You’re Probably Overpaying for Microsoft 365. Here’s How to Find Out.

There’s a line item on your monthly IT spend that almost nobody scrutinises: your Microsoft 365 licences. It comes in automatically, gets approved without much thought, and sits there month after month costing more than it should.

This isn’t speculation. When Imagetext conducts a Microsoft licence audit for Auckland businesses, we find overspend in the majority of cases. Not by a small amount — often by 20 to 40 percent of what they’re currently paying.

Here’s what that overspend looks like in practice, and what you can do about it.

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The Three Ways Auckland Businesses Overpay for Microsoft 365

1. Licences assigned to people who no longer work there

Staff leave. New people start. In a busy business, Microsoft 365 licences rarely get removed when someone exits – they sit there, active and billing, attached to an email address no one uses.

For a business that’s had reasonable turnover over three or four years, this adds up. We’ve seen Auckland businesses paying for eight to fifteen ghost licences on a team of thirty. At roughly $20 to $60 per licence per month depending on the plan, that’s a significant recurring waste.

2. Everyone on the same plan regardless of what they actually need

Microsoft 365 has multiple tiers. Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, and various Enterprise plans – each at a different price point, each with a different feature set.

The most common mistake we see: an IT provider or reseller puts everyone on Business Premium because it’s the safest default. Some of those staff genuinely need Premium. Many don’t. A reception desk that uses email and a shared calendar doesn’t need the same licence as a finance director who uses Teams, SharePoint, advanced compliance tools, and Intune device management.

Right-sizing licences – matching the plan to what each role actually uses – is one of the fastest ways to reduce Microsoft spend without removing anything anyone needs.

3. Add-ons and services that were turned on and forgotten

Microsoft 365 has an ecosystem of add-ons: extra storage, advanced security features, audio conferencing, Power BI Pro, Dynamics modules. These get added for a specific reason – a project, a new requirement, a staff request – and almost never get reviewed afterwards.

A proper licence audit looks at every add-on against actual usage. If nobody has opened Power BI Pro in six months, it should be off.

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What a Microsoft 365 Licence Audit Actually Involves

When Imagetext conducts a licence audit for an Auckland business, we’re looking at four things:

• Active licences vs. active staff – matching every assigned licence to a current employee with a legitimate business need
• Licence tier vs. actual usage – comparing what each plan includes against what each user actually does day-to-day
• Add-on usage – auditing every additional service against real activity data in the Microsoft Admin Centre
• Renewal timing – identifying licences on annual commitments that are up for renewal, so you renegotiate at the right moment rather than auto-renewing at the wrong tier

We use Microsoft’s own usage reporting tools, not guesswork. The data shows exactly which features each user has accessed in the past 30, 60, and 90 days. That’s what drives the recommendations – not assumptions about what people should need.

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What This Typically Saves

Every business is different, but here’s what a licence audit commonly finds for a 20 to 50 person Auckland business:

• 3 to 8 unused licences from departed staff: $60 to $480/month saved
• 5 to 15 users downgraded from Business Premium to Business Standard where usage doesn’t justify Premium: $8 to $15 per user per month saved
• 2 to 4 forgotten add-ons removed: $10 to $40/month saved

Total monthly saving: commonly $150 to $700 for a business of that size. Annualised, that’s $1,800 to $8,400 back in your operating budget – for one conversation and a few hours of admin.

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The Part Most Business Owners Miss: Ongoing Management

A one-time audit is useful. What’s more valuable is never letting the problem build up again.

Imagetext manages Microsoft 365 licensing on an ongoing basis for Auckland businesses as part of an iCare managed services agreement. That means:

• Licences removed within days of a staff departure, not months
• New licences assigned at the correct tier based on the role, not the easiest default
• Quarterly reviews of add-on usage so nothing sits idle and billing
• Renewal negotiations handled before auto-renewal locks you into the wrong plan

For most businesses, the monthly saving from proper licence management more than covers the cost of the managed service. It’s not a cost – it’s a correction.

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Imagetext and Microsoft: The Relevant Credentials

Imagetext is a Microsoft licensing partner and an All-of-Government Marketplace supplier in New Zealand. We manage Microsoft 365 tenants for Auckland businesses across professional services, creative industries, education, and healthcare.

We’re also NZ’s leading Apple IT partner – which matters because a significant number of our clients run Microsoft 365 on Macs. Getting M365 to work properly in an Apple-first environment is a different technical challenge from a standard Windows deployment, and it’s one we handle routinely.

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Start with a Free Licence Audit

If you can’t confidently answer the question ‘how many Microsoft 365 licences am I paying for and does each one match a current staff member on the right plan?’ — you should get an audit.

Imagetext offers a free Microsoft 365 Licence Audit for Auckland businesses. We’ll tell you exactly what you’re paying for, what you don’t need, and what a right-sized licensing structure looks like for your team.

No obligation. No sales pitch on the call. Just the numbers.

Book yours at imagetext.co.nz or call us on 09 623 3102.

𝗜𝗠𝗔𝗚𝗘𝗧𝗘𝗫𝗧 𝗜𝗧 𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗦 

Phone +64 9 623 3102

3 Owens Rd, Epsom, Auckland 1023, New Zealand 

Contact Mike Scragg 0218373727 or email: mike.scragg@imagetext.co.nz