Most companies already pay for a suite: Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, or similar. Over time, standalone tools get added for jobs the suite also does. The question is not which product is better. It is whether the job is already covered by what you pay for each month.
Cut and negotiate · guide 2 of 6 · Reviewed Oct 25, 2026
Each calculator opens on a made-up sample. Type over it with your own figures; nothing you type leaves this tab.
Total software spend turned into a yearly figure, a cost per person and a share of revenue, with what a trim is worth.
Paid seats against seats in use: what the idle ones cost a year, and what you save by right-sizing at renewal.
Arithmetic only, not tax, accounting or legal advice. Check the figures against your own order form.
Take the list from the audit checklist and write the job each row is hired for in one clause: store and share files, hold video meetings, collect signatures, run chat. Group rows by job. A job with two rows is an overlap; a job with one standalone row and a suite you also pay for is a candidate.
Use the vendor's own plan page, for the plan you are on, and write down what it says with the date. As an example of the method, Google's Workspace plans page lists, at the checked date, pooled storage and a meeting-participant limit for each plan, and names eSignature among the Standard plan's inclusions; check the Starter and Plus columns on the page yourself. The same page carries the prices and the terms, and those change, so read them from the page when you decide rather than from here.
For Microsoft 365 or any other suite, do the same: open its published plan page for your plan and write down the line that matches the job. We could not read a Microsoft plan page for this guide, so we state nothing here about what its plans contain. If the page does not state it, treat the job as not covered.
Does the plan page list the job at all? If not, stop; this row stays.
List the things the team really uses: integrations, templates, limits on file size or meeting length. A suite that covers the job in name can miss the one thing your team does daily.
Move one team onto the suite's version for two to four weeks while the standalone tool stays on. Ask them what they missed.
Count the standalone tool's annual cost against any extra cost on the suite side, such as a higher plan, added seats, or an add-on. If the numbers do not leave a gap, keep both and move on.
If it works, follow the cutover and cancellation order in cancelling without penalties, and the verify-and-overlap pattern in the Dropbox migration guide.
Sample, invented: a SAMPLE video tool costs $1,440 a year for 10 seats, and the pilot shows the suite's meeting tool covers the team. The suite plan you already pay for does not change. Annual cost before: $1,440. After: $0 on that line, and the suite line is unchanged, so the difference is $1,440 a year once the old plan ends. If the suite needed a higher plan that costs $300 a year more, the difference would be $1,140. The real figure comes from your bills, and arrives at renewal.
If the job is files, the Dropbox page compares the published options side by side.
Send us the export and see which lines are worth a second look. A connected version is planned.
Worked example. Type over it.
Result
Compare it with your own figure from last quarter, not with a stranger's. Spend per head swings with the mix of engineers, sales and support.
Worked example. Type over it.
Result
“In use” is your call: last sign-in in the past 30 or 90 days from the vendor's admin report. A seat for someone on leave is not idle.