UMS charges no retainer and no upfront fee. For eligible work, our fee is a percentage of the savings we document and verify, agreed in writing before we start. Where shared savings does not fit the work, we use fixed-fee or staff augmentation instead. The diagnostic is free, and the split is scoped per engagement rather than a single public rate.
Five steps. You pay nothing until savings are documented, verified, and agreed.
A no-cost diagnostic reviews your estate, contracts, renewal calendar, and any open audit exposure. You leave with a view of where savings likely sit, at no charge and no obligation.
We agree in writing on the work, the engagement model, and how savings will be measured before any execution begins. Nothing is billed on a shared-savings basis until this is signed.
UMS does the work at our cost: license cleanup, renewal preparation, vendor response, audit defense, and negotiation. You do not pay for our time, meetings, or analysis.
Savings are quantified against a baseline both sides agree on, then verified. A documented reduction on your P&L, contract, or audit outcome is the trigger for anything you pay.
For shared-savings work, you are invoiced from a pre-agreed share of the documented savings. If the engagement produces no agreed savings outcome, the shared-savings fee does not apply.
Most work is shared savings. Fixed-fee and staff augmentation exist for the work where a savings baseline is not the right measure.
Audit defense, renewal negotiation, license optimization, cloud and telecom cleanup, where savings can be measured against a baseline.
Nothing upfront. A pre-agreed share of the savings that are documented and verified.
UMS carries the risk. If no agreed savings outcome is reached, the shared-savings fee does not apply.
Scoped, project-shaped work such as ServiceNow implementation, M&A due diligence, or a defined assessment where a savings baseline is not the right measure.
A fixed price agreed for a defined scope of work.
Shared between both sides. Scope and price are fixed in writing before work begins.
When your team needs licensing, SAM, or negotiation capacity embedded for a period, under your direction.
A time-based rate for the roles and duration agreed.
Carried by the client, who directs the work. UMS supplies the operator capacity.
Every estate is different. The diagnostic exists to size yours before anyone talks numbers. Four factors move it the most.
The number of licenses, users, and titles under management. Larger estates carry more drift, more shelfware, and more room to reclaim and renegotiate.
Which vendors you run and how they license. Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, SAP, Adobe, VMware, Broadcom, and ServiceNow each carry different mechanics and different leverage points.
How close your next Enterprise Agreement, true-up, or major renewal sits. Time before a renewal is the difference between shaping the deal and reacting to it.
Whether a publisher audit or compliance review is open or likely. Audit defense changes both the urgency of the work and where the savings are found.
The questions teams ask before booking the diagnostic.
Nothing. The initial diagnostic is free. UMS reviews your estate, contracts, renewal calendar, and any audit exposure, and shows you where savings are likely to sit, at no charge and with no obligation to continue.
There is no single public percentage. The share is scoped per engagement, based on the effort involved and the type of savings being delivered, and it is agreed in writing before any shared-savings work begins. Audit defense, renewal negotiation, and license optimization each carry different economics, so the split is set against the specific work rather than a fixed rate.
Savings are measured against a baseline both sides agree on at the start, then verified against documented outcomes: the renewed contract, the reduced audit claim, the reclaimed licenses, or the lower recurring bill. The client can see the calculation, and it is designed to hold up to finance and procurement review.
Then you pay nothing on a shared-savings engagement. UMS carries the cost of the diagnostic, analysis, and initial work. If the engagement does not produce the agreed savings outcome, the shared-savings fee does not apply.
Shared-savings engagements are structured around the work and the documented savings, not a locked multi-year retainer. Many client relationships run for years because the work keeps producing results, not because a contract requires it. Fixed-fee and staffing engagements are scoped to a defined term agreed in advance.
For shared-savings work, you pay after savings are documented and verified, invoiced from a pre-agreed share of those savings. For fixed-fee and staffing work, billing follows the terms set in the scope agreement. In every model, there is no retainer and no upfront fee to start.
The diagnostic is free and there is no obligation to continue. You leave knowing where the savings are and which model fits the work.