Identifying paid seats that do not need premium features

Match each paid seat’s tasks to the entitlements in its assigned edition. A seat is a review candidate when its tasks fit a lower edition and do not require the higher edition’s additional features; unused features alone do not prove that a change is safe.

Record the task owner, any occasional need and the date the billing change could take effect. Contract terms can delay a saving until renewal.

Build a seat and feature register

Ask the administrator for assigned licences, account status and subscription terms. For each person, record the work owner, the task and its frequency, and the backup who performs it when that person is away. Then list the higher-edition features relevant to those tasks. Usage reports can prompt a review, but cannot establish future need on their own.

Check the lower-tier route

For Microsoft 365, start with the exact product assigned, such as Microsoft 365 Apps for business or Microsoft 365 Business Standard. Microsoft says included apps and services depend on the product purchased. Use the product details to check task requirements for services such as Teams, an Exchange Online mailbox or SharePoint Online team-site editing; access depends on the services included in the licence.

Microsoft’s “Understand subscriptions and licenses in Microsoft 365 for business” guidance says licences from different subscriptions can be assigned to different people. Record the precise subscription and confirm its entitlements against the person’s tasks rather than inferring rights from a product name.

Google Workspace Business Starter includes video meetings for up to 100 participants and 30 GB of pooled storage per person. Business Standard includes Starter and adds meeting recording, noise cancellation and meetings for up to 150 participants; it also lists 2 TB of pooled storage per person. A paid Standard seat whose meeting task is limited to meetings of up to 100 participants, with no need for recording or noise cancellation, is a Starter review candidate. Check its other tasks and entitlements before changing the licence.

Business Plus includes Standard and adds, among other features, eDiscovery, Vault to retain, archive and search data, meeting attendance tracking and meetings for up to 500 participants. Tasks requiring those features point to Business Plus entitlements; tasks that do not need them may make a lower edition worth checking. Storage is pooled, so check the effect of a seat change on organisational capacity.

Date the saving correctly

For Google Workspace, when multiple editions of the same service are subscribed to, an administrator can change a user’s licence in the Admin console: Menu > Directory > Users > select the user > Licences > select the service and edition > Save. The change replaces the user’s current licence. Google notes that reassignment of the old licence to another user can take up to 24 hours.

Check the payment plan as well as the edition change. Under Google’s Annual/Fixed-Term Plan, the committed user quantity can be reduced at the end of the term. After a free trial, a switch from Annual/Fixed-Term to Flexible takes effect on the renewal date, and the remaining annual commitment balance is charged.

Under Google’s Flexible Plan, users can be added or removed during the month and additions or removals are prorated. The price differs by payment plan; review the applicable monthly price or annual price and terms in the Admin console before calculating a saving.

For each candidate, record the current and proposed licence, the feature that would be lost, the task owner, approval and effective billing date. Show any immediate invoice effect and next-renewal effect separately. Reassigning a paid licence to another person is not the same as reducing the paid user quantity.

Before changing a user’s entitlement, check that their essential tasks work under the proposed plan and settings. Record the outcome and the date the cost could change.

Key Pricing and Billing Plan Details for Google Workspace