Guide
How to review SaaS subscriptions with AI
ChatGPT or Claude can review your software subscriptions if you give it the facts: each tool's price, seats paid, seats used from the admin console, renewal date, notice period and owner. Ask it to work out seat use (active seats over paid ones), group tools that do the same job, and set each tool's deadline: the renewal date minus the notice period. Then ask for a cancel, downgrade or keep for each tool, with an owner and the saving from your prices only. Anything missing is marked for you to check, never filled in.
Short answer
- Seat use = active seats ÷ paid seats.
- Deadline = renewal date − notice period.
- Overlaps: keep the tool most people use.
- Savings from your prices only, every sum shown.
The brief to copy
SaaS spend review brief
"Review these subscriptions. Today is [date].
For each tool: annual cost (show the sum: price × seats × 12 if monthly), seats paid, seats active, seat use as active ÷ paid, renewal date, notice period, owner. Flag seat use under 70%. If usage is missing, write [check: usage] and don't recommend cutting seats.
Group tools that do the same job and say which one most people use. Deadline = renewal date − notice period; sort everything by it, and put anything due within 30 days at the top.
Recommend cancel, downgrade or keep, with the saving from the prices below only; otherwise [check: price]. Every cancellation includes exporting its data and removing sign-ins. Give an owner for each action, or [owner: unknown]. Total the confirmed savings and, separately, the ones waiting on a check.
The list: [paste]"
A worked example
Illustration: a made-up business. A 25-person architecture studio reviews its tools on 10 November. Two file-storage tools: DriveHub, 25 seats at 12 a month billed annually (3,600), renewing 1 February with 60 days' notice, 9 people active; and PlanVault, 25 seats at 10 a month, monthly, 24 active, owner unknown. ChatWriter Team, an AI chat tool, has 10 seats at 25 a month, monthly, with 4 active, and three more people expense a personal AI plan at 20 a month each. Sketchboard Pro has 12 seats at 20 a month billed annually (2,880), renewing 15 January with 30 days' notice, 11 active. The review, in part:
| Deadline | Action | Saving a year | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| [check: next billing date] | ChatWriter Team: move the 3 expensed users onto team seats, then downgrade from 10 seats to 7 | 900 (3 × 25 × 12) | Ines |
| [check: next billing date] | The 3 personal AI plans: cancel once those people are on team seats, and stop reimbursing them | 720 (3 × 20 × 12) | Ines |
| 3 Dec | DriveHub: send the non-renewal notice; move its files to PlanVault, where all 25 people already have seats | 3,600 | Tom |
| 16 Dec | Sketchboard Pro: keep (11 of 12 seats used, 92%) | 0 | Ines |
| [check: notice] | PlanVault: keep (96%); find an owner first | 0 | [owner: unknown] |
Total reviewed: 13,200 a year across five lines. Confirmed savings: 5,220. The three expensed plans would have stayed hidden without the card statements. In the same review, the studio moves those three people's work chats out of personal accounts.
What stays with you
- Pull seat use from each admin console; no usage data, no seat cut.
- Read the card statements for tools bought on expenses, AI plans first.
- Find an owner for every tool before deciding anything about it.
- Put each deadline in a calendar the day you review.
- Export the data and remove sign-ins before a tool is cancelled.
Next step: keep the brief for next quarter
A spend review works best every quarter, so keep the brief with your other finance prompts. ChatGPT prompts for finance, saved so you don't paste shows where each one goes.
Skills for this
- FinanceSaaS spend reviewReviews SaaS subscriptions: owners, seats used vs paid, overlapping tools, renewal and notice deadlines, and cancel, downgrade or keep with savings.
- Operations and adminVendor comparison with weighted scoresCompares 2-5 vendors on weighted criteria you agree first: must-haves, evidence-based scores, total cost, risks, and one recommendation.
- Operations and adminVendor invoice check before paymentChecks a vendor invoice against the PO or quote: details, arithmetic, tax, terms, duplicates, and changed bank details; returns approve or hold.
- FinanceBudget variance noteExplains budget vs actual variances over a threshold: favorable or unfavorable, the driver (timing, volume, price, one-off), and the forecast impact.
Questions
Can ChatGPT review our SaaS spend?
Yes, from a list you give it: each tool's plan, price and billing period, seats paid, seats active from the admin console, renewal date, notice period and owner. Ask it to show every calculation, recommend only from the usage you gave, and mark anything missing for you to check. Never let it fill in a price or a seat count.
How do I find unused SaaS licenses?
Divide active seats by paid seats for each tool, from its admin console. The saas-spend-review skill flags a tool under 70% and counts a seat with no login in 90 days as inactive. It's common: Zylo's 2026 index found organizations leave an average of 36% of their licenses unused.
When do I have to cancel a subscription before it renews?
By the renewal date minus the notice period in the contract. A plan that renews on 1 February with 60 days' notice has to be cancelled by 3 December, or it renews for another term. Put that date in a calendar on the day you review, the same way tools like Vendr set an opt-out deadline.
AI skill
Have your AI find the SaaS spend you can cut
Put this skill in AI Skill Pod and everyone on your team gets it in their Claude, Cursor or ChatGPT (Pro, Business, Enterprise): one invite link, free to start. SaaS spend review has your AI review a software list the way finance would: seat use from active seats over paid ones, overlapping tools grouped by job, the last day to act before each renewal, a cancel, downgrade or keep for every tool with an owner, and savings computed only from the prices you gave it.
14 days free · No card needed
Sources
- Zylo: 2026 SaaS Management Index (29 January 2026) — measured against industry-recommended use, organizations leave an average of 36% of their SaaS licenses unused; expense-based SaaS spend up 267% year over year, with ChatGPT now the most expensed app (read 2026-11-05)
- Zylo: 2025 SaaS Management Index (16 January 2025) — an average of $21M a year wasted on unused licenses, across the organizations Zylo manages (read 2026-11-05)
- Vendr: Working with contracts that have an auto-renewal clause — set an opt-out deadline so you're reminded before the contract auto-renews (read 2026-11-05)