Failing to monitor, optimize, and accurately compensate the software vendors according to binding contracts can be financially catastrophic.
Although it is far from intuitively obvious, every company entering a voluntary contract with a software vendor has a responsibility to both the vendor and their own shareholders to conscientiously manage the use of that software.
Given the criticality of understanding the breadth and depth of software audits, and the consequential costs, this survey, “The Rising Cost of Software Compliance: 2025 Survey on Software Audits,” has been conducted by Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, Inc. to gain a better understanding of the current state of software licensing and audit trends.
This survey, a follow-up to a similar study in 2023, demonstrates through anonymous data collection and interviews that many software customers are woefully unprepared. There are more overall audits, and the audits are occurring with greater frequency.
Critical enterprise software is continuously evolving. As software becomes more feature rich, support fees increase, and dependencies are built in that make already critical software more critical.
This survey shows the impact of the increased cost of software licenses on users as well as the intangible expenses related to ever-changing requirements attached to software usage. The survey found that the impact has been substantial—specifically, in the most critical applications.
Some significant examples include the new subscription approach of Oracle Java as 44% of respondents report that they have been impacted.
But that example is trivial when compared to the new AI-powered services offered by Microsoft which is impacting customers at a whopping 78%.
And the newest, but perhaps greatest change in the market (based on the findings covered in this report) is presented by VMware by Broadcom whose customers report that they have been impacted at a rate of over 55%.
More than one-third of respondents report that their software audit took 3-6 months to resolve, 11% required six months to a year, and a few customers dedicated more than a year.
There is the cost to manage and complete the contractual requirement of the audit, which can include staff time, operational disruption, and delayed projects. Along with that, there is the resulting monetary obligation that needs to be satisfied based on what the audit determines the customer owes the software vendor for compliance issues.
The 2025 survey reveals that approximately 32% of the companies measured had to pay over $1 million in costs. Only 10% in 2023 reached that level of financial liability.
To read the full report, go here.