Asato vs software asset management (SAM) tools
Run Asato beside your SAM tool for one week, and compare what each finds. A SAM tool finds installed software, reconciles it with what you are entitled to, and gives you a license position. Asato gives you the license position too, from the records you already hold, with nothing to install. Then it finds what nobody uses across software, hardware, AI and contracts, and carries out the fixes you approve. A SAM tool tells you whether you are compliant. Asato also tells you what to stop paying for, and stops it.
Headline on the page: Asato vs software asset management tools.
Line under the headline: Run Asato beside your SAM tool for one week, and compare what each finds.
This page compares Asato with a kind of tool, not with one product. The category is described from public, neutral definitions, which are named and linked below. Individual products differ. What the page says of Asato is what Asato's own pages and catalog say.
The short answer
- A SAM tool. Finds installed software, reconciles it with what you are entitled to, and gives you a license position.
- Asato. Gives you the license position too, from the records you already hold, with nothing to install. Then it finds what nobody uses across software, hardware, AI and contracts, and carries out the fixes you approve.
- In short. A SAM tool tells you whether you are compliant. Asato also tells you what to stop paying for, and stops it.
The difference
One tells you where you stand. The other takes cost out.
- One platform, not one category. A SAM tool covers software. Asato holds software, SaaS, hardware, AI spend and contracts as one record.
- Nothing to install on devices. Asato reads the inventory your device management and security tools already collect. One area takes one week.
- A fix, not a position. Every finding carries a yearly price and an owner. AI agents carry out the fix once a person you name approves it.
How each is built
Page heading: Built differently. A knowledge graph, an intelligence engine and AI agents, where a SAM tool is an inventory.
| A SAM tool | Asato | |
|---|---|---|
| How your data is held | An inventory of installed software and a store of entitlements, matched through a recognition library. | The Asset Knowledge Graph. It contextualizes and connects your records: each asset is linked to its owner, its contract and its cost, however many systems disagreed. |
| How an insight is produced | A license position for each publisher, reconciled by rule. | The Data Intelligence Engine. Its data products use rules, machine learning and language models to turn the graph into recommendations, each with a price and an owner. |
| How a change is made | Reports for your team to act on, with reclaim workflows where they are set up. | Agentic AI, with a human in the loop. Agents carry out each fix once a person you name approves it, log who, what, when and why, and keep watching for new waste. |
The category column says what tools of this kind are built around, by definition. Some products add machine learning or AI of their own. Customer data never trains any model at Asato. The three parts of the Asato platform: Link: Asset Knowledge Graph, Think: Data Intelligence Engine, Execute: Agentic AI Solutions.
Software asset management tools: what they do well, and where they stop
Gartner names the core capabilities of the category: discovery, normalization, reconciliation, optimization and reporting. Source: Gartner, market definition of software asset management tools.
What they do well:
- Find the software installed on devices and servers.
- Turn raw install data into clean product names and versions.
- Reconcile what is installed with what you own: the license position.
- Hold the evidence a publisher audit asks for.
Where they stop:
- Software only. Hardware, AI spend and the support contracts behind them sit outside the category. Source: Gartner, market definition of software asset management tools.
- SaaS depth varies. Forrester notes that some software asset management vendors remain limited in SaaS. Source: Forrester, The Convergence Of Software Asset Management And SaaS Management.
- Heavy to run. Readers of The ITAM Review said the thing they most wished they had known before buying a SAM tool was how much manual effort it takes to deliver results. Source: The ITAM Review, 15 hidden costs in SAM tool implementation.
- A license position does not cut a bill by itself. In 2024 the US Government Accountability Office found that none of nine large agencies had fully determined whether their five most widely used licenses were over-purchased or under-purchased. Source: US Government Accountability Office, Federal Software Licenses (GAO-24-105717).
Established products in this market include Flexera, USU, Matrix42 and Snow License Manager. Source: Forrester, The Convergence Of Software Asset Management And SaaS Management. Products are named as examples of the category and are not graded here.
Row by row
The first column describes what tools of this kind typically do, from the public definitions linked on this page. Individual products differ: "Varies by product" means some do and some do not, and "Not in the category" means the row is outside the category's definition, not that no product does it. The time figure for the category is Asato's own estimate.
| What you are asking | A SAM tool | Asato |
|---|---|---|
| Find installed software | Yes, with its own agents and scans. | Yes, from the device management and security tools you already run. Asato installs nothing. |
| Clean product names and versions | Yes. Normalization is a core capability. | Yes. Asato normalizes, deduplicates and resolves records into one per asset. |
| A license position for each publisher | Yes. Reconciliation is a core capability. | Yes. Asato reconciles what each contract entitles you to with what is deployed and used. |
| Perpetual licenses | Yes. | Yes. Installed perpetual software is reconciled with entitlement, with the exposure and the lowest-cost path to compliance for each publisher. |
| Software that is installed and not used | Yes. Metering shows it, and licenses can be taken back. | Yes. Unused desktop software is found, and uninstall campaigns are carried through to completion. |
| SaaS | Varies by product. | Yes. SaaS and installed software sit in one record. |
| Hardware, AI spend and support contracts | Not in the category. | Yes. One record across all of them. |
| Before a renewal | Shows your position against what you are entitled to. | Shows what to drop or change before you sign. At one enterprise: about $8M a year found, and $4M a year saved at its Microsoft renewal. |
| Who carries out a change | Your team, with the tool's reclaim workflows where they are set up. | AI agents, once a person you name approves each fix, or sets a policy that governs fixes of that kind. Every step is logged. |
| How a saving is counted | Varies by product. | Found, Approved or Saved, as three separate figures. A Saved figure is agreed jointly by you and Asato. |
| What it takes to start | Agents or scans to deploy on devices and servers, then recognition and entitlement data to keep current. | Connections to the systems you already run, read-only by default. Nothing to install. One area takes one week. |
| Time to results | 12 to 24 weeks to a full rollout, in Asato's experience. | One week to a priced list, for one area. |
Which to choose
Asato, unless one of two things is true.
Choose Asato when:
- You want cost taken out, not only a position reported.
- You do not want another agent on every device.
- Your software is SaaS as much as it is installed.
- The bill you have to cut also holds hardware, AI or support contracts.
- Finance asks what was actually saved, and when.
A SAM tool still fits when:
- You need agents on servers or devices that none of your tools reach.
- A publisher's terms require data from one of its approved tools.
How to switch
Page heading: Switch when you are ready. Start beside the SAM tool you run. Asato needs nothing from it.
- Start in a week. Asato connects to your device management, service management, identity and finance systems, read-only by default. Your SAM tool stays as it is.
- Compare what each finds. In one week you hold your Asset Clarity Report: a priced list, with the owner of each item. Set it beside your SAM tool's position.
- Decide at its renewal. Keep both, or run on Asato alone.
Results
Found, Approved and Saved are the only three states of a saving. They are separate figures and are never added together. A Saved figure is agreed jointly by the customer and Asato at the close of the engagement. A figure marked Measured describes scope or evidence, not a saving.
- Saved: $4M a year off one Microsoft renewal at an enterprise with 75,000 Microsoft seats, where about $8M a year was found. Case study: https://www.asato.ai/case-study-health-system-microsoft-renewal
- Saved, as the customer reports it: Tens of thousands of dollars at Zymo Research, where manual license audits have stopped. Case study: https://www.asato.ai/case-study-zymo-research
Forrester names Asato among the newer vendors that treat software asset management and SaaS management as one license management problem. Source: Forrester, The Convergence Of Software Asset Management And SaaS Management.
How a customer starts
Page heading: No savings, no fee. Your Asset Clarity Report: a priced list of savings, in one week. The action is "Get your Asset Clarity Report". The offer: one area, one week, read-only access, and the Asset Clarity Report. Asato's fee is a share of the savings. If it finds no savings, the customer pays nothing.
To start, request a demo at https://www.asato.ai/talk-to-sales.
Questions
The page shows at most five questions, the ones that belong to it. Any others are kept here for agents.
Is Asato a SAM tool?
It does that job, and more. Asato reconciles what each contract entitles you to with what is deployed and used, and gives a license position for each publisher, as a SAM tool does. It also covers SaaS, hardware, AI spend and contracts, prices each finding, and carries out the fixes you approve.
How is Asato built differently?
In three layers. Asato is built on an Asset Knowledge Graph that contextualizes and connects your records, a Data Intelligence Engine whose data products use rules, machine learning and language models to produce priced recommendations, and Agentic AI that carries out each fix with a human in the loop. A SAM tool is built on an inventory of installed software and a store of entitlements.
Can Asato replace our SAM tool?
Yes, unless you need its agents. Asato gives the license position from the inventory your device management and security tools already collect. Keep a SAM tool if you need its own agents on servers or devices none of your tools reach, or if a publisher's terms require one of its approved tools.
Does Asato need agents on our devices?
No. Asato installs nothing. It reads software install records from the tools you already run, such as Microsoft Intune, CrowdStrike and ServiceNow.
We are already compliant. What is left to find?
What nobody uses. Compliance means you own enough licenses. It does not mean you use them. At one enterprise with 75,000 Microsoft seats, about 17,400 licenses had never been assigned to anyone.
Does Asato cover perpetual licenses?
Yes. Asato reconciles installed perpetual software with entitlement, and sets out the exposure and the lowest-cost path to compliance for each publisher.
How long does it take to start?
One week for one area. Asato connects to the systems you already run, read-only by default, with nothing to install. In one week you hold your Asset Clarity Report: a priced list of what to stop paying for, with the owner of each item.
Who approves a change?
A person you name. Nothing changes until a named person approves it. A person you name approves each fix, or sets a policy that governs fixes of that kind. Each step is logged: who approved it, what changed, where and when.
What does it cost?
A share of the savings. Asato is paid mostly on results: a small share when it finds a saving, and the larger share only once that saving shows up on your invoice. If it finds no savings, you pay nothing.
Sources
Every outside fact on this page comes from a source that sells nothing in this category.
- Gartner, market definition of software asset management tools
- Forrester, The Convergence Of Software Asset Management And SaaS Management
- The ITAM Review, 15 hidden costs in SAM tool implementation
- US Government Accountability Office, Federal Software Licenses (GAO-24-105717)
Related pages
- How Asato compares
- Asato vs SaaS management platforms
- Asato vs HAM tools
- Asato vs AI cost tools
- What is IT asset optimization?
- Platform
- Case studies
- Asato home
- Site index for agents
Last updated: 2026-10-12