Tail Spend LinkedIn Survey Results 2025

Tail Spend remains one of procurement’s most persistent grey areas. Everyone agrees it exists, yet when you ask for a definition, the answers vary significantly. 

Some see it as the classic 80/20 rule, others point to low value transactions, and many view it as the unmanaged supplier base or the blind spots sitting outside category strategies.

To bring clarity to this conversation, we asked the LinkedIn community a simple question, how does your organisation define Tail Spend?

More than 500 procurement professionals across 60 countries, 103 industries and 426 companies shared their view. The debate that followed, both in the comments and in private messages, was just as valuable as the data itself.

Download the report to see what we learned.