How much are you paying for accounts nobody uses?

Deleting a departed employee's account does not lower that month's bill.

A seat (a license) is the right for 1 person to log in and use the service. Most SaaS vendors bill on the seat count in the contract, so a seat nobody uses is still billed in full. A seat has 3 states — assigned, unassigned, and removed from the contract — and the bill only falls once the seat reaches the 3rd state. Whether an audit works comes down not to how carefully you do it but to when you do it. (Figures are US dollars unless marked in yen; annual billing, excluding tax.)

Deactivating a user and lowering the bill are not the same thing

HubSpot's official help puts it plainly: “Removing a seat from a user unassigns the seat, but you'll continue to be billed for it.” And: “Remove the unassigned seat to adjust billing.”

There are 3 steps. ① Deactivate the user ② Remove the seat that was assigned to them ③ Delete the seat that is now unassigned. With HubSpot, stopping at ② leaves the seat unassigned and the billing in place. ③ cannot be run until ② is done. You can only delete down to the minimum seat count in your contract; that number differs by contract, and we could not find a uniform figure stated on the vendor's own pages. Check your billing screen or your order form.

When does a seat you removed reach the invoice?

Scroll sideways to see every column

All units follow what each vendor's official help pages and terms stated as of August 2026. Sources at the end.

In the official help for monday.com and Asana, we could not find any feature that automatically deactivates dormant accounts (as of August 2026). These 2 vendors assume a manual audit.

Put the audit 45 to 60 days before the renewal date, not at “1 month before renewal”. For Asana, 1 month before is the deadline itself.

Once seats come in blocks, removing 1 person changes nothing

For a company of 4 users, Asana sells exactly 4 seats (Starter, annual billing at ¥1,200 per 1 user per month, so ¥4,800 a month and ¥57,600 a year; in dollars on the English page, $10.99 and $527.52 a year). monday.com has no 4-seat option — after 3 seats comes 5 (Standard, annual billing at $12 per 1 seat, so $60 a month and $720 a year). You pay $144 in 1 year ($12 × 12 months) for 1 seat nobody sits in.

Sign a 10-seat Standard on annual billing and what leaves the account at signing is not $120 a month but $1,440 for 12 months. Drop 1 person and there is no 9-seat option, so it stays $1,440; only when you fall to 5 seats does it become $720 (a difference of $720 a year).

Start 60 days before renewal, and work in this order

All 3 vendors let you see who is not using the product, on the screens in the table. What is not obvious is how many days ahead you have to act for it to reach the bill.

Apply 90 days mechanically and you delete an executive's account

HubSpot's automatic deactivation is available on Starter and above for each Hub, and it is on by default. At the start of each month it identifies users with no activity for more than 90 days, and deactivates them on the last business day of that month. 3 notifications go to super admins in between, and a user who logs in before the deadline avoids it. It runs whether or not you remember switching it on. But deactivation does not stop the billing; stopping it takes ② and ③.

An executive who only reads a report once a quarter is caught by a 90-day line as well. Before deactivating, confirm that the person really is done with the product. 90 days is the number HubSpot uses for its own automation, and we could not find any statement on the other vendors' own pages that they use the same threshold. For the others, draw the line by counting back from your own renewal date.

For some readers, this exercise is pointless

A company sitting exactly at the minimum seat count (3 seats on monday.com, 2 on Asana) has nothing to cut. monday.com has a free plan for up to 2 people, so at 2 people or fewer it is quicker to ask whether the free plan is enough than to try to cut (the free-plan ceilings at all three vendors). A company with no departures, where everyone logs in every week, is also done once the renewal date is in the calendar.

So what should you do, and when?

You don't know your renewal date — find that out today and stop there. Where to look is Q1 of the flow chart. Nothing below works until you have it.

You have 60 days or more — put “60 days before renewal” in the calendar and you are done. Cutting today does not lower the bill. monday.com is the exception: if someone is not using it, deactivate them today.

60 to 30 days — this is the real work. Look at the last active dates, list everyone unused for 90 days or more, work out whether subtracting them drops you to the next block, and if it does, ask for the seat reduction. For Asana, 30 days before renewal is the deadline in the terms. The version of the terms that applies switches on your renewal date, so confirm your own deadline in the admin console.

You are inside 30 days — Asana will not make this term. Put the 60-day mark in the calendar for the next one. HubSpot still works if you finish deleting the unassigned seats today, and monday.com if you book the seat reduction today.

You are on monthly billing — the renewal comes every month, and the most you can miss is 1 month. Checking the last active dates at the start of each month is enough.

You do not reach the next block — the amount will not move this term. Do the deactivation anyway. It ends the state where someone who has left can see internal information, and the freed seat is ready for your next hire.

If in doubt — create 1 calendar reminder 60 days before the renewal date. Boiled down, that is the whole of what this article asks you to do.

Sources (verified August 17, 2026)

• HubSpot — the 2 quoted sentences, billing changing only when the unassigned seat is deleted, deletion requiring unassignment first, the minimum commitment, and changes reaching the next billing period → Official KB “Manage billing for seats”
• HubSpot — how to unassign a seat and delete an unassigned seat, and the fields shown under Settings > Users & Teams > Seats → Official KB “Manage seats”
• HubSpot — automatic deactivation of users inactive for 90 days, the Hubs and plans covered, on by default, run on the last business day, the 3 notifications, avoidance by logging in, filtering by Last Logged In → Official KB “Automatically deactivate inactive users”
• monday.com — seats billed in groups, a minimum of 3 seats, “3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 seats etc.” → Official support “How does plan pricing work”, Official support “Pricing model adjustment - January 2024”
• monday.com — “start at a minimum of 3 seats, and then ascend in multiples of 5” (this does not agree with the block description in the article above, so the blocks above 20 seats cannot be settled) → Official support “Plans and pricing for monday.com”
• monday.com — seat reductions reaching the bill at renewal, and the operation living in Administration > Billing → Official support “Downgrading your plan”
• monday.com — the pro-rated credit on deactivation and when it is applied → Official support “An easy guide to our pricing”
• monday.com — the Last Active column in the user management screen → Official support “How to manage users on your account”
• monday.com — Standard at $12 per 1 seat (annual billing, USD, excluding tax) and the display of a limited-time discount → monday.com/pricing
• Asana — the Last activity column in the member list in the admin console → Official help “Managing members in an organization”
• Asana — how seats are sold (2, 3, 4 and 5 seats individually, then blocks of 5, blocks of 10 above 30 seats, blocks of 25 above 100 seats, blocks of 50 above 500 seats) → Official help “How to manage your growing Asana subscription”
• Asana — seat reductions and downgrades requiring written notice up to 30 days before renewal (Subscriber Terms 4.2 Subscriptions) / amounts paid being as a rule non-refundable (4.1 Payment) / “Order Form” including online orders (1.5) / applying to orders taking effect on or after August 10, 2026, with existing contracts switching at the next renewal date (Last Updated July 10, 2026) → Asana Subscriber Terms
• Asana — Starter at ¥1,200 per 1 user per month on annual billing and ¥1,475 on monthly billing, Advanced at ¥2,700 on annual billing (excluding tax; Japanese consumption tax is charged on top if the billing address is in Japan) → asana.com/ja/pricing
• Asana — Starter at $10.99 per 1 seat (annual billing, USD, excluding tax; English page) → asana.com/pricing
• Asana — checking billing and seat count on the Billing tab in the admin console → Official help “Billing settings in the admin console”

Items we could not find stated on the vendors' own pages: automatic deactivation of dormant accounts on monday.com and Asana; pro-rated refunds or credits when Asana seats are reduced (the terms say no refunds as a rule); a single figure for HubSpot's minimum committed seats and its deadline for reducing seats; monday.com's yen pricing and its seat blocks above 20 seats; and the period covered by the limited-time discount included in monday.com's displayed prices, and the price at renewal.

← Back to the comparison