Software subscriptions are easy to start and easy to forget. A team signs up for a tool to solve a problem, picks a plan that seems sensible at the time, and it renews quietly every month or year after that. Multiply that across a growing business and you end up paying for tiers you have outgrown, features nobody uses, seats for people who left, and two tools doing the same job.
A subscription audit doesn’t need to be a big project. Done once a year, it usually pays for itself and gives you a clearer picture of how your business actually runs. Here is the process we use.
Step 1: List every tool
You can’t manage what you can’t see. Build a single list of every piece of software the business pays for, and every tool people use even if it’s free. Good places to look:
- Bank and credit card statements for the last twelve months.
- Supplier bills in your accounting system.
- The connected apps or integrations list in Xero and other core systems.
- The apps registered in your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace admin console.
- A short question to each team: “What tools do you use every week?”
For each tool, record the cost, billing frequency, renewal date, number of seats, who owns the relationship, and what business process it supports.
Step 2: Compare the tier with what you actually use
Plans are often chosen at sign-up, when the business was smaller or had different plans. Over time the gap between what you pay for and what you use can grow in both directions.
For each significant tool, check:
- Which features in your current tier are used regularly, and by whom.
- Whether you are paying for a higher tier to get one feature.
- Whether modules you pay for, such as manufacturing, advanced reporting or extra warehouses, are switched on and used.
- Whether usage reports in the admin console back up what people tell you.
Talk to the people who use the tool most. They will know which features matter and which were never adopted.
Step 3: Find the overlaps
Overlap is common once a business has grown past a handful of people. Typical examples:
- Two project or task management tools used by different teams.
- Files stored in more than one place, such as SharePoint and a separate file-sharing service.
- A separate video calling or chat tool alongside Microsoft Teams, which many Microsoft 365 plans already include.
- Several tools doing e-signatures, forms or surveys.
Overlap costs more than the subscription. Information ends up split across systems, and someone has to reconcile it.
Step 4: Count the seats
Per-seat pricing is where quiet waste builds up:
- Licences still assigned to people who have left.
- Seats bought for a busy period that never came back down.
- Full licences for people who only need read-only access.
- Shared logins, which save money on paper but are a security risk and often against the vendor’s terms.
Tie licence removal into your offboarding process so it doesn’t depend on someone remembering.
Step 5: Check the contract terms
Before you decide anything, note the renewal date, notice period, whether you are on monthly or annual billing, and any price increases coming up. Many savings are lost simply because the notice window for a change passed unnoticed.
When replacing part of a platform makes sense
Sometimes the audit shows you are paying for a large platform and using only a small slice of it. That raises a fair question: would it be better to replace the part you use with something smaller, an overlay on your existing systems, or a purpose-built tool?
It can be, but go in with your eyes open:
- Count the integration cost. The platform may be doing quiet work, like syncing to your accounting system, that you would need to rebuild.
- Scope only what you use. Replicate the features your team relies on, not the whole product.
- Plan the data migration. History, open transactions and reference data all need a home.
- Run both side by side. Run the new process in parallel with the old one and compare the outputs before you switch, so you find the differences while you still have a fallback.
- Think about support. A platform comes with a vendor’s support team. A custom tool needs someone to own it.
Replacing part of a platform is a business decision, not just a technical one. The saving needs to outweigh the build, the risk and the ongoing support.
Turn the findings into decisions
Put every tool into one of five buckets:
| Decision | When it fits |
|---|---|
| Keep | Used well, priced fairly, no overlap |
| Downgrade | Paying for a tier or modules you don’t use |
| Consolidate | Two or more tools doing the same job |
| Cancel | Not used, or replaced by something you already have |
| Replace | Using a small slice of an expensive platform, and the numbers stack up |
Then put the renewal dates in a calendar with reminders well ahead of each notice period.
Your audit checklist
- Build one list of every tool, with cost, seats, renewal date and owner.
- Check feature usage against the tier you pay for.
- Identify overlapping tools and pick one per job.
- Remove licences from leavers and right-size seat counts.
- Note notice periods and renewal dates.
- Decide keep, downgrade, consolidate, cancel or replace for each tool.
- Add licence removal to your offboarding checklist.
- Repeat every year.
Where to start
Start with your three most expensive subscriptions and check what you actually use in each one. A subscription audit is often one of the first things we do as part of fractional CTO support, because it pays for itself quickly and shows how the business really runs. If you’d like a second pair of eyes on your software spend, get in touch.