Software sellers lag buyers on self-serve digital sales

Cleverbridge has published research on digital buying in the B2B software market, highlighting a gap between seller expectations and operational readiness.

The benchmark report found that 96% of software sellers expect routine renewals, expansions and smaller purchases to shift to self-serve digital channels, yet only 17% said they had a meaningful path in place at scale. The study was based on a survey of 608 B2B software sellers and 551 software buyers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, India and Australia.

The findings suggest software vendors still rely heavily on sales-led and partner-led models, even for lower-complexity transactions. Standard renewals, seat additions, upgrades, low-complexity expansions and smaller purchases often continue to carry the costs of higher-touch sales processes.

Buyers, meanwhile, appear increasingly willing to transact online for those routine purchases. According to the report, 93% of buyers would use self-serve digital checkout for routine software purchases if it were available and allowed by company policy.

More than half of buyers said they would complete a routine software purchase worth USD $25,000 or more online. Another 17% said they would spend more than USD $100,000 through an online purchase path.

Sales channels

The study found that sellers draw revenue from several routes at once. Cloud marketplaces were cited by 63% of sellers, direct sales by 61%, owned digital channels by 55%, channel partners by 53% and mobile app stores by 47%.

Each route has a different cost structure. Among sellers generating revenue through direct sales, 71% said variable compensation accounted for 10% or more of first-year contract value. Among those using channel partners, 69% reported partner margin, discounts or commissions of between 10% and 30% of deal value. Among sellers using cloud marketplaces, 38% said the effective take rate was 10% or more.

The report argues these costs may be justified for deals involving negotiation, custom terms, procurement complexity or more direct human support. It also found that a sizeable share of software transactions does not fall into that category.

Nearly three-quarters of sellers said more than 25% of their new purchase, renewal, add-on or expansion volume was routine. Even so, more than half said they spend USD $1,000 or more internally to process a typical routine transaction, and more than one-third said the work takes six or more internal hours.

Execution gap

The survey showed broad agreement between buyers and sellers on the direction of travel. Alongside the 96% of sellers who said routine transactions will increasingly move through self-serve digital channels, 95% of buyers said the same.

That alignment did not extend to current implementation. Only 17% of sellers said they had a meaningful digital path in place at scale for routine software transactions, suggesting internal systems, channel strategy and sales processes have not yet caught up with customer preferences.

Richard Stevenson, Chief Executive Officer, Cleverbridge, said the question is not whether digital buying will become more common, but how software companies separate transactions that need human involvement from those that do not.

"The direction of the market is clear: buyers want simpler digital purchasing, and sellers know routine transactions are moving online," said Richard Stevenson, Chief Executive Officer, Cleverbridge. "A standard renewal, seat expansion or usage true-up should not require the same cost, effort and human coordination as a strategic enterprise purchase. For software companies, the opportunity is to make those transactions faster and more efficient while keeping sales and partners focused on the deals where they create the most value."

Where people matter

The report does not suggest that human support is becoming irrelevant in B2B software sales. More than half of buyers said they still want a person involved when a purchase requires security or compliance review, procurement exceptions, complex configuration, custom pricing or special terms.

That distinction is central to the report's argument that companies should assess transactions by complexity and cost to serve rather than defaulting to the route that has historically handled them. In practice, that would leave larger new purchases, negotiated expansions, renewals with exceptions, procurement-heavy deals and partner-influenced opportunities in more supported channels.

By contrast, routine and repeatable transactions appear to be the clearest candidates for digital handling. The research suggests governed digital buying paths could sit alongside direct sales and partner channels rather than replace them, particularly for standard software purchases where terms are already understood.

Cleverbridge, which describes itself as a commerce partner and digital reseller for software and software-as-a-service companies, operates in more than 240 markets. The study was conducted with Ascend2 Research, and the findings were reported at a 95% confidence level.

The figures underline a market in which software vendors use multiple sales routes while still carrying relatively high costs for lower-complexity work. For buyers, the data points to a growing willingness to complete substantial transactions online when the process is straightforward and trusted.