2026 Gartner® Voice of the Customer for Software Asset Management Tools
What Is the Gartner Voice of the Customer Report for SAM Tools?
Gartner notes “Software asset management tool adoption is rising to manage software licensing, control usage and integrate with enterprise systems. This note guides sourcing, procurement and vendor management leaders to learn from ratings and reviews shared by their peers on Gartner Peer Insights.”
For ITAM Practitioners, Procurement Leaders, and Vendor Managers tasked with selecting or renewing a SAM tool, the report offers direct peer-to-peer signal: how real enterprise IT teams experience deployment, product capabilities, and vendor support—without the marketing filter.
Why SAM Is More Critical Than Ever in 2026
Software asset management has moved well past audit defense. We think Gartner's position is clear: SAM is evolving "beyond audit defense toward a central role in cost governance, cloud optimization, and AI readiness—unifying SAM, FinOps, SaaS and cloud data."
In our view, The numbers back this up. In 2026, enterprises are expected to spend around $300 billion on SaaS alone—but more than half of those applications go unused. That's over $100 billion wasted annually across the industry.
At the same time, software portfolios are growing more complex. Hybrid infrastructures combine legacy on-premises deployments with multi-cloud environments. New AI-related metrics are shifting license models from user-based inputs to consumption-based metrics—tokens, credits, usage tiers. According to Gartner 2026 Market Guide for Software Asset Management Tools, 61% of procurement leaders say their data is "disorganized, inaccurate or needs other major improvements."
Without reliable data at the foundation, SAM tools can't deliver meaningful cost governance, compliance control, or the analytics that AI promises.
The risk for organizations that don't address this: SAM teams and their tools get sidelined just when centralized visibility matters most.
USU's Results in the 2026 Gartner Peer Insights™ Report
USU is included in the report alongside the other five vendors, Our key results from verified customer reviews:
- 4.4 out of 5 stars overall rating
- 89% customer recommendation rate—
- 4.4 Deployment Experience rating—based on 21 reviews as of Apr 2026.
What Customers Actually Say About USU
Gartner Peer Insights reviews are structured around four dimensions: sales experience, deployment experience, product capabilities, and support experience. In our view, USU customers consistently highlight data quality, tool maturity, and vendor responsiveness.
One representative review from the banking industry:
"Vendor is very responsive and supportive in any questions and needs we might have. Aspera SmartTrack (USU Software Asset Management) is a very mature tool which is recommended to be used by a mature cooperation. Its approach of starting with the catalog and a product recognition ensures good and reliable data collection.”
From our Customer Success Team, we see similar patterns: customers value tool maturity, the quality of the underlying data, and the responsiveness of the team when questions arise. These aren't differentiators we market—they're outcomes our customers report independently.
What We Think Makes USU the Right SAM Tool for Hybrid Enterprise Environments
USU is purpose-built for organizations managing complex software portfolios across hybrid infrastructures—on-premises, container and cloud. Our solution covers the major enterprise publishers (Oracle, SAP, IBM, Microsoft) where license complexity and audit risk are highest.
Key capabilities our customers rely on:
- Standardized SAM implementation methodology with clear procedures and predictable deployment timelines
- Core strength in data management—hundreds of thousands of integrations for accurate, normalized license data
- Software usage, risk, and cost optimization insights to identify savings and close compliance gaps
- AI-enhanced capabilities, including AI assistants for UX support, automated EULA data extraction, and invoice recognition
- Managed services, giving teams access to expert SAM support alongside the tool itself
- Enterprise scalability for large, complex hybrid environments
- High security and compliance standards through a multi-cloud strategy and a dedicated data center in Germany
Do you have questions about our offering? A quick call can be way more helpful than a long email chain. Talk to one of our experts to explore our products and see them in action.
Gartner, Voice of the Customer for Software Asset Management Tools, June 2026. Gartner® and Peer Insights™ are trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner Peer Insights content consists of the opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences, and should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in this content nor makes any warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this content, about its accuracy or completeness, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
