Jan 09, 2026
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By Julia
Your PM software has a “Ghost Seat” problem—and it’s costing you more than the actual tool.
You didn’t sign up to fund imaginary teammates. But if you’ve ever upgraded to “unlock automations” or “get timelines,” you’ve probably discovered the fine print: seat minimums and seat buckets.
Suddenly, the “$12/user” plan becomes $36/month because you’re forced into a 3-seat block—whether you use them or not. Monday.com explicitly describes this model as “bucket pricing,” starting at a minimum of 3 seats and increasing in blocks.
For SMB founders, solo consultants, and value-conscious CFOs, this isn’t pricing—it’s a tax. Let’s audit it like one.
Ghost seats are paid licenses you don’t actively use, often created by vendor policies like seat minimums or billing in “buckets.”
Instead of paying per active user, you’re required to buy blocks (e.g., 3 seats minimum). This inflates spend, hides true per-user cost, and creates shelfware by design.
The most common “ghost seat” patterns
This is how “advertised price” quietly becomes actual price × 2–3.
The real cost of ghost seats is the difference between what you pay and what you use—plus the opportunity cost of capital locked into shelfware.
If you’re forced into a 3-seat plan, you’re paying for 2 idle licenses every month. Over a year, that can fund contractors, growth experiments, or better tools.
Use this simple formula:
(A) Ghost Seat Cost/month = (Paid seats − Active seats) × Price per seat (or equivalent)
Now add a second layer, most teams ignore:
(B) Tier-forcing cost / month = (Upgraded tier price − Needed tier price) × Paid seats
Why this matters: license waste is a real, industry-wide issue. Zylo reports that organizations waste millions annually on unused SaaS licenses and that waste continues to rise. Zylo+1
Example: how bucket pricing inflates “per-user” reality
Monday.com’s own documentation describes seat selection as group-based (“bucket pricing”) starting at 3 seats. So a solo operator effectively pays 3× the seat price just to access the plan.
Vendors push seat minimums because they increase predictable revenue and reduce churn risk—even when usage is low.
The model optimizes vendor ARPU, not customer ROI. In 2026, efficient teams should reject pricing that forces shelfware and instead choose platforms that align cost directly to active project momentum.
Let’s be blunt: seat minimums are a growth lever for vendors, not a value lever for you.
The 2026 CFO lens: “Does this dollar produce output?”
Ghost seats fail that test instantly. You’re paying for:
BetterCloud’s SaaSOps research shows consolidation and spend scrutiny are mainstream priorities—leaders are actively pressuring IT/ops to reduce SaaS cost and rationalize stacks.
In other words, the market has moved. Your pricing model should too.
To eliminate ghost seats, audit usage monthly, map licenses to active users, downgrade tiers that were only purchased for one feature, and reclaim seats immediately when roles change.
The goal is to convert “tool spend” into “execution spend”—pay only for seats that generate deliverables. Here's a ghost seat audit checklist:
Identify users who haven’t logged in, created tasks, or updated boards.
Ask: “What feature caused us to upgrade?”
Common triggers:
If you upgraded for one feature, you’re overpaying.
Either:
Make license reclaim automatic the moment someone:
Industry data consistently indicates that unused-license waste is a significant SaaS drain; tackling reclaim and consolidation is one of the highest-leverage cost controls.
One of the most overlooked drivers of SaaS waste isn’t feature sprawl—it’s how seats are priced.
Most work tools still rely on bucket pricing: minimum seat requirements, forced bundles, and upgrades just to unlock basic functionality. The result? Teams pay for people who don’t exist, licenses that sit idle, and AI features locked behind premium add-ons.
The cleanest fix to ghost seats is fair billing:
A fair-billing WorkOS aligns cost to active users, not vendor math—so every dollar spent maps to real project momentum.
This is exactly where Kroolo is architecturally and economically different.
Kroolo is built as a Fair-Play WorkOS—designed for economic efficiency, not nickel-and-dime expansion. Instead of monetizing friction, Kroolo aligns pricing with how teams actually work and grow.
Kroolo introduces Fair Billing with a strict no-seat-minimum policy on all paid plans. Whether your team has 1 user or 100, you pay only for the people actually doing the work—nothing more.
Even more importantly, Kroolo democratizes AI.
Instead of charging an extra $7 per user per month (or more) just to access AI features—as many incumbents do—Kroolo includes generative AI agents as a standard part of every tier. AI isn’t an upsell. It’s the operating layer.
What Fair Billing Changes in Practice
Platforms like monday.com require minimum seat purchases and bucket-based plans. Many tools monetize AI separately (for example, AI sold as a per-user add-on tier), increasing cost without reducing complexity.
Fair billing isn’t just about saving money—it changes how teams operate.
Because Kroolo unifies Docs, Projects, and Chat into one interaction layer, teams don’t need overlapping subscriptions for documentation, task management, and communication. That consolidation alone can reduce total software spend—while improving execution speed.
In practical terms, teams use Kroolo to:
All of this is available without hidden seat inflation or AI upcharges. So, where legacy tools monetize space, Kroolo monetizes actual work.
If you’re tired of paying for unused seats, fragmented tools, and AI features locked behind upgrades, fair billing isn’t a pricing perk—it’s an operating advantage.
A solo consultant forced into a 3-seat minimum pays for two unused licenses just to access baseline automation. Switching to a no-seat-minimum WorkOS cuts spend instantly while improving output: they pay for one seat, get built-in AI summaries and execution support, and reduce monthly overhead by 50%.
The “before”
The “after” (Kroolo)
Result: instant overhead reduction and a cleaner execution system.
Conclusion
In 2026’s “Great Rationalization,” paying for unused licenses is no longer acceptable—it’s a direct ROI failure.
Ghost seats drain capital and force unnecessary upgrades. The logical move is adopting fair billing and AI-native execution, so spend scales with real headcount and every dollar produces project momentum.
Your PM tool should not penalize you for being lean.
If you’re an SMB founder, solo operator, or CFO auditing SaaS spend, seat minimums are one of the easiest waste categories to eliminate—because the fix is structural: choose a platform whose incentives match yours.
The First TRUE AI WorkOS is here. Join the thousands of leaders who have already claimed their 30% budget back by switching to a fair, transparent platform. Sign Up for Free today and only pay for the team you actually have.