Enterprises using automated license harvesting reclaim an average of $1.2 million annually. That's not a typo. That's money sitting in your software budget right now—assigned to users who never log in, allocated to projects that ended, provisioned for employees who left months ago. It's called Shelfware, and it's probably costing you more than your next three innovation projects combined.
The $1.2 Million Opportunity
Here's the uncomfortable truth that every CIO knows but rarely discusses openly: roughly 30% of enterprise software licenses sit completely idle. Not underutilized. Not occasionally used. Idle. Never opened. Never touched. Quietly renewing year after year.
This is Shelfware—software that was purchased, assigned to a user, and then never used. It happens for predictable reasons: employees change roles, projects get cancelled, team members leave but their licenses don't follow. And nobody notices because the bill just gets paid automatically.
The Hidden Budget
That $1.2 million isn't buried in complex financial instruments. It's sitting in plain sight—in Salesforce seats nobody uses, in Adobe licenses for departed designers, in collaboration tools that entire departments have moved on from. It's the easiest savings you'll ever realize, if you have the right system to find it.
Why Manual True-Ups Fail
Every IT organization has tried the manual approach. It usually goes something like this: once a year, IT sends out an email blast asking managers to review their teams' software usage. "Please confirm which licenses your team still needs." The responses trickle in. And they're almost universally useless.
The Email That Never Works
"Hi team, we're reviewing software licenses. Do you still need your Visio license? Please reply Yes or No by Friday."
The response rate? About 20%. The useful response rate? Nearly zero. Because everyone who receives this email has the same thought: "I might need it someday. Better say yes."
The Hoarding Mentality
Employees aren't being malicious when they refuse to give up software they don't use. They're being rational. From their perspective:
Fear of Future Need
"What if I need to edit a Visio diagram next month? I'll have to submit a ticket and wait three days."
Status Signaling
"Having an Adobe Creative Cloud license makes me look important. Why give that up?"
Zero Personal Cost
"It doesn't cost me anything personally to keep the license. It costs the company, but that's not my problem."
Effort Asymmetry
"Replying 'Yes' takes two seconds. Getting a license back if I need it later takes a week."
This is why surveys don't work. You're asking people to voluntarily give up something that has no personal cost to keep. The incentives are fundamentally misaligned. And even when someone does respond honestly, their manager often overrides them—"We might need that for the new project."
The IT Burden
Beyond the useless survey responses, there's the IT team's time. Manually reviewing usage reports, chasing down managers for approvals, processing the deprovisions, handling the inevitable "I need that back!" complaints. One SAM manager we spoke with estimated they spend 3-4 hours per license on manual harvesting attempts. At that rate, the labor cost alone often exceeds the savings.
The AI-Powered Solution
The breakthrough isn't asking people if they use software. It's measuring whether they use it. No surveys. No opinions. No office politics. Just data.
Activity Detection: Beyond "Installed"
Traditional SAM tools can tell you if software is installed. That's not useful—installation says nothing about usage. A license that's installed but unused is just as much shelfware as one that was never provisioned.
Not Meaningful
- • Application is installed
- • Process running in background
- • Window open but minimized
- • Auto-started at login
Meaningful Activity
- • User actively interacting with application
- • Files created, opened, or modified
- • Features accessed and used
- • Active session with engagement
Costif.ai distinguishes between "running" and "used." A process idling in the background doesn't count. We measure actual engagement—keyboard input, file operations, feature access. If a user hasn't genuinely interacted with an application in 90 days, that's a harvesting candidate.
The "Use It or Lose It" Workflow
Here's where automation transforms the entire process. Instead of sending surveys that get ignored, Costif.ai implements an automated policy workflow:
Detection Trigger
AI detects that a user hasn't logged into or actively used an application for 90 days. This threshold is configurable—some organizations prefer 60 days, others 120.
Automated Notification
"Hi Sarah, we noticed you haven't used Adobe Illustrator in the past 90 days. To optimize our software licenses, we're planning to reclaim this license in 48 hours. If you still need access, click the button below."
Sent via Slack, Teams, or email—wherever your organization communicates. Polite, clear, and actionable.
One-Click Response
Clicking "Keep License" extends the grace period by 90 days. Clicking "I Don't Need It" immediately harvests the license. No response = automatic harvest.
Automatic Harvest
After 48 hours with no response, the license is automatically harvested and returned to the available pool. No IT intervention required. The user can request the license back if they realize they need it—but now they bear the burden of action, not IT.
Why This Works
The key insight is inverting the burden of proof. In the old model, IT had to prove someone wasn't using software (difficult) and then get them to voluntarily give it up (nearly impossible). In the automated model, non-use is detected automatically, and the user must take action to keep the license. Human psychology works in our favor: most people won't bother clicking a button for something they genuinely don't use.
The Financial Impact: Show Me the Math
Let's get specific. Here's a realistic scenario from a mid-sized enterprise:
Case Study: Salesforce License Harvesting
Starting Point
After AI-Powered Harvesting
And that's just one application. Apply this across your entire software portfolio—Microsoft 365, Adobe Creative Cloud, Zoom, ServiceNow, Jira, Confluence, Figma—and the numbers compound rapidly.
The Compound Effect
| Application | Unused Licenses | Cost/License/Year | Annual Recovery |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salesforce | 425 | $1,800 | $765,000 |
| Adobe Creative Cloud | 180 | $720 | $129,600 |
| Microsoft 365 E5 | 320 | $432 | $138,240 |
| Zoom Pro | 250 | $180 | $45,000 |
| ServiceNow | 75 | $1,200 | $90,000 |
| Total | 1,250 | — | $1,167,840 |
Trade Waste for Innovation
That $1.2M isn't just savings—it's reallocation budget. Trade your unused Zoom licenses for AI copilots. Reclaim those dormant Salesforce seats and fund a new analytics initiative. License harvesting doesn't just reduce costs; it frees capital for innovation that was previously trapped in shelfware.
The Costif.ai Advantage
Most SAM tools stop at detection. They'll show you unused licenses in a report. Great—now you have a to-do list. What Costif.ai provides is a closed-loop savings system that handles the entire lifecycle.
Detect
AI-powered activity monitoring identifies truly unused licenses—not just installed software
Deprovision
Automated workflows handle the technical removal—no IT tickets, no manual intervention
Reallocate
Harvested licenses return to the pool and can be automatically assigned to new requests
The Closed-Loop Difference
Here's what happens when a new employee needs a Salesforce license in a traditional environment: they submit a ticket, procurement checks the budget, someone cuts a PO, the license is purchased, and 2-3 weeks later they can start working. Meanwhile, 425 unused Salesforce licenses are sitting idle.
With Costif.ai's closed-loop system: the new employee requests access, the system checks the harvested license pool, and they're provisioned immediately from recovered inventory. No new purchase. No budget approval. No waiting. Same-day access from reclaimed licenses.
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Ready to Start Harvesting?
Most organizations recover 5-15% of their total software spend through automated license harvesting. For a $10M annual software budget, that's $500K-$1.5M back in your pocket—every year.
Get Your Free License Utilization AssessmentStop Paying for Software Nobody Uses
Every month you wait, unused licenses keep renewing. Costif.ai can identify your shelfware in the first week and start harvesting immediately. The ROI is measured in days, not months.