Project and Visio Licensing Playbook: How to Stop Overpaying Through Lifecycle Management

A hands-on guide to controlling costs for Microsoft’s most expensive add-on licenses through structured governance and license lifecycle management.

Microsoft Project and Visio are powerful tools, but they are also among the most expensive add-ons in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Across real customer environments, we frequently find that 40–60% of assigned Project and Visio licenses show no usage activity for 90–365 days, and some organizations discover hundreds of licenses assigned to users who have not accessed the workload in months, yet continue to be billed every month. The cause is rarely deliberate overspending. It is the absence of a clear license lifecycle strategy.

In our previous post, we dug into the Microsoft 365 Licensing Governance Gap. We covered why add-on licensing waste happens and how to fix it.

This playbook explains how to stop the waste, reclaim unused licenses, and ensure that only the right people hold the right tier at the right time.

Understanding the License Cost Problem

Microsoft Project licenses and Microsoft Visio licenses are not small line items. For a quick look at license costs at the time of publication:

• Project Plan 3: typically, ~$30 per user/month (varies slightly by region and agreement type)
• Project Plan 5: typically, ~$55 per user/month
• Visio Plan 2: ~$15 per user/month

At scale, even a small number of unnecessary assignments adds up quickly, especially when licenses requested for temporary work are never removed. A Project or Visio license should be treated as a timed resource with a defined beginning and end. 

Why Project and Visio Often Sit Unused

Three governance gaps allow unused licenses to accumulate.

1. License assignment without user profiling

Teams assign users high-tier licenses without understanding what the user will actually do. Some examples:

• A user who only needs a simple task view receives a full Project Plan 3 license.
• A business user receives Visio Plan 2 for a one-time diagram, even though Visio Plan 1 or the free browser-based viewer would have been sufficient.
• A project participant receives Project Plan 5 even though they are not project managers.

Without profile groups, overlicensing becomes the default.

2. No justification or project context

When users request licenses, very few organizations ask structured questions such as:

• What is this related to?
• What is your business use case?
• How long will you need it?

Without these questions, licenses intended for short-term work remain assigned indefinitely because no expiration criteria were captured.

3. No lifecycle tracking or reclamation

Even when users do specify a timeframe, it is rarely captured or revisited.
The result: licenses are assigned and never reviewed again.

The wasted cost is not in buying a Project or Visio license. The wasted cost comes from forgetting about them.

A Practical License Lifecycle Playbook

The license lifecycle consists of three stages: intake, tracking, and reclamation.
When these work together, waste drops dramatically.

Step 1: Structured Intake and Justification

1. A clear business case

   • What work requires this license?
   • Is the work recurring or time-bound?
   • Are there alternatives, such as Planner or Visio Plan 1, that would be sufficient?

2. A specific project timeline

   Most Project and Visio license needs fall into a three-month or six-month window. Capturing this timeline sets the foundation for timely reclamation.

3. Manager approval

   Manager sign-off is highly recommended.

Structured intake is the preventive control that stops unnecessary assignments before they begin happen.

Step 2: Lifecycle Tracking and Review

Once assigned, licenses must be tracked.

1. Capture the expected end date

   This can be as simple as entering the expected end date into a tracking spreadsheet, ITSM workflow, or a license management tool.

2. Set reminders

   A reminder at the three- or six-month mark prompts the IT team to check whether the project has ended. Even a basic reminder system—email alerts, scheduled tasks, or ITSM notifications—is significantly better than no tracking at all.

3. Verify delays

   If the project is delayed, IT should confirm with the manager and set a new reminder. This prevents licenses from remaining assigned out of convenience or neglect. 

            Tracking transforms licensing from a passive activity into a controlled, cost-aware process.

Step 3: Reclamation and Reassignment

Reclaiming unused licenses is where the actual savings happen.

1. Confirm project completion

   If a project has ended, the user no longer needs the license. IT unassigns it immediately.

2. Return the license to inventory

   This creates a reusable pool of licenses that can be reassigned without purchasing additional seats as long as the total license count stays within the organization’s contracted entitlement.

   The financial impact is often immediate and significant.

3. Use visibility tools for accuracy

   License assignment and usage insights provide objective evidence, such as last sign-in activity, that clearly indicates whether a license is inactive. Tools like ENow's License Optimization tool use customizable sign-in thresholds to detect inactivity, and show assigned versus unassigned licenses and associated cost waste. This licensing data is not available in Microsoft’s out-of-the-box admin reports. Having this user data available to license administrators can avoid unnecessary back-and-forth with users who may not respond in a timely manner, or want to keep it 'just in case.'

Proper reclamation eliminates the slow accumulation of waste and allows organizations to support new requests without increasing spend.

Where Most Organizations See the Biggest Wins

When organizations implement lifecycle management for Project and Visio, three benefits appear quickly:

1. Immediate cost savings

Unused licenses are often reclaimed within the first 30 to 60 days after implementing a structured process.
Some organizations cut their add-on licensing costs by twenty to forty percent in the first quarter alone.

2. Better alignment between job roles and license tiers

Users who only need basic functionality move to lower tiers.
Project Managers and PMO staff retain access to advanced scheduling and portfolio capabilities available in Project Plan 3 or Plan 5.
This reduces cost while improving clarity around who gets what and why.

3. Fewer surprises at renewal time

With tracking and reclamation in place, license assignments become intentional.
Renewal discussions are no longer chaotic or reactive; they are grounded in data.

Lifecycle management turns your licensing posture from unplanned to predictable.

Why Usage Visibility Is a Critical Ingredient

Lifecycle management is powerful, but it becomes far more effective when paired with real usage data.
Visibility tools answer questions that manual processes cannot reliably catch.

For example:

• How many users have logged into Project in the past thirty days?
• Who holds Visio Plan 2 but only needs viewing and basic editing available in their Microsoft 365 plan?
• Which licenses were assigned for a project that quietly ended months ago?

Usage analytics confirm whether licenses match behavior.
This validation is essential, especially before renewing large volumes of premium add-on licenses.

License Lifecycle Management Is Not Complicated. It Is Simply Missing.

Organizations do not overspend because they lack discipline; they overspend because license requests occur faster than governance, and periodic usage reviews can support. Over time, small oversights turn into large renewal bills.

A practical lifecycle model prevents that.

The playbook is simple:

• Ask the right questions. 
• Track the right timelines. 
• Reclaim at the right time. 
• Use visibility to validate real usage. 

This is the foundation for controlling costs for Project and Visio, and it sets the stage for broader optimization across the entire Microsoft 365 environment.

Next in the Series

The next article explores how user profiling and feature mapping unlock deeper cost control and help organizations reduce both licensing waste and compliance risk.

If you want to see how usage visibility, activity tracking, and lifecycle insights support this approach, explore ENow’s License Management and Optimization capabilities.

Reduce Your Unused Microsoft 365 Add-On Licensing Costs

Many organizations discover that the bulk of their Project and Visio licenses are unassigned or unused. ENow’s License Optimization tools help track license inventory, assignment, and actual usage so you can reclaim idle licenses and prevent unnecessary purchases. Gain real visibility and keep costs under control.

See ENow’s License Optimization in action - request a demo.