15 Best Software Asset Management Tools for 2024

Most B2B businesses hoard software without visibility over their usage frequency, which affects their subscription costs and effectiveness. Most importantly, no official record of which tools have expired or are no longer required must be removed from their workflows. 

The result? Overspending. In fact, the latest report shows that companies waste 35% of cloud computing spending due to limited cost transparency and controls. 

So what’s the solution? 

Investing in software asset management (SAM) tools.

Why use a software asset management tool?

Let's take a sample case study to break down the significance of SAM tools. A pharmaceutical enterprise used several SaaS apps but struggled to track consumption, spot unsanctioned apps, calculate license positions, and validate usage billing accuracy. The company could retrieve software license usage data from the SaaS apps by deploying a software asset management tool. Thus, the company could renew subscriptions based on actual usage and reclaim inactive users to avoid costs. 

This case study highlights how software asset management is the foundation of streamlining your software usage lifecycle. In fact, there are more reasons to use a software asset management tool: 

• Having visibility into software usage and performance can help avoid overspending and ensure efficient use of software licenses
• Knowing your software consumption activity, you can avoid paying true-up charges during vendor audits or contract renewals
• Poor software asset license management costs money, resources, and the legal risk of breaking license contracts. With software asset management tools, track and manage all software licenses through audits to stay compliant 
• The absence of software management tools results in wasted cloud spend due to limited cost visibility, fluid pricing, and dynamic consumption. Asset management tools identify wasted spend and address gaps using automated processes. 
• Implementing software asset management tools enables adjusting certain cloud cost aspects, like reducing environments, using auto-scaling, continuous measuring and monitoring, etc., to increase cost transparency
• Software asset management tools allow complying with on-premise software license agreements. It helps track consumption, relocate licenses, and maximize the software purchase budget

Now that you're clear about the why behind software asset management tools, how do you pick the right SAM tool for your enterprise?  

That's why, we have done the groundwork to shortlist the 15 best software asset management tools. We are certain that by the end of this article, you will know which of these tools will fit the bill perfectly for your business. 

1. Atomicwork

Atomicwork is a modern, all-in-one platform that offers the best software asset management tools to help you manage asset lifecycles and optimize spending. The tool saves time and boosts efficiency by automating lifecycle workflows, from purchases to retirements, freeing your IT team for more complex work. 

Atomicwork’s types and attributes feature is the most convenient solution to organizing and classifying your assets. It lets you add asset tags, owners/ users, serial numbers, etc., for easy identification. 

If you select a specific asset to track its complete journey from purchase, the dependency mapping feature helps you map the dependency relationships between assets. This feature shows the external dependencies of an asset that are essential for its complete functioning. 

Suppose you spot issues while asset tracking and raise a request. In that case, your agents can immediately take remote troubleshooting actions, such as wiping, resetting the passcode, restarting, or locking/unlocking assets from the request.

Key features

• Set up your attributes and record detailed software asset data
• Leverage discovery and scanning feature to sync asset data from Microsoft Intune to build a centralized data hub
• Create and automate asset lifecycle workflows to control and update asset changes, reduce risks, and manage costs
• View complete asset relationships with users, vendors, locations, requests, and incidents
• Analyze your asset performance data and generate reports to view licenses, use rights, devices, procurement, etc., to spot problems and make informed purchase decisions
•  Link assets to incidents and notify admins for instant response

Pricing

• Professional - $90/employee/year (Includes one custom workspace for the company)
• Business – Custom pricing (Includes professional features plus custom workspaces for each team)
• Enterprise - Custom pricing (Includes unlimited access to Atom AI, business features, plus custom AI branding and training)

2. Google Cloud Asset Inventory

Google’s Cloud Asset Inventory lets users discover, analyze, and track assets in a centralized platform. The tool provides visibility into asset policies essential for IT ops, fleet management, security analytics, governance, and audit. 

Key features

• Track assets across Google Cloud and Anthos, accessing the 35-day history of different assets with Cloud Asset API
• Locate assets, run inventory analysis, and compliance checks on Google Cloud and Anthos environments
• Get real-time updates on asset configuration changes with Cloud Pub/Sub channels

Pricing

Free access with Google Cloud Platform 

3. USU 

USU helps build a better software licensing strategy and ensures compliance with full visibility into software assets. The tool controls software costs and helps with license optimization and audit preparation. 

Key Features

• Manage software costs and risks with license management features
• Get complete visibility across IT environments through deep scanning and discovery 
• Optimize cloud costs and avoid fines for accidental overconsumption 

Pricing

Contact USU for custom pricing plans

4. ServiceNow

ServiceNow’s software asset management tool helps control and reduce spending and risks from a central platform. The tool automates software lifecycles, tracks licenses, and manages licenses to ensure compliance.

Key features

• Automate software asset allocation for new employees
• View recommended alerts, activities, and actionable insights with software asset workspace
• Analyze and manage software costs and usage with the SaaS overview dashboard

Pricing

Contact ServiceNow sales team for pricing details

5. AWS License Manager

Amazon Web Services or AWS cloud computing platform includes a license manager to manage and refine software licensing costs. The application allows optimizing on-premise and cloud environment licenses, controlling usage limits, tracking, and reporting.

Key features

• Automate license discovery, tracking, and reporting and switch between license types based on your licensing needs
• Manage multiple Dedicated Hosts as a single entity to simplify the bring-your-own-license (BYOL) experience with automated allocation, release, and recovery
• Automate the activation and distribution of software distribution and entitlements across AWS accounts

Pricing

Unlimited access with AWS Free tier. No extra charges.

6. Certero

Certero is an enterprise-scale software asset management tool that addresses licensing issues and manages tech consumption habits. The tool’s inventory and licensing capabilities optimize software and licensing positions for key publishers.

Key features

• Automate uploading license agreements, vendor entitlements, and Effective License Position (ELP) calculations
• Create and enforce granular access control policies to prevent security and compliance risks
• Identify apps and databases from significant software vendors with Software Recognition Database

Pricing

No pricing details available publicly

7. Flexera One

Flexera’s software management tool helps determine how products are licensed based on availability, clusters, and cores. The tool automates ELP calculation for IT assets, including software from strategic vendors like IBM, Microsoft, and Salesforce.

Key features 

• Automate ELP using Flexera One’s extensive entitlement library of applications providing product usage rights, license types, and metrics
• Optimize key vendor relationships and contracts with the license management tool
• Integrate procurement with ITSM, ITFM, and other business systems to share tech insights

Pricing

Contact Flexera for custom pricing details

8. Matrix42

Matrix42’s software asset management tool gives visibility into software licenses, helping IT teams cut costs and compliance risks. The platform lets you manage and control software assets in a central IT asset database. 

Key features 

• Identify unauthorized apps and reduce audits with automated license recording and management
• Track cloud spending from various services and verify costs and budgets with cloud cost management services
• Manage IT assets across lifecycles with centralized inventory and automated scans to update databases

Pricing

• Contact Matrix42 to get a quote
• Free trial available

9. IFS assyst

IFS assyst is an enterprise and IT service management tool that builds automated workflows to streamline processes. The tool also tracks costs, ensuring financial transparency.

Key features

• Automate repetitive tasks and use a unified self-service portal to fix issues faster
• Get insights into the IT ecosystem with configurable dashboards
• Check availability, performance, capacity, compliance, and security events with intelligent tracking and analysis functionalities

Pricing

No pricing details available publicly

10. Alloy Software

Alloy is a software asset management tool that optimizes spending and ensures license compliance. The solution lets you understand the tools in your IT environment and manage the entire lifecycle of your software assets.  

Key features

• Automate organization-wide computer scanning and approvals to streamline inventory data collection and approval processes 
• Leverage workflow automation to automate routine tasks and boost operational efficiency
• Get email alerts on app installation, upgrades or uninstallation

Pricing

• Alloy Navigator Explorer - $19/ tech/ month (For up to 3 technicians)
• Alloy Navigator Express - $49/ tech/ month (For 4+ technicians, includes explorer features with change management)
• Alloy Navigator Enterprise - $83/ tech/ month (For 4+ technicians, includes express features with configuration management & CMDB)

11. Oomnitza

Oomnitza’s enterprise technology management solution automates workflows and manages digital assets. The platform eliminates manual tasks, reduces tickets, and optimizes IT spend.

Key features

• Build a central technology asset inventory to total tech data from diverse sources
• Manage technology lifecycle and usage to invest your IT budget with procurement forecasting
• Create, activate, and improve custom workflows for IT teams with the low/no-code platform

Pricing

No pricing details available publicly

12. Snow Commander

Flexera’s Snow Commander is a cloud management tool that automates workflows and manages software environments. The software management tool allows IT teams to remove manual processes and boost business agility.

Key features

• Get cost optimization insights to use 100% of your IT budget, providing value
• Get visibility into compliance and usage for expensive vendors to configure licenses
• Perform vendor license and internal audits to identify, prioritize, and address vulnerabilities 

Pricing

• Contact Snow for custom packages
• Free trial available

13. Zluri

Zluri’s software asset management tool offers 360-degree visibility into all users, apps, and spend. This tool lets you access, track, and control assets, spending, active licenses, and changes in user activity from a centralized platform. 

Key Features

• Get visibility into all apps in your environment with the AI-powered application discovery engine
• Collect spend data from multiple expense tools, get AI recommendations, optimize spend from a centralized dashboard
• Auto-reclaim licenses based on usage and leverage license forecasting to prevent overspending

Pricing

Custom pricing plans

14. Xensam

Xensam is a simple AI-powered software asset management tool that optimizes software usage and cuts spending on underused tools. The platform also identifies security gaps to prevent breaches.

Key features

• Leverage AI to track all SaaS apps (paid and free) across your IT environment
• Compare license price and current spending and identify cost savings on underused apps
• Get automated security alerts with Xensam Bitlocker detection

Pricing

No pricing details available publicly

15. EZO AssetSonar

AssetSonar is an IT asset management tool that is a single source of truth for all your IT assets. The intelligent platform manages and tracks asset lifecycles, licenses, contracts, and assigned/unassigned installations.

Key features

• Get a comprehensive view of the cloud and installed software with automated scans
• Organize and store all software contracts, payments, and renewals with vendors in one place
• Track assigned and unassigned installations and run reconciliation reports before audits

Pricing

• $69.99 per month
• Free trial available

Key features to look for in ITAM software

Software resources and requirements vary from business to business. Nevertheless, ensure that the ITAM tool you select must have the following features:  

Asset lifecycle management

The ITAM tool you choose must track, manage, and control the complete asset lifecycle, from procurement to disposal. It must include depreciation calculation, warranty details, and replacement planning.

Asset tracking

Choose a software asset management tool that tracks your assets’ movement, location, and changes in real time throughout their lifecycles.

Asset inventory management 

Your ITAM tool must have specific features to maintain a detailed assets database. This includes asset type, serial number, location, model, and assigned team, owner, or department. 

AI-backed automation capabilities 

Look for AI-backed automation features such as generating AI-based work instructions, more efficient work order planning, applying appropriate maintenance standards, and offering real-time assistance to the users. 

Compliance and regulatory management

Get an ITAM tool with compliance features, such as maintaining audit trails, managing software licenses, and generating compliance reports. 

Reporting and analytics

Robust reporting features in your ITAM tool help you gain insights into asset performance, costs, usages, maintenance history, and other metrics to make more informed buying decisions. 

Access controls and security

To protect sensitive software data, your ITAM tool must have advanced security features, such as access controls, user role management, strong encryption, and data security measures.

Integration capabilities

Choose a software asset management tool that integrates with your organization’s existing tech systems, such as customer relationship management (CRM), knowledge management, workplace communication & collaboration, project management, enterprise resource planning (ERP), web analytics, and inventory management systems.

Simplify IT Asset Management with Atomicwork

Picking the best software asset management tool for your business requires considering your business’s unique software portfolio, needs, and goals. 

For instance, if spend optimization is your primary focus, Atomicwork’s asset lifecycle management is all you need to manage costs. The feature lets you track asset activity throughout its lifecycle, including purchase, usage, licensing, renewals, and spending. This helps identify saving opportunities and prevent overspending on features that don’t provide much value. 

Want to know if Atomicwork fits the bill for your business? 

Book a demo.