Hi Philip,
The word "predatory" is a hard one to read, so let us start there... We genuinely don't want anyone feeling that way about how Insightful bills, and we're sorry it came across like that for you. To say it plainly: we only ever charge for what's actually used (the employee license count), how this works is laid out up front in the Insightful app when clients sign up to prevent future misunderstandings, and there are real safeguards built in to make sure no one pays for users they didn't intend to keep.
Two of those safeguards are worth a closer look. The merging function lets you combine multiple user entries into one. So if a single person works across ten devices, all those entries can be merged into one billable license. And user deactivation puts credits back on your account when you deactivate someone, so you're not overcharged.
The auto-create behavior itself isn't there to inflate bills - it's there so work gets tracked accurately when multiple people share a device (or one person uses multiple devices), and so admins running thousands of users aren't slowed down approving every single seat.
You have our word: we're not going to take money from you for usage that wasn't actually yours.
All that said, we hear you on the manual approval piece. A notification, a grace period, or some kind of admin sign-off before a seat counts - that's a legitimate ask, and we've passed it to our product team as something organizations are calling for.
Thanks too for the positives you flagged! The screenshots being useful and the easy setup.
And please reach out if you'd like our support team to walk through the safeguards in more detail or audit your account to make sure nothing's been miscounted. We're around whenever you need us.
Best regards,
The Insightful Team