INDUSTRY REPORT
Executive Summary
Software usage analytics—the process of tracking and analyzing how users engage with software—provides data-driven insights that help software suppliers support a range of business improvements, such as making informed product roadmap decisions, identifying upsell opportunities, and minimizing customer churn. The desire to establish effective practices is apparent: the vast majority of software suppliers surveyed for this report collect product usage data, and a growing number of respondents now rely on commercial usage analytics solutions.
Yet software suppliers still need to embrace best practices for effective data collection and analysis that can help optimize annual recurring revenue (ARR). There’s significant room to improve initiatives. Approximately half of respondents indicate disjointed or siloed approaches. An increasing number of respondents (29%) are collecting telemetry data, but letting valuable insights go to waste.
This report evaluates product usage data collection and analysis trends. It also illustrates opportunities for business improvements with software usage analytics.
Only 38% of respondents report the ability to gather product usage data “very well.”
Reliance on homegrown solutions for collecting and analyzing data is falling.
“Letting telemetry data go to waste” is a growing problem jumping to 29% compared to 11% two years ago.
Siloed approaches can complicate software usage analytics initiatives and the ability to have a single customer view, yet nearly half of respondents use disparate systems.
90% of product managers collect additional insights based on user segmentation from product usage analytics.
More than half of respondents who gather product usage data “very well” are using their insights for roadmap decisions.
The top application of product usage data is to identify upsell opportunities.
Suppliers that collect usage data “very well” have a clear advantage in tracking all customers and their entitlements/use rights.
Table of Contents
The Revenera Monetization Monitor 2025 Outlook:
Software Usage Analytics illuminates:
- Product Usage Data Collection & Analysis Trends
- Efficient Software Product Usage Data Collection Efforts
- How Software Suppliers Collect Usage Data
- Collecting Customer Feedback: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches
- Quantitative Results Can Bolster Qualitative Efforts
- Opportunities for Business Improvements with Software Usage Analytics
- Apply Product Usage Data
- Manage the Customer Lifecycle with Software Usage Analytics
- Provide Customers with Insights They Need Into Usage Data
- Focus on Usage Data to Grow Usage-Based Monetization Models
- Survey Background
- The Bottom Line
The Revenera Monetization Monitor 2025 Outlook Series
This report is part of an annual series focusing on software monetization first published in 2019. This report focuses on usage analytics. The first two reports in the Revenera Monetization Monitor 2025 Outlook series addressed Software Monetization Models and Strategies and Software Piracy and Compliance. All reports are based on 418 complete responses to a survey conducted by Revenera from May through July 2024.
Read all three reports in the Revenera Monetization Monitor 2025 Outlook series.
Product Usage Data Collection & Analysis Trends
Efficient Software Product Usage Data Collection Efforts
As noted in the first report in the Revenera Monetization Monitor 2025 Outlook series, more than 4/5 of survey respondents (82%) report that they can gather product usage data either very well or that they have the ability to do some of this, though it requires manual processes or engineering work. This improvement, from 79% a year ago, may indicate improved efficacy of product usage data collection efforts.
The number planning to gather product usage data in the coming 12–24 months has remained steady, year-over-year, at 13%. This group has an opportunity to leverage that usage data to launch initiatives focusing on ways to identify upsell opportunities, reduce churn risk, and to make effective product roadmap decisions.
Usage Data
Usage data is valuable for all monetization models. It helps product management, marketing, software engineering, sales, customer success, compliance, and senior management teams. Uses include feature prioritization or roadmap development, UI/UX design, beta testing, deprecating features, pricing decisions, software version decisions, and piracy tracking.
Ability to Gather Product Usage Data
Today, 38% of respondents report the ability to gather product usage data “very well.” The remaining 62% have room to improve and optimize their initiatives.
Usage Analytics: Understanding Access to Software
As more software producers are redefining and expanding software use rights (and growing usage-based monetization models as noted in the first report in the Revenera Monetization Monitor 2025 Outlook series), the more important it is to embrace usage analytics to enable data-driven business decisions.
It’s also important to be aware of the varied terminology used to describe what was traditionally known as licensing. Today, terms including entitlements, use/usage rights, and access rights are commonly used by software suppliers to mean “access to software.” Though these terms are largely synonymous, they may have different recognition by different software producers and buyers.
Licensing and use/usage rights are tied as the most commonly used terms, but suppliers should also be aware of other terminology that may resonate best with their customers.
What is the primary term you use to describe how you control access to software?
Definitions
Software usage analytics is the process of tracking and analyzing how users engage with software. It provides:
- Tracking, which usually happens via a call-home system that collects raw data about user actions and computing environments,
- Analysis, through visualization dashboards that show data, identify trends, user behavior, differentiators across user segments, etc., and
- Actionable insights, facilitating context-relevant engagement with the software.
Unlicensed Use
- Piracy: the use of software that has been configured or tampered with to remove or bypass license enforcement.
- Overuse: the use of software exceeding the limits of the license.
- Misuse: the intentional configuration of the software to enable use beyond the limits of the license (e.g., cloning).
