t get contacted, contracts don’t get updated, and licenses go unmonitored.
BetterTracker Fix: Assign role-based ownership inside the platform so each contract and tool has a clear person responsible—without needing to dig through old folders.
How BetterTracker Helps Post-M&A Integration Stay Clean
Think of BetterTracker as your post-merger SaaS cleanup crew. Instead of spreadsheets or a tangle of shared folders, you get:
- One dashboard with every vendor, tool, contract, and renewal date
- Automated alerts so nothing gets missed
- Spend visibility across departments and companies
- Clear contract owners to keep accountability straight
- Usage analysis to identify tools that are overpaid or underused
We built it for small and midsize companies because the mess is just as real—only you don’t have a procurement team dedicated to sorting it out.
A finance director told us recently:
“After our acquisition, we used BetterTracker to find 12 overlapping vendors. We kept 5 and cut the rest—saved us around $50K a year.”
Planning M&A? Start With Contract Visibility
If you’re preparing for an acquisition—or cleaning up after one—the sooner you get visibility, the better. Make sure:
- All software contracts are in one place
- Renewal dates are visible and tracked
- Each vendor has a single point of contact
- You’re not paying for duplicate or underused tools
M&A is stressful enough without chasing down contracts and eating surprise fees. BetterTracker gives you clarity before the chaos costs you.
