A 12-point pre-renewal check for AI and SaaS spend

Software is easy to add and surprisingly hard to remove. Before another AI or SaaS subscription renews by inertia, force each tool through a short decision check.

The 12 questions

1. Owner — Is one person accountable for both value and renewal?
2. Workflow — Can the job this tool performs be explained in one sentence?
3. 30-day removal — What actually breaks if the tool disappears for a month?
4. Overlap — Is another paid product already covering the same capability?
5. Seat sizing — Does paid capacity match real usage?
6. AI premium — Is the higher AI tier producing measurable value?
7. Break-even — Is there a rough economic case for keeping it?
8. Frequency — Is the tool used often enough to justify a subscription?
9. Renewal visibility — Are the renewal date, notice period and owner known?
10. Fallback — Can the workflow continue if the tool is removed?
11. Data risk — Are permissions and sensitive-data exposure understood?
12. Decision — Has someone explicitly chosen what happens next?

End with one of five decisions

The goal is not "cut software." The goal is to stop default renewal.

• KEEP — the value is clear.
• REDUCE — the plan or seat count is oversized.
• CONSOLIDATE — capability overlaps with another paid tool.
• REVIEW — the evidence is too weak to decide yet.
• CANCEL — the cost no longer has a defensible role.

A stack becomes expensive not only because individual tools cost too much, but because nobody owns the decision to keep, resize, combine or remove them.

The free interactive version of this checklist is available at Stratum Praxis:

https://stratumpraxis.com/ai-saas-spend-audit-checklist.html?utm_source=devto&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=renewal_check