How often should I audit our SaaS licenses?
Monthly for reclaim actions, quarterly for tier optimization, and 90 days before every major renewal for negotiation prep.
Details
Monthly is the right cadence for seat reclamation because ghost seats accrue continuously. A quarterly cadence lets 2–3 months of waste pile up before you catch it.
Quarterly is right for tier optimization because usage patterns need time to stabilize — someone who barely logs in for a month might be on paternity leave.
Renewal prep is separate: 90 days out gives you time to run a targeted audit on that specific vendor, build the negotiation case, and reclaim seats before the vendor sees them on your renewal quote.
Automate this with SeatMap.AI
The audit path above works. It also takes hours per month per tool. SeatMap.AI runs it on a schedule, stages the reclaim actions for review, and shows you the annualized savings in real dollars.