Vendor-neutral AI audit vs. your licence reseller or MSP
Your reseller earns more when you buy more seats — so they will never tell you to cancel 40% of them. Why a vendor-neutral audit finds savings a seat-seller structurally cannot.
Short answer: a licence reseller or MSP makes money when you buy more seats, so their advice bends toward buying, not cutting. A vendor-neutral audit has nothing to sell you, so it can recommend cancelling the 40% of licences nobody uses — the savings a seat-seller structurally cannot surface.
The incentive problem
This is not about honesty — it is about incentives. A reseller's revenue is a function of your licence count. Recommending you cut licences reduces their own income. Even a well-meaning account manager is not positioned to tell you to buy less. A vendor-neutral advisor has no seat revenue to protect, so "cancel these" is a normal recommendation, not a self-inflicted wound.
What each will tell you
- Reseller / MSP: which new bundles to buy, which tier to upgrade to, which add-ons round out the estate.
- Vendor-neutral audit: which licences are idle, which are duplicated across departments, what to cancel or redeploy, and what the recoverable spend actually is.
Where a reseller still adds value
- Procurement mechanics, contracting, and licensing logistics.
- Volume pricing you cannot get direct.
- Day-to-day platform administration.
Keep them for what they are good at. Just do not use the party paid on licence volume as your source of truth on how many licences you need.
Why neutrality finds real money
Around half of software licences go unused industry-wide, and 20–30% of SaaS spend is wasted even in well-run firms. A neutral audit is free to name that number and act on it. It also keeps your reseller and MSP honest, because now there is an independent utilisation figure on the table that everyone is measured against.
Common questions
Won't our reseller optimise our licences for us? They can right-size within their catalogue, but cutting spend works against their revenue. Independent measurement is the check on that.
Do we have to leave our reseller? No. A vendor-neutral audit is not a rip-and-replace. Keep the reseller for procurement; use the audit for the truth on utilisation.
What does vendor-neutral actually mean here? We do not sell licences and take no vendor commissions. Our only outcome is your recovered spend and adopted tools — so the advice has nothing to upsell.
A seat-seller will never tell you to cancel 40% of your licences. That single sentence is why the audit and the reseller have to be different people.