Optimise Microsoft 365. Full stack, every tenant.

Microsoft 365 is a major cost line. Few organisations manage it like one.

Most licensing reviews happen once per term, at renewal, and look at usage alone. A full review covers the security stack too, and sets the right licensing bundle for every user profile.

• Rising costs. List prices keep rising and legacy discounts are eroding or gone. Renewing unchanged costs more every term.
• Limited visibility. No single view linking users to the features they use and the controls and policies activated in the tenant. Without it, suite downgrades are hard to justify and harder to implement.
• Unused capability. Premium suites are assigned by department rather than by need, while features already paid for are never switched on.
• Manual reviews. Exports from the admin centre and licensing tools, stitched together in Excel over a couple of days per tenant. Each review is out of date soon after it is finished, and too slow to repeat across a whole client base.

• 64% of FinOps teams now manage software licensing, up from 49% a year earlier. Source: State of FinOps 2026, FinOps Foundation.
• 43% of organisations say wasted SaaS spend increased over the past year. Source: Flexera 2026 State of ITAM Report.
• 36% have complete visibility of their IT estate, down from 43%. You cannot optimise what you cannot see. Source: Flexera 2026 State of ITAM Report.

Take the waste out of the renewal. Fund what comes next with it.

Renewing unchanged costs your client more than last term: price increases, discount erosion and Copilot credits on the same licences. Optimising first removes the licences and suites their users do not need. The saving pays for the upgrades they want, and the services to deliver them.

Current spend: $1.1M. Renewed unchanged: $1.6M. Optimised: $800K. Optimised with upgrades: $1.2M.

Funded from the savings

• Professional services. Implement the new technology.
• Managed services. Ongoing security posture management and adoption.
• Licensing growth margin. Licensing margin on the upgraded suites and add-ons.
• Microsoft incentives. FY27 growth incentives on the upgrade licensing.

Three steps from current spend to optimised spend.

Remove the licences nobody is using, then move the users who are left to the cheapest bundle that still covers them, such as Microsoft 365 E3 down to Business Premium. Promotions apply last, to the bundles you selected. Each step is calculated on what is left after the previous one.

1. Remove (−$168K/yr). Remove or reclaim excess eligible user licence subscription plans.
2. Downgrade (−$92K/yr). Keep the users. Move each cohort to the cheapest bundle that still covers everything they use and everything the tenant enforces.
3. Right Cost (−$40K/yr). Apply every Microsoft promotion the tenant is eligible for to the bundles you just selected.

Downgrade decisions need the whole stack, not just usage data.

Softspend checks which security and compliance controls are activated in the tenant across Defender, Purview, Entra and Intune, and which licence each one needs. Those controls are also mapped to leading compliance frameworks. A downgrade is only recommended if the new bundle meets the current controls and the ones the client plans to adopt.

Productivity · utilisation

Which licensed products each user does and does not use.

• Microsoft 365 Apps — desktop vs web/mobile, per app
• Microsoft 365 Copilot — used, not merely assigned
• Mailbox — applied quota, archive and hold state

Security and compliance · activation

Confirm which licensed controls and policies are activated in the tenant, and which never were.

• Defender — policies, AIR, Cloud Apps
• Purview — DLP, labels, holds, eDiscovery
• Entra — Conditional Access, PIM, governance
• Intune — enrolment and device compliance

Group users by what they use. Give each group the right bundle.

Softspend groups users with the same needs, based on the apps they actually use and the security controls in place in the tenant. For each group it recommends the lowest-cost licensing bundle that still covers everything they use and every control that applies to them. Downgrade recommendations are automated for every group, not worked out by hand.

Worked example — Information Worker, 102 seats: Microsoft 365 E3 at $36.00 / user / mo becomes Microsoft 365 Business Premium at $22.00 / user / mo, a downgrade saving of −$17K/yr.

Grow your book of business.

Show customers and prospects what they use today, and what they will need next.

• Win new logos. Challenge prospects with what they actually use, not the shopping list.
• Upsell your existing book. The unlocked budget becomes the upgrade proposal.
• Unlock FY27 growth margin. Incentives and Microsoft funding attach to every upgrade.
• Attach new services. Implement the new features you just funded.

Frequently asked questions

What is FinOps for Microsoft 365?

FinOps for Microsoft 365 is the practice of managing Microsoft 365 licensing as a continuing cost line rather than a once-a-term purchase. Softspend automates the review and returns a costed savings plan: the licences to remove, the users to move to a cheaper bundle, and the Microsoft promotions the tenant is eligible for.

How is this different from a usage report?

A usage report shows which licences are idle. Softspend also reads which security and compliance controls are switched on in the tenant, across Microsoft 365 Apps, Copilot, Exchange, Defender, Purview, Entra and Intune, and checks the cheaper bundle against them before recommending a downgrade.

How do you keep security and compliance intact when downgrading?

Every downgrade is checked against the controls the tenant enforces today. Softspend records which licensed controls and policies are configured, maps them to the licence each one requires and to leading compliance frameworks, and recommends a cheaper bundle only where it keeps every control the tenant is using or plans to adopt.

Does it cover Microsoft 365 Copilot?

Yes. Copilot is measured on use rather than assignment. Softspend reads the per-user Copilot usage report over a 180-day window, separates paid Copilot activity from free Copilot Chat, and classifies each licence as unassigned, assigned but inactive, or active.

Can this run across a whole client base rather than one tenant at a time?

Each review covers one tenant and runs in a single click. The platform is multi-tenant, so you run those reviews across your whole book from one place and compare the results side by side. It does the work a consultant would otherwise repeat by hand for every client.

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