The renewal that renewed itself while you were away
Most software contracts roll over on 1 January, when nobody is in the office. Here is how to find out what just happened, and what to do about it.
If you have AI-related subscriptions, at least one of them almost certainly renewed on 1 January while your office was closed. This is not an accident of the calendar; annual contracts are commonly written that way.
The 16 December post suggested checking before you left. If you did not, this week is the recovery version.
Step one: find out what renewed
Not from your list of tools — from the card statement or the bank export for the first week of January. That catches the subscriptions nobody remembers, which is the 19 September finding and the reason that check exists.
Step two: check the cancellation window
A contract that renewed on 1 January usually has a notice period running against next 1 January, which means the decision point is in the autumn, not now. Note the deadline with a warning four weeks ahead.
Many Swiss SMEs discover in November that the window closed in September. A single calendar entry prevents that permanently.
Step three: ask anyway
A renewed contract is not unchangeable. The December post on a supplier under competitive pressure applies directly: providers are defending market share, and a customer who asks in January is asking in unusually favourable weather.
Three things worth asking for, all of which cost the supplier little and are worth real money to you. A per-tier usage report. A version stability commitment. And the European data-centre answer in writing.
What not to do
Cancel in irritation. A renewal you did not intend is annoying and rarely a reason to change supplier — changing costs a re-tuning effort and produces a different set of limitations, as the 21 November post described.
Renegotiate rather than switch. That is where the leverage actually is, and January is when you have the most of it.