Free checklist · No email required
The contract renewal checklist: everything to review before you let it roll.
Run this list before any contract renews. It walks you from "when is the deadline" to the final go or no go call, so nothing renews by accident and no increase sails through unquestioned.
Free. No email to read it. Built by someone who has run this list on hundreds of renewals.
The contract renewal checklist
Nine checks, roughly in the order you should run them. The first is the one that decides whether you have any choice at all.
- 1. Find the notice deadline. Renewal date minus the notice period. This is your real deadline, and everything else assumes you are inside it.
- 2. Confirm the notice method. Email to a named address, post, or portal. Sending to the wrong place can void a valid notice.
- 3. Check the renewal price. Compare it to what you pay now. Flag any increase, including the automatic ones nobody discussed.
- 4. Review your actual usage. Seats, volume, or scope you are paying for versus what you use. Right size before you renew, not after.
- 5. Reread the key terms. Auto renewal length, notice period for next time, any change to liability, SLA, or scope.
- 6. Assess the relationship. Support quality, reliability, whether this vendor still earns the spend.
- 7. Check the alternatives. Even a quick look at what else exists resets your sense of the fair price.
- 8. Decide: renew, renegotiate, or leave. Make the call on purpose, with the deadline in view.
- 9. Act before the window closes. Send the renewal, the counteroffer, or the non renewal notice, and confirm it was received.
Run it on every renewal, ninety days out
The checklist works on any single renewal in fifteen minutes. The catch is remembering to run it, for every contract, early enough to matter.
Two honest ways to make that happen: set a calendar reminder ninety days before each renewal date (tedious across a full contract book, but it works), or use something that surfaces the renewals for you. Either way, the checklist is only as good as the moment you actually open it, which is always before the notice window closes, never after.
The checklist tells you what to check. It cannot tell you when.
That is the one thing a checklist cannot do: warn you a renewal is coming, for every contract, in time to run the list. And it cannot fill itself in with the price, terms, and notice window buried in the document.
Uplena does both. It reads your agreements, pulls the price, terms, and every notice window into one place, and flags each renewal early enough to run this checklist with room to act, then drafts the non renewal notice if you decide to leave. Free during early access.
Questions, answered.
What should be on a contract renewal checklist?+
At minimum: the notice deadline, the notice method, the renewal price versus current, your actual usage, the key terms, the vendor relationship, the alternatives, a renew or renegotiate or leave decision, and acting before the window closes. The list above covers all nine.
What is the first thing to check before a contract renews?+
The notice deadline, which is the renewal date minus the notice period. It decides whether you still have the option to renegotiate or leave, so everything else depends on it.
How far in advance should I review a renewal?+
Around ninety days before the renewal date, and always before the notice window closes. That gives you room to question the price, check alternatives, and give notice if you decide to.
Is there a printable version?+
Yes. You can copy the checklist above or print it, free and without an email.