From guesswork to insight: optimizing software license costs with WhatPulse
How a UK enterprise saved over £150,000 annually by cutting unused software licenses with WhatPulse Professional
About the Customer
Title: IT Director
Location: Staines, UK
Industry: Enterprise IT Partner
The Challenge
As IT Director for a large, UK-based enterprise with over 800 employees, Sarah Miller was facing increasing pressure from the leadership team to rein in IT costs. Software spend, in particular, had ballooned over the years as teams requested licenses for expensive design, development, and productivity software — but no one was quite sure if those licenses were actually being used.
Previous attempts at software audits were time-consuming, intrusive, and often relied on incomplete data. "Every time we asked departments what software they needed, we'd get requests for dozens of licenses. But when I looked around, I wasn't convinced that every license was being used," Sarah recalls.
One line item stood out during budget reviews:
187 licenses of Adobe Creative Cloud, costing £814 per user per year — totalling nearly £152,218 annually.
The real question was: Did they need all of them?
The solution: real usage data with WhatPulse Professional
Sarah's team deployed WhatPulse Professional across the company's workstations with one clear objective: Find out which software was truly being used and by whom.
WhatPulse Professional's data collection was lightweight and privacy-conscious. It recorded anonymized app usage, input patterns, and activity trends without capturing sensitive data. Within weeks, Sarah's team had concrete data — without disrupting employees or slowing down workstations.
Setting up data collection
The IT Operations team automatically deployed and configured WhatPulse Professional and it started to track:
- ✅ Active application usage (how often and how long each app was open)
- ✅ Actual keyboard and mouse interaction with each app
- ✅ Per-user software usage trends over a rolling 90-day window
They specifically looked at Adobe Creative Cloud apps (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.) as "high-cost software" in the WhatPulse dashboard.
The analysis: data that spoke volumes
After 60 days of monitoring, the results were eye-opening:
- Out of 187 licensed users, only 35 users actively opened any Adobe CC app at least once a week.
- 22 users hadn't opened an Adobe CC app in over 60 days.
- The remaining 130 users had sporadic usage — opening an app once a month, often for no more than a few minutes.
Total licensed cost: £152,218/year
Actual heavy users: 35
Sporadic/Non-Users: 152
Potential savings: Over £124,000/year
Sarah's team dug deeper. Some of the sporadic users were designers who no longer worked on design projects. Others had changed roles or left the company but were still holding licenses.
The outcome: smarter software spend
Based on this clear usage data, Sarah initiated a 3-step optimization process:
1. License reallocation:
The team reclaimed underused licenses and reassigned them to departments with genuine design needs — avoiding additional license purchases.
2. Subscription downgrades:
Sporadic users were moved to Adobe CC Single-App plans or given access to the free Adobe Express alternative, slashing costs further.
3. Procurement policy update:
Moving forward, new license requests required usage justification backed by WhatPulse data. No more "just-in-case" license hoarding.
Within three months, the company reduced its Adobe CC spend from £152,218/year to £28,490/year — a £123,728 annual savings.
By extending this process to other software suites (including AutoCAD and Slack enterprise licenses), total IT spend reductions exceeded £150,000 annually.
The takeaway
"WhatPulse Professional gave us visibility we never had before," says Sarah. "Instead of relying on department heads or gut feeling, we made decisions based on real data. And it wasn't just about cutting costs — it helped us redistribute resources where they were actually needed."
How you can do it too
- ✅ Stop guessing about software usage.
- ✅ Identify real, not requested, license needs.
- ✅ Make data-driven procurement decisions.
- ✅ Start saving thousands in IT costs — without hurting productivity.
Ready to optimize your software spend?