SaaS Discovery: Finding Every App Your Company Pays For
The five sources for SaaS discovery compared: finance data, identity sign-ins, OAuth grants, admin consoles and browser data, and how to combine them.
By the MI Solutions SAM team9 min read2 exhibits
You cannot manage subscriptions you do not know about. SaaS discovery is the work of finding every application the organization pays for or connects to company data. No single source finds everything, so effective discovery combines several, each covering the others' blind spots.
The five sources compared
Exhibit 1
Source
Finds
Misses
Expense and card data
Team and individual subscriptions
Free apps; usage
Accounts payable
Invoiced apps
Card spend; usage
Identity sign-ins (SSO)
Apps connected to SSO, with usage
Apps with separate logins
OAuth app grants
Apps users connected to company accounts
Usage detail
SaaS admin consoles
Seats and activity for known apps
Unknown apps
How much each source adds
Each source finds apps the others miss. Adding them one at a time shows why a single source is never enough:
Exhibit 2
A practical discovery routine
Start with money
Twelve months of expense, card and AP data, filtered for software.
Add identity
List apps with SSO sign-ins and their active users.
Review OAuth grants
Apps users connected to email, files or calendars.
Not to start. Finance and identity data cover most paid SaaS. Tools help keep it continuous.
What about free apps?
They matter for security and data protection. Review OAuth grants and SSO data for them.
How long does a first discovery take?
For a mid-sized company, about two weeks with access to finance and identity data.
See where your software budget goes
Bring your five largest vendors to a 30-minute call. Our SAM experts will show you where the savings usually hide, and how fast MI One can surface them.
