SaaS Renewal Management: Renewals Aren’t a Date, They’re a 30–60 Day Project

SaaS renewals don’t blow up because people are lazy. They blow up because the deadline shows up before the data does. Finance asks, “Are we renewing?” and IT is stuck scraping vendor portals, exports, and a spreadsheet nobody trusts.

Also: some vendors require 30 days notice to reduce seats or cancel. If that’s your reality, “start 30 days out” is already late. Set an alert 60 days before renewal so you have time to act.

Why renewals go sideways

Seat counts drift. People leave. Contractors linger. Premium bundles get assigned once and never revisited. By renewal week, basic questions are unanswered:

• Who’s actually using the tool?
• Which licenses are unused or oversized?
• What can we downgrade or reclaim safely?
• Who owns the decision?

So teams do the safest thing: renew the same mess.

The timeline (keep it simple)

Day -60: Set the early warning (if your vendor has notice periods)

Action: Create a renewal alert 60 days out and confirm:

• Cancellation / seat reduction notice window (often 30 days)
• True-up rules, billing terms, and the renewal date
• Who approves changes (IT + finance + app owner)

If the vendor needs 30 days notice, this is where you buy yourself breathing room.

Day -30 to -21: Build the baseline

Pull from vendor portals/admin consoles:

• Purchased vs assigned seats (by plan/SKU)
• User-to-license mapping
• Usage signals (last activity, sign-in, feature usage—whatever exists)
• A clean owner list (who runs this app)

Then sanity check against your directory/HR list and tag users (employee/contractor/service/shared). Flag “who is this?” accounts.

Day -14: Decide the rules (guardrails)

Agree on the approach before you touch licenses:

• Downgrade first vs remove access
• Notification plan and exception list (VIPs, regulated teams, service accounts)
• A small buffer (and an expiration date for “just in case” seats)

Day -7: Execute in batches

Start with 10–20 users. Watch for tickets. Adjust rules if needed. Then scale the batch. Don’t do one big blast.

Day -2: Lock the renewal plan

Send finance the receipt:

• Before/after seat counts (by plan)
• Expected savings (monthly + annualized)
• Exceptions and why they stayed

Takeaway

If you start at -60 (when notice periods exist), renewals become boring and cheaper. If you start at -7, you’ll overpay and call it “safe.”