Weighted total
42%
Score a vendor proposal before you sign it.
Twenty-one criteria across six sections, in Excel and Word, with the rule that stops a signature no matter how good the total looks. You have a fortnight to review a three-year contract and nobody else is going to read it.
Take the free scorecardExcel & Word · No account · Sent immediately
A · Scope fit 8/20 · 40% · wt 25% caution — 1 hard flag
B · Price 8/20 · 40% · wt 25% no hard flags
C · Exclusions 7/20 · 35% · wt 20% caution — 2 hard flags
D · Commercial 7/15 · 47% · wt 12% no hard flags
E · Service 8/15 · 53% · wt 10% no hard flags
F · Exit & data 8/15 · 53% · wt 8% no hard flags
Hard flags
3
Verdict
Hard flag — 3 criteria unacceptable
This proposal would still read HARD FLAG at 85%. A 0 or a 1 on scope, exclusions or exit stops a signature whatever the total says. That rule is the difference between a checklist and a decision you can defend upward.
One person, no procurement department
IT managers running a 100 to 1,000 user business with no procurement department, no in-house legal, and personal accountability to a CFO for the decision. If you have ever signed something you had not fully read because the deadline arrived first, this was built for you.
It is not for enterprise procurement teams, consultants, or MSPs reviewing their own proposals.
Score your next proposal this week
Ten of the twenty-one criteria, scored flat out of 50. Enough to review a proposal in fifteen minutes, and enough to tell you whether the full pack is worth paying for.
An .xlsx file, sent immediately, download link valid for 24 hours. No account, no email sequence. Your address is used to send the download and occasional updates about this product, and nothing else.
What is in the case
Proposal Scorecard
21 criteria across six sections, weighted, with hard-flag rules that stop a signature regardless of the total. Comes with a fully scored worked example.
TCO Model
Two bids side by side across a five-year horizon. Escalation, headcount growth, currency exposure, early-exit cost, and the internal management effort every vendor comparison forgets.
SLA Review Checklist
26 clauses. What a clause you could rely on contains, the wording that signals one you cannot, and the sentence to send back.
Contract Exit Checklist
33 items to work through before you sign, plus an exit readiness register for the things you must hold yourself.
Buyer's Guide
How to use all of it, why proposals get scoped wrong, and the four questions that change a vendor’s pricing.
Vendor proposal auditor
A SKILL.md package that runs the same rubric against a proposal document. Works in Claude Code and any agent that reads the format.
Everything the free version leaves out
| Free | Full pack | |
|---|---|---|
| Criteria | 10 | 21 |
| Weighting by section | No | Yes |
| Hard-flag rules that override the total | No | Yes |
| Evidence column for clause references | No | Yes |
| Fully scored worked example | No | Yes |
| TCO model, checklists, guide, agent skill | No | Yes |
R 2 900
One licence per organisation, unlimited internal copies, free updates within the major version. Checkout is handled by our merchant of record; no card details reach this site.
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Where it comes from
This is one working method, written down. Every proposal that arrives gets the same 21 questions, the same weighting and the same hard-flag rules, so the answer does not depend on how busy the week was when it landed.
That is also why the artefacts are generated rather than typed. The scorecard, the model and the checklists are built from one source, so the criteria in the spreadsheet, the rubric in the agent skill and the gauges above cannot drift apart from each other.
It is a decision-support tool, not legal, financial or procurement advice. Review any contract with a suitably qualified professional before signing.