Are You Just Collecting Rent? (A 5-Question Vendor Audit)
If they haven't shipped a meaningful feature in 12 months, stop calling it "SaaS." It's just a landlord collecting a check.
We need to talk about the “Auto-Renewal.”
It is the most dangerous email in your inbox. It arrives 90 days before your contract ends. It usually says something polite like: “Your subscription will automatically renew on March 1st with a standard 4% CPI uplift. No action required.”
Most HR Tech leaders treat this like a utility bill. We sigh, we forward it to Procurement, and we keep the lights on.
Stop.
In the Department of First Things First, we do not pay for utilities. We pay for Software as a Service.
The key word is “Service.” In the SaaS model, we pay a subscription fee (OpEx) instead of buying the software outright (CapEx) because there is an implicit promise: Continuous Innovation.
We pay you forever, and in exchange, the software gets better forever.
But if the software hasn’t gotten better in 12 months, if the only “new” features are paid add-ons or shiny AI demos that don’t actually work - then you aren’t a Technology Partner. You are a Landlord. You are just collecting rent on code that was written in 2018.
The Tear Sheet: The Vendor Health Check
Before you let that contract auto-renew, I want you to schedule a 30-minute call with your Account Executive. It will be uncomfortable. That’s good.
Print this out. Ask these 5 questions. Watch them squirm.
1. The “Base Fee” Innovation Check
“Name one meaningful feature you shipped in 2025 that was included in my base subscription fee.”
The Trap: They will list a bunch of new modules that cost extra.
The Rebuttal: “No, I’m asking about the product I already pay for. If the core product is stagnant, why is my price going up 4%?”
2. The “Shiny Object” vs. “Plumbing” Ratio
“What percentage of your R&D budget is going towards GenAI versus fixing the top 10 voted ideas on your Customer Community?”
The Reality: Many vendors are starving their core engineering teams to fund AI experiments to please Wall Street. Meanwhile, the CSV import tool has been broken since 2022.
3. The “Private Equity” Support Check
“My Time-to-Resolve on support tickets has increased by 30%. Can you show me your current support headcount vs. last year?”
The Context: If they were recently acquired by a PE firm, support is the first thing to get cut. Don’t let them gaslight you into thinking “it’s just a busy season.”
4. The Integration Health Check
“Are you planning to deprecate any of the SOAP/REST endpoints my business runs on in the next 18 months?”
The Nightmare: Finding out in a newsletter that your critical integration is effectively dead because they want you to move to their new “Connector.”
5. The “Shelfware” Reality
“Pull my usage report. Which three features are we paying for that we have logged into zero times this year?”
The Win: You might find you can downgrade your tier or swap that unused module for something you actually need.
The Kitchen Table Reality
I had to have this same “Renewal Conversation” with the Household Supply Chain (me).
When Justin got his (sigh, first) 3D printer, I signed him up for a “Filament of the Month” subscription box. It seemed like a great value, cool new colors delivered to the door!
Fast forward six months. I walked down to the basement (A.K.A. Justin’s 3D Lab. He’s turned the basement into a pre-teen 3d printing/gaming/YouTube watching paradise).
There were 8 rolls of 1/4 kilogram PLA plastic still in the vacuum seal. Colors like “Burnt Orange” and “Radioactive Slime Green.” We call this Shelfware.
Justin: “Are we getting more filament today?”
Me: “No. I cancelled the subscription.”
Justin: “Why? I might need the slime green one day.”
Me: “Justin, we are paying a monthly fee for plastic we aren’t using. That is bad governance. We are moving to a ‘Just-in-Time’ model. If you need slime green, we will buy slime green. Until then, the auto-renewal is dead.”
He wasn’t happy (he likes getting mail), but the basement is cleaner, and my wallet is happier.
The Takeaway
Don’t let the auto-renewal lull you to sleep.
If your vendor is innovating, pay them gladly. If they are just collecting rent, it’s time to negotiate—or time to move out.
— Mike
Director HR Tech | Slayer of Zombie Subscriptions
P.S. If you are a vendor sales rep reading this: I’m sorry. I know you don’t control the R&D budget. But tell your Product Manager that if they don’t fix the CSV importer, we aren’t buying the AI Copilot.