How to find unused SaaS licenses in one week

Unused SaaS licenses, often called ghost seats, are seats you pay for that nobody uses. They come from three places: people who left and kept their account, seats assigned to someone who never opened the tool, and two tools bought for the same job. Finding them takes a week without any new software: list what you pay for, pull the assignment list per tool, cross it against active employees and last sign-in, then count what is left. The number you produce is the one that holds your bill flat at the next renewal, which is where it actually saves money.

Where do unused licenses come from?

Three patterns cover nearly all of it, and each one needs a different check.

The first is the one with a security consequence as well as a cost: a former employee holding a live account in a tool that was never part of the offboarding list.

What do you do on day 1 and 2?

Build the list of what you pay for, from invoices rather than memory. For each tool: vendor, what it does, annual cost, seats bought, renewal date, and who owns the decision. Accounting exports and the card statement are the honest source, because tools bought on a department card never appear in the IT inventory.

Expect the list to be longer than anyone predicted. That first count is already useful: it is the denominator for everything that follows.

What do you do on day 3 and 4?

Export the user list from each tool, admin console by admin console, and match it against your active employee list. Any account whose person is not on that list is a ghost seat and can usually be removed today, which is both a saving at renewal and a security fix now.

Do the tools with the highest seat count first, not the most expensive: waste scales with seats. In the InventorIA demo workspace this step is what the licenses view shows directly, 22 licenses with seats bought against seats assigned to a named person, and the gap visible per row.

What do you do on day 5?

For the accounts that do belong to current employees, pull the last sign-in date. Most admin consoles expose it. The rule of thumb that survives argument: a seat not opened in 90 days is a ghost seat until its owner says otherwise. Send that list to each team lead with one question, whether the person still needs it, and a date.

• Do not remove silently. One surprise removal costs you the cooperation you need next quarter.
• Keep the evidence. The export, the date, the reply. It is what you show at the renewal negotiation.
• Note the licence type. Some vendors count named accounts, not active ones, which changes what removal actually saves.

When does the money actually arrive?

This is the part most audits get wrong. Removing a seat mid-term usually saves nothing, because the contract locked the count until the end of the term. The saving lands at renewal, when you renew at the reconciled number instead of the peak, unless your contract has a true-down clause that lets the count fall during the term.

So the output of the week is not a cancellation. It is a number, per contract, ready for the renewal date: seats bought, seats truly used, and the gap. Read the true-up and true-down guide for which of the two your contract allows, and the price increase playbook for how the number is used when the vendor writes to you.

How do you stop them coming back?

A one-off audit decays in a quarter. Three habits keep it from happening again: every tool gets a named owner, offboarding includes the tool list rather than just email and the badge, and the seat count is reviewed at each renewal anniversary rather than at the moment of panic. A register that keeps people, licenses and contracts together makes that review a five-minute check instead of a week. Open the live demo to see seats bought against seats assigned per license, or start with your own tools.

Frequently asked questions

What is a ghost seat?

A SaaS licence you pay for that nobody uses: an account left active after someone departed, a seat assigned but never opened, or a duplicate of a tool you already have.

How do I find unused SaaS licenses?

Export the user list from each tool's admin console, match it against your active employee list, then check last sign-in for the rest. Anything unopened for 90 days is a ghost seat until its owner says otherwise.

Does removing a seat save money immediately?

Usually not. Most contracts lock the seat count until the end of the term, so the saving lands at renewal when you renew at the reconciled number. A true-down clause is what allows a reduction mid-term.

How long should a SaaS licence audit take?

About a week for a company under a few hundred people: two days to list contracts from invoices, two to export and match user lists, one for last sign-in and the follow-up questions.