The 2026 Market in Numbers
IT vendor market intelligence begins with a single uncomfortable fact: the enterprise software market grew faster than at any point since the cloud transition, and buyers funded most of that growth without choosing to. Gartner's 2026 forecasts put worldwide IT spending at around $6.3 trillion, growing in the low-to-mid teens year on year, with the software segment alone reaching roughly $1.44 trillion at about 15.1% growth. That makes software one of the fastest-expanding lines in the entire technology economy.
The headline growth rate is not the number that matters to a procurement leader. The number that matters is the split between consumption and price. Of the roughly 15% software-spend increase, analysts attribute close to 9 percentage points to price inflation — vendors charging more for software customers already run — rather than new seats, new products, or new value. In other words, well over half of the market's growth in 2026 is the market paying more for the same thing. Treating that as inevitable is the single most expensive assumption a CIO can make.
This pillar sits at the centre of our Market Intelligence cluster and connects every supporting analysis — from enterprise software market trends to multi-year IT spending forecasts. The goal throughout is practical: convert what the market is doing into what you should do at the negotiating table.
Why List-Price Inflation Outruns CPI
Software list prices in 2025–2026 rose roughly four times faster than general inflation, and the increases were neither uniform nor random. Three structural forces compounded. First, vendors embedded AI features into existing SKUs and repriced the bundle, so customers pay an AI premium whether or not they use the capability. Second, consolidation thinned the field of credible alternatives in several categories, reducing competitive discipline. Third, the long migration from perpetual licences to subscriptions handed vendors contractual annual uplifts that compound silently every renewal.
The specifics are stark. Microsoft is raising Microsoft 365 prices across the portfolio from July 2026 — frontline worker plans by as much as 25–33% and business tiers by 12–17% — and in November 2025 removed Enterprise Agreement volume discounts worth up to 12%, a double hit for large estates. Its on-premises server products rose 10% in July 2025 and CAL Suites by up to 20% in August 2025. Google Workspace lifted list prices 17–22% in early 2025. IBM applied a global price harmonisation of roughly 6% from January 2026, with IBM i software maintenance at 10%. Atlassian pushed cloud increases of 5–15% and Data Center renewals as high as 15–40%. We track each of these in detail under enterprise software market trends 2026 and vendor revenue reports for buyers.
| Vendor | 2025–2026 Move | Reported Increase | Buyer Action |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft | M365 repricing + EA discount removal | 12–33% / up to 12% lost discount | Lock pricing pre-July 2026; benchmark before renewal |
| Oracle | Support escalation + Java per-employee | 4–15% support; audit risk rising | Cap support uplift; resolve Java metric early |
| SAP | CPI-indexed maintenance + cloud premium | Up to 5% maintenance; 10%+ cloud | Negotiate RISE term protections upfront |
| Broadcom (VMware) | Subscription conversion + bundling | 800–1,500% on some renewals | Model exit; force competitive alternatives |
| Google Workspace | List-price reset (AI bundled) | 17–22% | Right-size tiers; challenge AI premium |
| IBM | Global price harmonisation | ~6% (SWMA 10%) | Time renewals around harmonisation date |
The vendors that raised prices most aggressively in 2025–2026 share one trait: their customers had no credible, documented alternative on the table. Price inflation is not a market condition you absorb — it is a negotiation outcome you can change.
Vendor Consolidation and Contract Risk
Software mergers and acquisitions are forecast to rise 30–40% in 2026, with total deal value reaching around $600 billion — up from roughly $440 billion in 2025. Almost half of 2025 technology deals carried an AI component, and 72% of SaaS acquisition targets referenced AI capability in their positioning. For buyers, every one of these transactions is a latent contract event. The vendor you signed with may not be the vendor you renew with.
The reference case remains Broadcom's acquisition of VMware. Following close, Broadcom converted perpetual licences to subscription, collapsed the product line into a handful of bundles, and reset renewals — with some European customers reporting increases of 800–1,500%. The European Cloud Competition Observatory assigned Broadcom a "RED" status, warning the model strained competition law. The pattern repeats predictably after most large acquisitions: the acquirer retires perpetual options, re-bundles SKUs, tightens audit posture, and reprices to its own model at the first renewal after close. We unpack the mechanics in IT vendor M&A impact on your contracts.
2025–2026 alone produced IBM's roughly $11 billion acquisition of Confluent, Salesforce's approximately $8 billion purchase of Informatica, Alphabet's $32 billion agreement for Wiz, and Thoma Bravo's $42 billion of deal activity including the $12.3 billion take-private of Dayforce. Salesforce alone closed ten acquisitions in 2025. The defensive response is contractual, not reactive: change-of-control language, price-lock and uplift caps that survive an acquisition, data and configuration portability rights, and renewal windows long enough to run a genuine alternative. The wider consolidation dynamic — including its effect on AI pricing — runs through GenAI market consolidation and pricing and our multi-vendor strategy white paper.
How AI Monetisation Reshapes Every Renewal
AI is now the primary repricing engine in enterprise software, and the monetisation models are diverging fast. Some vendors sell AI as a separate premium SKU — Adobe exited Q1 2025 with $125 million in revenue from stand-alone AI products priced from $10 to $200 — while others fold AI into existing tiers and lift the whole price. Around 80% of software vendors now ship AI-enabled products, but 70% report that delivery costs are undermining profitability, and 52% are planning new monetisation models to offset rising cloud bills. That cost pressure lands on your invoice.
The buyer's risk is paying twice: an AI premium baked into a tier you cannot decline, plus a separate consumption charge for the AI you actually use. The discipline is to separate the AI conversation from the core renewal — agree the base platform pricing first, then negotiate AI as a time-boxed pilot with usage caps and an option, not an obligation, to expand. Microsoft Copilot, detailed in our Microsoft strategy 2026 analysis, is the clearest example of bundling pressure, but the same playbook applies across the AI vendor landscape. The broader procurement framework lives in our AI procurement checklist.
Reading Vendor Earnings as a Buyer
Vendor strategy is not secret — it is published every quarter. Earnings calls, analyst briefings, and price-list changes telegraph exactly where a vendor needs revenue and when its discounting authority peaks. Cloud infrastructure spending hit $106.9 billion in Q3 2025, up 28% year on year, and the market cleared $400 billion for the full year, which tells you the hyperscalers are competing hardest for committed-spend growth — the lever a buyer can trade. ServiceNow crossing $12.8 billion in 2025 subscription revenue at 21% growth tells you a vendor with strong momentum will defend list price but will still trade on multi-year commitment and reference value.
The practical reading is timing. A vendor missing a cloud-migration target, pushing an AI SKU to hit a number, or facing a quarter-end gap has materially more discounting authority in that window. Pairing that signal with benchmark transaction data is what moves achieved discounts 8–15 percentage points versus negotiating against list price. We turn quarterly disclosures into renewal timing in vendor revenue reports: what they reveal for buyers and SaaS IPOs and customer pricing.
The Big Five Vendor Watch
Five vendor relationships drive the majority of enterprise software spend, and each has a distinct 2026 trajectory worth watching. Read the dedicated analysis for the vendors in your estate, then return here to connect the threads.
Oracle continues to escalate support fees 4–15% annually and is ramping Java per-employee enforcement, with Gartner projecting 20% of Java-using organisations will face an audit. Track the detail in Oracle strategy 2026 and the Oracle vendor hub. Microsoft is repricing M365, removing EA volume discounts, and pushing Copilot at scale — covered in Microsoft strategy 2026 and the Microsoft hub. SAP is driving RISE migration momentum with CPI-indexed maintenance and cloud-renewal premiums, analysed in SAP strategy 2026 and the SAP hub.
On infrastructure, the hyperscaler contest between AWS, Azure and Google Cloud is shifting share and committed-spend leverage — see cloud market share 2026 and our analysis of the cloud repatriation trend. And the AI vendor landscape determines who wins the enterprise AI budget that now sits inside nearly every renewal. Analyst positioning — and how to read it — runs through Gartner Magic Quadrant negotiation implications, while open-source adoption and IT outsourcing market rates shape the alternatives you can credibly table.
Turning Market Intelligence into Leverage
Market intelligence is only valuable when it changes a number on a contract. The conversion has four steps. Benchmark first: obtain transaction data showing what comparable enterprises pay, because list price is never the vendor's internal reference point. Time second: align renewals to the vendor's quarter-end and to the moments its earnings pressure is highest. Diversify third: keep at least one credible, documented alternative live in every major category, because the price-inflation table above is really a map of where buyers had no fallback. Protect fourth: write change-of-control, uplift-cap and portability clauses into every agreement before your vendor becomes an acquisition headline.
None of this requires inside information — it requires reading the public market deliberately and acting on it early. Enterprises that run their renewals this way consistently hold price increases to a fraction of the market average, and in several categories reverse them. If you want a structured benchmark of your current vendor exposure, start with our price benchmarking report and the CIO contract governance framework. When a specific renewal is on the horizon, you can request a confidential briefing and we will map the leverage in your particular vendor estate before you ever sit down with the account team.