Cut SaaS shelfware, eliminate cloud waste, and renegotiate the contracts behind both.
Cloud and SaaS are now the largest line items in many technology budgets — and the fastest-growing. License counts climb with hiring but rarely shrink with attrition. Cloud spend grows quietly through idle resources, oversized commitments, and storage tiers that never moved to colder pricing. SaaS tools accumulate across departments because procurement isn't centralized. Unravyl's work in this category surfaces the waste and renegotiates the contracts.
Five service categories. One connected approach.
SaaS license rightsizing
License count audits, tier rightsizing (Enterprise → Business → Pro), removal of licenses for departed employees, identification of shelfware (licenses paid for but unused), and consolidation of overlapping tools.
Cloud cost optimization (FinOps)
Reserved instance and committed-use discount analysis, idle resource identification, storage tier optimization, rightsizing of compute instances, decommissioning of orphaned test environments, and tagging hygiene for cost visibility.
Software audit support
Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, SAP, Salesforce, and other major vendors run periodic audits that frequently produce significant true-up charges. We help clients prepare for, respond to, and negotiate through software audits — including reducing audit exposure proactively.
Renewal negotiation
SaaS and cloud renewals are among the highest-leverage negotiation opportunities in the technology category. We negotiate directly with vendor account teams to reduce per-user pricing, restructure commitment terms, and align contract length with operational needs.
SaaS portfolio rationalization
For environments with significant SaaS sprawl, we structure a portfolio review — mapping every active SaaS tool to business function, owner, and usage data — to identify consolidation opportunities.
What we typically uncover.
SaaS license counts 10–25% above active user count.
Licenses provisioned during hiring rounds never reclaimed during attrition. Trial licenses become permanent without anyone deciding.
Tier overprovisioning.
Enterprise tier licenses for users who only use Business tier features. This is one of the single highest-leverage findings in SaaS audits, especially for tools where the tier price difference is significant.
Duplicate tools doing the same job.
Three project management tools across departments. Two file storage platforms. Two communication tools. Two CRMs that should be one. Each renews on its own cycle, billed to its own department.
Idle cloud resources.
Compute instances running 24/7 for workloads that only need them 8 hours a day. Test environments spun up for projects that ended 18 months ago. Storage that was supposed to migrate to colder tiers but never did.
Reserved instances mismatched to current usage.
RIs purchased when the workload was different. Commitments to instance types or regions that no longer match where compute actually runs.
Cloud spend without tags or cost allocation.
Untagged spend that finance can't allocate to business units, projects, or owners. This isn't just a visibility problem — it's a structural barrier to cost reduction because nobody has accountability for the spend.
Audit exposure from license overuse.
The opposite problem: tools where actual usage exceeds purchased licenses, creating audit liability. Microsoft and Oracle audits in particular can produce six- or seven-figure true-up charges.
Renewal pricing 20–40% above market.
SaaS vendors default to renewal pricing aligned with their list price, not what they would offer in a competitive new-customer scenario. Negotiation can frequently produce significant reductions.
The discipline sometimes called FinOps.
Cloud cost optimization is sometimes branded as FinOps — the cross-functional practice of managing cloud spend with the same rigor as any other major operating cost category. The discipline includes:
Visibility
Tagging, cost allocation, and reporting that lets stakeholders see what they are actually spending.
Optimization
Rightsizing, RI/CUD management, storage tier optimization, and decommissioning for immediate savings.
Forecasting
Budgeting and projecting cloud costs as workloads evolve, so spend never surprises.
Accountability
Clear ownership for cloud spend by team, project, or business unit to sustain savings over time.
Our work in this category typically combines optimization (immediate savings) with structural improvements (tagging, ownership, governance) to sustain the savings over time.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between cloud cost optimization and FinOps?
The terms overlap heavily. FinOps is the formal discipline as articulated by the FinOps Foundation, with defined practices and a maturity model. Cloud cost optimization is the practical work of reducing waste, regardless of whether it's framed as FinOps. We do the work; the framing matters less than the outcomes.
Do you work with AWS, Azure, and GCP?
Yes. We have engagement experience across all three major hyperscalers, plus secondary providers (Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud) and specialized cloud services. Tooling varies by provider, but the underlying methodology — visibility, optimization, accountability — is consistent.
Do you sell cloud cost management tools?
No. There are several useful cloud cost management platforms (Apptio Cloudability, CloudHealth, Cloudwise, and others), but we don't resell them. If a platform would benefit your environment, we help you evaluate the open market and select what fits.
How do you handle software audit defense?
We help clients prepare for and respond to software audits proactively. The work includes license position assessment, identification of audit exposure before vendors find it, response strategy if an audit is already initiated, and negotiation through audit findings to minimize true-up charges. Software audit work is typically scoped as a project or as a defined slice of a broader engagement.
Can you help us reduce SaaS spend without disrupting users?
Yes — most SaaS rightsizing work is invisible to end users. License count audits, tier downgrades for users who don't need higher tiers, and removal of licenses for departed employees don't affect active users. Tool consolidation does require change management, which we help plan alongside the cost work.
What does typical SaaS rationalization produce?
Variable, but meaningful. For environments that haven't done a structured SaaS portfolio review in 2+ years, total savings of 15–30% of SaaS spend are common. The majority comes from license count rightsizing, tier downgrades, and renewal negotiation. Tool consolidation produces additional savings on a longer timeline.
What if our cloud spend keeps growing despite optimization?
Cloud spend growth isn't always waste — many businesses are growing the underlying workloads. The right metric isn't absolute cloud spend, it's spend efficiency: cost per unit of business activity, cost per user, or cost per revenue dollar. We help establish those metrics so optimization work can be measured against growth.
