# License renewal audit checklist

Most renewals happen on autopilot: the invoice arrives, someone checks it's roughly the same as last year, and it gets approved. That's how organizations end up paying for premium tiers they don't use and seats nobody is logged into. A spreadsheet and an afternoon with the platform's own usage export gets you the first pass.

## Renewal

| Field | Answer |
|---|---|
| Platform | |
| Renewal date | |
| Seats paid for | |
| Current tier mix | |
| Owner | |

## Step 1: Pull actual usage, not entitlements

- [ ] Export last-login dates and feature usage per seat from the platform's admin console.
- [ ] Count seats with a login in the last 30 days.
- [ ] Record the gap between seats paid for and seats actually used. This is usually the first real finding, and it's often bigger than expected.

| Seats paid for | Active in last 30 days | Gap |
|---|---|---|
| | | |

## Step 2: Check tier utilization, not just seat count

- [ ] List the premium features the higher-cost tier unlocks.
- [ ] Check how many people on that tier actually use them.
- [ ] Treat low use as a data point for the renewal conversation, not a reason to panic-downgrade: either the organization should be getting value from what it pays for, or the tier mix should change.

| Premium feature | Users on the tier | Users actually using it |
|---|---|---|
| | | |

## Step 3: Separate pilot licenses from steady-state licenses

- [ ] Flag any licenses that belong to an active pilot (for example, an assistant rolled out to 50 people with a plan to expand to 250).
- [ ] Evaluate pilots against the pilot's own expansion criteria, not against the bar for a mature tool everyone already relies on.

## Outcome

**Recommendation:** renew as-is / rightsize the tier mix / reduce seats / hold pending pilot results

**Evidence:**

**What needs buy-in to act on it:** (usually the harder part is organizational, acting on what the data shows rather than renewing the same way because it's easier)

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Tavor Ben-Shahar · https://tavorbenshahar.com/templates/license-renewal-audit-checklist/