How Does Your Company Track Employee Subscriptions? 💸

Last week, while reviewing our monthly expenses, I stumbled upon something that made me do a double-take. Our GitHub Enterprise bill showed we were paying for 10 seats, but when I actually counted active users, we only had 6 people actively using the platform.

We were literally throwing away $192 per year on unused licenses.

This got me thinking - how common is this problem? And more importantly, how are other companies solving it?

The Discovery 🔍

It started innocently enough. I was preparing our quarterly budget review when I noticed our GitHub bill seemed... high. A quick audit revealed:

• 10 paid GitHub seats at $4/month each
• 6 active users (people who had committed code in the last 3 months)
• 4 "ghost" accounts - former employees, contractors who finished their projects, or people who were added "just in case"

The math was painful: 4 unused seats × $4 × 12 months = $192/year down the drain.

But GitHub was just the tip of the iceberg. I started digging deeper:

• Slack: 3 unused paid seats
• Figma: 2 design licenses for a 1-person design team
• Linear: 5 seats, 3 active users
• Vercel: 2 pro accounts when we could use 1

Total yearly waste: ~$800 😱

Why This Happens 🤔

After talking to friends at other companies, I realized this is incredibly common. Here's why:

1. The "Add First, Audit Never" Mentality

• New employee? "Just add them to everything!"
• Contractor needs access? "Give them full access to be safe!"
• Someone leaves? "HR will handle the deactivation... eventually"

2. Decentralized Purchasing

• Different teams buying their own tools
• No central visibility into subscriptions
• Multiple people with admin access making decisions

3. "Set It and Forget It" Syndrome

• Annual subscriptions that auto-renew
• No regular audits scheduled
• Assumption that someone else is monitoring this

4. Fear of Breaking Things

• "What if they still need access?"
• "Better safe than sorry"
• Lack of clear offboarding processes

What We're Doing About It 🛠️

Here's our action plan (still implementing):

Immediate Actions:

1. Subscription Audit Spreadsheet - Listed every tool, seats, and actual usage
2. Quarterly Review Calendar - Recurring calendar event to audit subscriptions
3. Offboarding Checklist - Clear process for removing access when people leave

Long-term Solutions:

1. Central SSO - Moving everything through our identity provider for better visibility
2. Usage Analytics - Setting up monitoring for tools that support it
3. Approval Process - New subscriptions require justification and approval

Questions for the Community 🤝

I'm curious about your experiences! Please share in the comments:

📊 Tracking & Monitoring:

• How do you track all your company's subscriptions?
• Do you use any tools for subscription management?
• How often do you audit your software spending?

🔄 Processes:

• What's your onboarding/offboarding process for software access?
• Who's responsible for managing subscriptions in your company?
• How do you handle team-specific tools vs company-wide tools?

💡 Tools & Solutions:

• Any recommendations for subscription management platforms?
• How do you handle usage analytics and reporting?
• What automation have you set up to prevent this problem?

📈 Stories:

• What's the biggest subscription waste you've discovered?
• Any horror stories about forgotten subscriptions?
• Success stories about optimizing software spending?

The Bigger Picture 💭

This isn't just about saving money (though $800/year isn't nothing for a startup). It's about:

• Operational efficiency - Knowing what tools we actually use
• Security - Reducing attack surface by removing unused accounts
• Budget planning - Accurate forecasting for scaling
• Team awareness - Understanding our actual tool stack

Let's Learn From Each Other 🚀

I'm hoping this resonates with others who've been in similar situations. Whether you're at a 5-person startup or a 500-person company, subscription sprawl seems to be a universal problem.

Drop a comment with:

• Your subscription management setup
• Tools you recommend (or avoid)
• Processes that have worked for your team
• Any cautionary tales!

Looking forward to learning from the community's collective wisdom on this one.

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P.S. - If you're reading this and thinking "oh no, I should probably check our subscriptions..." - you're probably right! 😅