Cledara

Cledara operates a SaaS management platform that combines subscription management tooling with a payments layer. Finance, IT and operations teams use it to maintain a real-time directory of the software their organization uses, route purchase requests and approvals, set budgets, track usage, evaluate renewals ahead of time, check vendor compliance and cancel subscriptions. Payment functionality includes virtual and physical cards, per-card spend limits, invoice capture, reimbursements and accounting integrations, so that each subscription can be paid on a dedicated card and stopped without involving a shared corporate card.

The platform also surfaces analytics intended to reduce waste, flagging underused, duplicate and overlapping tools and providing SaaS pricing benchmarks. Additional modules include Onboarding, a control center for managing software access, an AI-assisted SaaS procurement copilot, and Cledara Spend, which extends the product to business and travel expenses with receipt scanning, mobile payments and Apple Pay. A Cledara API makes subscription data available programmatically, and the company publishes aggregated, anonymized purchasing data on SaaS and AI adoption through a public data site tracking more than 9,400 software products.

Cledara issues cards in USD, EUR and GBP and states its cards are accepted in 32 countries. It reports customer outcomes including a 23% reduction in SaaS costs, 13+ hours saved per month and 76 invoices captured monthly.

Founding story

Cledara was founded in July 2018 by Cristina Vila, who had worked in banking on process modernization before joining the London fintech Dopay, where she encountered the administrative burden and lack of control created by proliferating SaaS subscriptions during fast growth. She was later joined by co-founder and COO Brad van Leeuwen, previously an executive at banking platform Railsbank, which also became a Cledara customer.

Business model

Cledara sells subscription plans to companies, with monthly or discounted annual contracts that include card issuance and unlimited card transactions at no per-transaction fee. It charges a 1.99% FX fee on foreign-currency spend and does not charge for account top-ups. Alongside subscription fees, part of revenue historically came from interchange on card spend through the platform.

Paid SaaS subscription plans (monthly or annual) plus payments-related revenue, including FX fees of 1.99% and interchange fees on card spend.

Traction

Cledara reported over 100 customers in December 2020 and revenue growth of 20x during 2020. By September 2022 it had over 800 customers and reported 830% growth in total software purchase volume through the platform over the prior 12 months, with 35%+ month-on-month growth in the US since its March 2022 launch. The company currently states 1,000+ customers in 32 countries covering 5,600+ software vendors, and its data site references over 700,000 SaaS transactions across 1,200+ companies.

Latest developments

Recent product releases include the Cledara API for programmatic access to software subscription data, Apple Pay support across Cledara Spend cards, and Cledara Spend for travel and business expenses at no extra cost. Cledara was recognized with 16 badges in G2's Winter 2025 report and featured in G2's Summer 2025 SaaS spend management grid. The company runs a public SaaS and AI market-share data service and has published research on designing an AI strategy based on over 700,000 SaaS transactions; its leadership also participates in Project Europe, an initiative of over 150 European founders investing in technical entrepreneurs under 25.