Most renewals happen by inertia
Info‑Tech Research Group’s analysis says over 90% of software renewals happen through inertia and teams waste about 26 hours on reviews they then ignore — a blunt signal that switching vendors is often blocked by process, not product reported. For vendors, that means onboarding friction and procurement checklists can be bigger barriers than feature parity.
Info‑Tech’s data showed sharply different intent by company size: 93% of small businesses, 92.7% of medium, and 91.9% of large organizations told researchers they planned to renew their vendor contracts even as average likelihood to recommend those vendors stayed below 25%. ivanti.com An analysis of 1,000 firms by Vertice measured purchase overhead: teams logged 26 hours per month in meetings tied to buying or renewing SaaS and reported an average portfolio of 126 active SaaS contracts, with renewals taking roughly 60 days end‑to‑end. itpro.com itpro.com Procurement bottlenecks are concrete: internal handoffs such as legal review, security questionnaires and PO rules routinely stretch a typical 7‑day commercial close into a 45‑day stall between “yes” and “paper.” us.fitgap.com Procurement teams now treat supplier enablement and onboarding speed as leadership KPIs and recommend pre‑loading compliance packets to speed vendor activation. netscribes.com Info‑Tech’s Microsoft Year‑End 2026 briefing flags reset discount tiers and stacked SKU moves that compress multiple cost drivers into single renewal windows, raising negotiation leverage on both sides. infotech.com Vendors that report lower churn emphasize offering procurement‑ready contracts, security‑questionnaire templates and dedicated onboarding teams to shorten procurement cycles. technologymatch.com
