Microsoft raised Microsoft 365 list prices on July 1, 2026. E3 went from $36 to $39 per user per month and E5 from $57 to $60, and existing customers move to the new prices at renewal. So every seat nobody uses costs more at your next renewal than it did at your last one.
Before that renewal, you need more than a list of unused seats. You need to know what they cost at your contract price, and how to keep them from coming back.
We compared six Microsoft 365 license optimization tools (Orchestry, CoreView, Rencore, Syskit Point, ShareGate Protect and AvePoint Cense), plus Microsoft's own admin tools, against the eight criteria below. The comparison table shows what each one is best for and what to check before you buy.
The timing matters for another reason too. Since November 1, 2025, Enterprise Agreement and MPSA renewals also get one price for online services across Price Levels A through D. If you haven't renewed since then, your next renewal carries both changes.
License waste builds up gradually, one departed employee or idle seat at a time. One Orchestry customer identified ~$10k/year in license waste from 50 inactive users. We walk through the most common patterns, and what Orchestry shows for each, in how to stop guessing at your Microsoft 365 licensing waste.
A good tool should cover these eight things:
Orchestry, for example, starts with market prices and lets you swap in your negotiated rates and leave out free or promotional SKUs, so the savings number matches your contract.
Last checked October 2026, against each vendor's product pages and help documentation.
| Tool | Best for | What it covers | Keep in mind |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orchestry | Renewal-ready license waste, alongside workspace, guest and OneDrive governance | License inventory across agreements; inactive, disabled and unassigned licenses; full and near-overlap; savings at your negotiated rates; storage costs | Focuses on structural waste, not automated remediation |
| CoreView | License operations at scale | Inactive, over-licensed and duplicated plans; your own price per SKU; license pools; chargeback; automated joiner-mover-leaver changes | Inactive means all primary licenses unused for 90 days |
| Rencore | Copilot and AI cost control | Inactive, disabled and overlapping licenses; unused Copilot seats; Copilot and Claude Enterprise cost by department; automated cleanup | Doesn't say whether costs use your negotiated prices |
| Syskit Point | License reporting with chargeback | Inactive users on a threshold you set; unused add-ons including Copilot; overlaps; your own license prices; chargeback by department | License reports require a separate License Optimization add-on |
| ShareGate Protect | Storage-first cleanup that also reclaims licenses | Unassigned licenses and licenses on inactive users; inactive workspace cleanup; owner notifications | Overlap and pricing aren't described on its product page |
| AvePoint Cense | Budget ownership across business units | License reports by user, group or subscription; delegated license control; budget impact of each change; chargeback; Copilot and Dynamics 365 | Inactive and overlap detection aren't described |
| Microsoft native tools | Small tenants with time for manual checks | Licenses page; group-based licensing; Entra sign-in data; Copilot usage report | No built-in inactive report; sign-in data through Graph needs Entra ID P1 or P2 |
Orchestry License Management Dashboard showing total annual cost and savings opportunity by category
Orchestry's license optimization, part of the Orchestry Enterprise plan, gives you one view of the licenses you've bought across Microsoft agreements, how many are assigned, and which SKUs drive most of your spend.
Orchestry Inactive & Disabled User Licenses report listing users, assigned licenses, last successful login and possible savings.
Orchestry checks for four kinds of waste: full overlap, near-overlap (where a second license adds very little), licenses on disabled or inactive (90 days) accounts, unassigned licenses and additional SharePoint storage quota. Orchestry shows the total in dollars, at your negotiated rates.
Orchestry also cuts the tenant-level costs around licensing. Guest reviews run without Entra ID Governance, which Microsoft meters per governed guest, and workspace reviews drive the archiving decisions that bring storage costs down. Orchestry needs at least one Entra ID P1 license in the tenant.
Orchestry's license analysis focuses on structural waste (overlap, inactive accounts and unassigned seats) rather than usage-based rightsizing or automated reclaim, so acting on what it finds is still your call.
CoreView is built for teams that run licensing as an ongoing operation. Its Optimization Center flags disabled users, inactive users (no activity across their apps for 90 days), over-licensed users and duplicated plans, and you can set your own price per SKU so cost figures match what you pay.
On the operations side, CoreView delegates license pools to regions or divisions, breaks cost down by department for chargeback, and adds or removes licenses automatically as people join, move or leave.
Copilot cost is where Rencore puts the most detail. It surfaces Copilot licenses unused for 30 days or more, breaks Copilot cost down by department, with Claude Enterprise cost tracking in preview, and flags Copilot Studio pay-as-you-go spend that crosses a limit you set.
For core licensing, Rencore flags disabled accounts that still hold a license, users who haven't signed in for more than 90 days, and overlapping licenses, and you can reclaim seats manually or automate the cleanup. It reports cost by department, but doesn't say whether that uses your negotiated prices.
On Syskit Point, licensing lives on a License Optimization dashboard, which flags licenses on inactive users (you set the number of days), unused add-ons such as Power BI, Visio and Copilot, and overlapping licenses like E5 users holding add-ons they don't need.
Admins can enter a monthly price per license so totals reflect what you pay, and the License Distribution report breaks usage down by department, location or team for chargeback. License reports require Syskit's separate License Optimization add-on.
ShareGate Protect comes at licensing from the storage side. It finds unassigned licenses and licenses tied to inactive users so you know which seats to reclaim in Microsoft 365, alongside its main job of finding and archiving inactive workspaces. Automated notifications ask workspace owners to clean up their own content, guests and sharing links.
Budgets and delegation are the center of AvePoint Cense. You can report on licenses by user, group or subscription, let business-unit or regional owners assign and remove licenses for their own people, and see how a change affects the budget right away.
It covers Microsoft 365, Copilot and Dynamics 365. Ask to see inactive-user and overlap detection in a demo, since the product page doesn't describe them.
Microsoft 365 E7 has been generally available since May 1, 2026, at $99 per user. It bundles Microsoft 365 E5, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Agent 365 and Microsoft Entra Suite, and comes with or without Teams. Agent 365 on its own runs $15 per user.
The same check applies to any AI you license per seat, whether that's Copilot, ChatGPT Enterprise or Claude: a seat nobody uses is still a seat you pay for.
Orchestry License Overlap Details report showing a pair of overlapping Microsoft 365 licenses
That makes E7 a new source of overlap. Anyone moved to E7 who still has a standalone Copilot, Agent 365 or Entra Suite license is paying for the same thing twice. For more on the bundle, see what changed with E7 and Agent 365 and what a Copilot license costs.
The waste you find can also pay for Copilot. Because Orchestry shows waste in dollars, you can put it in Copilot terms: roughly how many seats the savings would fund.
If you want a baseline before you buy anything, Microsoft's own tools get you most of the way.
Microsoft 365 admin center Licenses page showing license assignments by product
Microsoft Copilot usage report showing enabled users and active users rate
What you won't get is the inventory and the action in one place. These checks live on separate pages, and none of them puts your contract price next to the waste or compares SKUs for overlap. That's the work a license tool should take off your plate.
Microsoft 365 license optimization means matching the licenses you pay for to the people who use them: removing unassigned seats, licenses on inactive or disabled accounts, and overlapping SKUs. The better tools also price that waste at your negotiated rates so you can act on it at renewal.
Frankly this is not easy without scripting. Microsoft doesn't offer a built-in inactive-user report, so a license tool saves you the spreadsheet work of joining the two.
Microsoft doesn't set a fixed number. Its guidance is that 90 to 180 days is a reasonable window in many organizations, allowing for things like extended leave.
If your waste is mostly in Microsoft 365, a governance tool can find it and fix what causes it, such as stale guests and dormant workspaces. If you're tracking seats across many SaaS vendors, a cross-vendor SaaS management platform is the better fit.
Yes, E7 includes Microsoft 365 Copilot, along with E5, Agent 365 and Microsoft Entra Suite. Anyone on E7 who still holds a standalone Copilot license is worth checking for overlap.
A license count tells you what you own. What you bring to the renewal is what it costs at your prices, and a plan to keep it from growing back. If you're evaluating Microsoft 365 license optimization tools, see how Orchestry prices license waste at your negotiated rates and cleans up stale guests in the same platform: book a walkthrough.