Why One-Off Price Checks Don’t Work

Waiting until the end of a contract to review pricing or licensing needs is like only checking your bank account once a year. You might catch major issues too late and miss out on savings along the way.

Microsoft’s licensing landscape changes frequently. Prices fluctuate, SKU availability evolves, and promotional offers come and go. If you’re not actively tracking these shifts, you’re likely:

• Overpaying for licenses that no longer suit your environment
• Missing out on discounts or more appropriate SKUs
• Misaligned with your actual consumption or user profiles

Subscriptions Are Not ‘Set and Forget’

It’s easy to think of Microsoft 365, Azure, or Dynamics 365 subscriptions as fixed monthly costs, but they rarely stay static.

Changes in user count, workload requirements, or even internal restructuring can significantly alter what you should be paying.

Without frequent checks:

• Expired trial licenses may roll into paid versions unnoticed
• User profiles may evolve, but licensing levels remain the same
• Resources may be provisioned but unused, especially in Azure

Subscription licensing demands a dynamic management approach, not a reactive one.

The Benefits of Continuous Benchmarking

What do we mean by continuous benchmarking?

It’s the regular process of comparing your current license stack, pricing, and usage with market data, Microsoft updates, and your internal needs.

Key benefits include:

• Better alignment with actual usage: Avoid paying for what you don’t use
• Cost savings: Identify opportunities to downgrade, consolidate, or switch licensing models
• Price intelligence: Know what others are paying and where you stand
• Negotiation power: Enter renewal discussions with data and leverage

Real-World Examples: What We See at LicenseQ

We’ve helped clients reduce costs by up to 30%: not by waiting until renewal, but by acting earlier.

Common findings from our benchmarking work:

• Clients with E5 licenses who no longer need the full stack
• Missed opportunities to switch from EA to CSP for greater flexibility and cost control
• Not moving to another / cheaper contract type
• Not knowing pricing updates for products under contract

All avoidable, with regular check-ins and smarter license profiling.

Introducing LicenseQ’s Rolling Price Protection

To make continuous benchmarking easier, we offer rolling price protection for our CSP clients.

Here’s how it works:

When you purchase 100 or more CSP licenses through LicenseQ, you get access to rolling price benchmarking. Our service checks your pricing, SKUs and usage against our intelligence database and Microsoft updates, on an ongoing basis.

That means:

• You always know whether you’re paying too much
• You’re informed when Microsoft introduces pricing changes or promotions
• We help you act on the insights before they cost you

It’s an easy way to keep your costs in check without waiting until renewal.

How to Start Benchmarking Your Microsoft Licensing

Not sure where to start? Here’s what we recommend:

1. Profile your users: What tools do they really need?
2. Analyze your subscriptions: What are you paying for and using?
3. Compare prices: Are your CSP or EA rates in line with the market?
4. Partner with experts: A tool or partner like LicenseQ can give you continuous insights without manual work.

We offer a free Microsoft licensing scan to help you get started.

How LicenseQ Hub Powers Continuous Benchmarking

Keeping up with Microsoft’s shifting price lists, new SKUs, and evolving contract terms isn’t something most IT or procurement teams can do manually. That’s where our LicenseQ Hub comes in.

LicenseQ Hub is our innovative tool designed to provide ongoing benchmarking and optimization intelligence across Microsoft 365, Azure, and Dynamics 365 environments. Instead of waiting until renewal to discover issues, the Hub continuously checks your license stack against:

• Latest Microsoft price lists: so you instantly see if your rates are competitive
• Real-time usage data: highlighting inactive, underutilized, or misaligned licenses
• SKU and promotion updates: surfacing alternative options or discounts as they appear

The result? You don’t just get insights once a year. You get rolling, data-driven visibility into your Microsoft licensing position.

“We built LicenseQ Hub to give our clients the same level of intelligence and leverage that Microsoft uses internally. Continuous benchmarking means you’re never negotiating blind.” – Floris Klaver, Co-Founder LicenseQ

By integrating LicenseQ Hub into your licensing strategy, you gain:

• Proactive alerts when pricing changes or optimization opportunities emerge
• Scenario modeling for renewals and contract negotiations
• Centralized oversight of Microsoft 365, Azure, and Dynamics costs in one platform

It’s the difference between reacting at renewal time and staying permanently ahead of Microsoft’s licensing changes.