Are Your Subscriptions Essential?

Unused or unnecessary subscriptions can become a costly expense for businesses.

Many subscriptions are charged to company credit cards and set for auto-renewal. While auto-renewal helps avoid disruption to an essential subscription should you forget to renew on a timely basis, it’s not so helpful when it comes to re-evaluating whether a subscription is still essential to the business.

Recurring subscriptions become routine and may not be questioned or flagged which can cost businesses hundreds or thousands of dollars annually … monies which can go towards other essential business needs and investments.

It’s important for businesses to periodically re-evaluate subscriptions to determine if those subscriptions are still essential. If they aren’t, those subscriptions should be canceled as soon as reasonably possible.

Alternatively, if the subscription is available in tiers, consider downgrading or moving the subscription to another tier that better aligns with current business needs.

Recommendations for managing subscriptions:

• Evaluate and periodically re-evaluate whether a subscription is essential to the business

  • What is the business purpose of the subscription?

  • Who is using the subscription?

  • What is the current utilization frequency of the subscription? (read: How often do we use the subscription?)

  • Why does the business require the subscription?

  • How is the subscription being actively utilized in the interest of the business, its clients (should this be billable back to a client?), and/or its employees?

  • Is the subscription aligned with current business needs?

  • Is the subscription available in tiers? Is there an option to downgrade or move to a different subscription tier better aligned with current business needs?

  • Are there better cost-effective alternatives in lieu of the subscription?

  • Do we still need this subscription?

• Carefully review the subscription terms & conditions noting billing, renewal, and cancellation policies:

  • Is billing monthly, quarterly, annually?

  • Is there a term commitment?

  • How often does the subscription cost change and by how much (ex: annual increases)?

  • Does the subscription automatically renew? When does the subscription renew?

  • Is there an early termination/cancellation policy + penalty fee?

  • When is the earliest we can terminate/cancel the subscription without incurring a penalty?

• Centralize and consolidate management of subscriptions within the business

  • Have a limited group of individuals manage all business subscriptions

  • Consolidate subscriptions onto a single company credit card for ease of tracking and management (if possible)

• Create a list of all subscriptions tracking key information including:

  • # of licenses under the subscription (if applicable) or # of subscriptions

  • User(s) assigned to each license under the subscription (if applicable) or User(s) assigned to the subscription. You may also want to track Business Unit/Department/Division/Team/Group information if applicable to your business.

  • Cost per license under the subscription or Cost per subscription + Aggregate Cost

  • Subscription term (and note if there is a term commitment)

  • Renewal / Expiration Date

  • Is the subscription on auto-renewal or manual renewal?

  • How is the subscription charged (ex: company credit card, by invoice)?

• Use a group e-mail account (ex: distribution group) vs an individual user e-mail account for subscription account management (if possible)