Licence ROI (Module A)
Turn raw Microsoft 365 licence data into an ROI story — purchased vs assigned vs active seats, and reclaimable spend.
Licence ROI — Module A — turns raw Microsoft 365 Copilot licence metadata into a clear cost story. It answers the question finance always asks: are we getting value from the seats we bought? Everything here is read-only — Copilot Insights reports on licences but can never reassign or change them.
Three seat states
The page starts from three counts. The gaps between them are where money leaks.
| Seat state | What it means | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Purchased | Copilot seats your organisation pays for under its subscription | The baseline you are billed for |
| Assigned | Seats handed to a named user | Purchased but unassigned seats are spend with no possible return |
| Active | Assigned seats with real usage in the period | Assigned but inactive seats are dormant — the clearest reclaim target |
Reclaimable spend
From those gaps Copilot Insights calculates reclaimable spend, shown both per month and per year. It combines unassigned seats with dormant ones — licences someone holds but does not use — to estimate what you could recover by reclaiming or reassigning them. The annual figure is usually the one that gets attention in a budget review.
Adoption by app
Adoption is broken down by Copilot surface — Teams, Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more — so a single low number becomes a specific, addressable picture. High purchase with low adoption in a given app is a training-and-enablement signal, not necessarily a reclaim one.
Dormant and low-usage flags
Individual users are flagged as dormant (a seat with no meaningful activity) or low-usage (well below the pace of active peers). These flags feed straight into your Recommendations, which turn them into a prioritised reclaim list.
Names anonymised
Depending on your settings and consent, a Names anonymised banner may appear across the user list. When it does, individual identities are masked while every count, flag and figure stays fully accurate. See Security & privacy and the Privacy Notice.
What you see on Free
On Free, Licences shows a capped teaser — up to 10 users — enough to preview the shape of your estate, with Reports and Recommendations locked. Pro lifts the cap to 199 users and unlocks the detail; Enterprise is unlimited. See Plans & billing.
Turn it into action
- Read your prioritised Recommendations to reclaim dormant seats first.
- Export the numbers for finance from Reports.
- Re-run a scan after changes to confirm the spend has dropped.
Frequently asked questions
Does reclaimable spend use our actual contract price?
It estimates recoverable cost from unassigned and dormant seats. Because contract pricing varies, treat it as a well-grounded figure for prioritisation rather than an invoice. See Plans & billing for our own pricing.
Can Copilot Insights reclaim the seats for me?
No — it is read-only by design. It shows you exactly which seats to reclaim, but the change is made by an administrator in the Microsoft 365 admin centre. See Security & privacy.
What is the difference between dormant and low-usage?
Dormant means a seat shows no meaningful activity at all; low-usage means activity well below active peers. Both are candidates for review, with dormant seats usually first in line.