Written and maintained by CASRAI Editorial Board
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Maverick spend is purchasing done outside an organization’s established procurement policies or contracts. The term comes from procurement practice, not from a regulator: no government or standards body defines it. The closest official vocabulary is the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s “unaligned” spending. This guide separates maverick spend from off-contract spend, tail spend and spend under management, and gives lab and clinic buyers a short checklist for classifying an off-contract purchase.
Short answer
Maverick spend is a purchase made outside the buying rules an organization has set, such as buying from a supplier with no agreement in place when a negotiated one exists. It is a compliance label, not a size label: a large equipment order can be maverick spend, and a small consumables order can be fully compliant. Not every off-contract purchase is maverick spend, because some items are simply not on any contract.
Definition and scope
As commonly used by procurement software vendors and glossaries, maverick spend is “any purchase made outside an organization’s established procurement policies, approved contracts or preferred supplier lists” (Esker, checked 2026-10-30). Two things have to be true for a purchase to count: the organization has a policy or contract that applies to the item, and the buyer did not follow it.
Because the definition depends on the organization’s own rules, the same purchase can be maverick spend at one institution and ordinary buying at another. The rate is usually expressed as non-compliant spend divided by total spend. Published benchmark percentages come from vendor surveys, so this guide does not quote them.
How the term is used in practice
Government auditors use different words for the same underlying problem. In a 2020 report on duplicative IT contracts, GAO defined “unaligned” spending as spending on contracts that are not aligned with the Office of Management and Budget’s criteria for agency-wide, multi-agency or government-wide, and “Best in Class” contracts (GAO-20-567, 30 September 2020). GAO reported that federal IT spending runs to over $90 billion a year and that three of the seven agencies it assessed had not implemented either of the two spend analysis activities GAO examined.
A measured example of the cost of bypassing a negotiated vehicle comes from GAO-17-164 (26 October 2016) on strategic sourcing. The agencies in the Leadership Council directed only 10 percent of their collective spending to the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiatives (FSSIs). In fiscal year 2015, $4.5 billion of spending was considered addressable through the FSSIs, but $462 million actually went through them. Reported savings were $129 million, a 28 percent savings rate; GAO estimated that up to $1.3 billion could have been saved if all addressable spending had used the FSSIs at the same rate. GAO also said the low use of the FSSIs diminished the potential savings. These figures describe federal agencies and are an illustration of the mechanism, not a forecast for any lab.
Types and related concepts
These terms overlap and are often used as if interchangeable. Each row below traces to the source named.
| Term | What it describes | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Maverick spend | Any purchase made outside established procurement policies; defined by rule-breaking, not by size | Esker glossary article, 2026-10-30 |
| Off-contract spend | Buying from a supplier outside negotiated agreements; one common form of maverick spend | Esker, 2026-10-30 |
| Tail spend | Low-value purchases that are hard to manage; may still be compliant, so it is not a synonym for maverick spend | Esker, 2026-10-30 |
| Unaligned spend | Spending on contracts not aligned with OMB’s criteria for agency-wide, multi-agency, government-wide or Best in Class contracts; the government’s own wording | GAO-20-567, 2020 |
| Spend under management | The measure OMB M-19-13 uses to sort federal spending into tiers, from unaligned (Tier 0) to government-wide Best in Class (Tier 3) | See category management |
What is tail spend?
Tail spend is the long run of low-value, hard-to-manage purchases at the end of a spend distribution. It describes size and manageability. A tail purchase made with an approved supplier at a contracted price is tail spend but not maverick spend.
How does spend under management differ?
Spend under management measures how much of an organization’s spending runs through managed, coordinated contract vehicles. Maverick spend is roughly the opposite view: the share that escapes them. A general walk-through of the federal tiers is in the category management guide, and the spend analysis guide covers how to find the pattern in purchase data.
Where it matters for labs, clinics and supply decisions
For a lab or clinic buyer the practical question is whether an off-contract purchase was avoidable. The wholesale pricing guide notes that an order placed with a non-contracted vendor, or against the right vendor but the wrong catalog line, prices at standard rather than contract rates. Group purchasing arrangements (see group purchasing organization) and payment instruments such as a procurement card are common places where purchases leave the managed path, and electronic catalog programs such as ECAT exist to keep ordering on contracted items.
Checklist: classifying an off-contract purchase
This is an editorial checklist built from the definitions above, not a regulatory test.
- Was there a policy or contract that covered this item when it was bought? If not, the purchase is off-contract but not maverick spend.
- Was a contracted supplier or catalog line available for the same item? If yes and it was not used, the purchase is a candidate for maverick spend.
- Was the purchase low in value? That places it in the tail, which says nothing about compliance on its own.
- Was the purchase made on a card or outside the purchasing system? Record it; the route matters for the later review.
- Was it an urgent need? An authorized exception is different from an unreviewed bypass.
Common misunderstandings
Maverick spend and tail spend are the same thing
They are not. Tail spend is defined by low value and difficulty of management; maverick spend is defined by non-compliance with policy. The two overlap when small purchases are made without following policy.
All off-contract spend is bad
Spending with no applicable contract is not a policy breach. The test is whether an applicable policy or contract existed and was bypassed.
The goal is to reach zero
The GAO reports cited here describe managing and measuring the share, not a zero target. The GAO-17-164 numbers above show a gap between addressable spend and spend that used the negotiated vehicles, not a requirement that all spending use them.
FAQ
What is maverick spend?
Purchasing outside an organization’s established procurement policies, as the term is commonly used by procurement vendors and glossaries.
What is off-contract spend?
Buying from a supplier outside negotiated agreements. It is one form of maverick spend when an applicable agreement existed.
What is tail spend?
Low-value purchases that are hard to manage. Tail spend can be fully compliant.
How is it different from spend under management?
Spend under management measures the share of spending on managed contract vehicles; maverick spend is spending that bypasses the rules that govern those purchases.
What does contract compliance mean in healthcare purchasing?
In this guide it means buying through the contracts and policies an organization has put in place. The federal tier framework in OMB M-19-13, summarized in the category management guide, and the GAO reports listed below describe the federal version of the idea.
Sources
- U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-20-567, Information Technology: Selected Federal Agencies Need to Take Additional Actions to Reduce Contract Duplication, 30 September 2020. Checked 2026-10-30.
- U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-17-164, Federal Procurement: Smarter Buying Initiatives Can Achieve Additional Savings, 26 October 2016. Checked 2026-10-30.
- Esker, What is maverick spend? (vendor glossary article, not a regulator). Checked 2026-10-30.
