Cloud subscriptions, and the bill behind them
Cloud has moved from a purchase to a subscription, and with it from a decision per project to an amount that runs every month. This page is about that side: what you subscribe to, when it renews and how you get off it.
Five kinds of subscription
They sit on one invoice and follow different rules.
- Workplace and collaborationMicrosoft 365, Google Workspace and what hangs off them. Per user and per month, and the line that grows hardest with headcount, and shrinks back slowest.
- SecurityAnti-malware, mail filters, vaults and detection. Almost always per user or per device, and usually with an annual term underneath even when it says "monthly".
- Backup and recoveryPer mailbox, per machine or per terabyte. Which of the three decides whether the bill grows with the organisation or with the amount of data, and over years that difference diverges widely.
- InfrastructureServers, storage and databases by the hour or the month. Here cancelling is easy and forgetting to switch off is expensive: a test environment left running is the most common surprise on this invoice.
- Trade-specific servicesSector packages and individual applications a department bought itself. These rarely appear on the IT invoice and do appear on the department’s.
Getting a grip in three steps
The first almost always produces money straight away.
Lay out what is running
The invoices next to the staff list and next to the sign-in data. Licences for people who left, duplicate packages and subscriptions nobody opens surface here.
Record the renewal dates
Per subscription the end date and the notice period in one calendar. A silent renewal at last year’s rate is money lost by not looking.
Agree who may buy
Without an agreement every department buys its own and in two years the same thing is there three times. One place it passes through is enough; it does not have to be the IT department.
What belongs with this
Subscriptions touch the cloud, the management and the cost.
Know what goes out every month
Send one month of invoices. You get back what runs twice, what is unused and when something renews.
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