Companies Cut SaaS Spending with AI‑Built In‑House Tools

A US health insurer, Curative, cancelled a Salesforce subscription worth about $600,000 per year and replaced it with a custom CRM assembled by its own team using AI‑assisted coding tools. The move illustrates a broader shift, as firms increasingly find it cheaper to develop bespoke software in weeks rather than pay for expensive SaaS licences.

A Retool survey of 817 companies found that roughly one‑third have already substituted at least one SaaS application with an in‑house solution, and 78 % plan to increase such builds by 2026. Industry analysts estimate that the surge in AI‑driven development has erased nearly two trillion dollars of market value from publicly listed SaaS firms this year, with a single trillion lost in the first week of February 2026 alone. New platforms like Sphere’s “Platform Reboot” are helping firms replace multiple SaaS tools quickly, while managed service providers report monthly savings of up to $1,200 by deploying their own AI agents.