Free decision worksheet

Make the tool prove its value before the subscription renews.

A one-page, vendor-neutral checklist for testing real work, total cost, permissions, human review, and a safe exit.

Eight gates

AI tool buyer checklist

Print this page or use the CSV with your team.
  1. 01

    Outcome

    Name one repeated job and the measurable result that must improve.

  2. 02

    Baseline

    Record current time, cost, error rate, and accepted-output rate.

  3. 03

    Evidence

    Test the tool on 10–20 representative tasks, including hard cases.

  4. 04

    Review

    Measure correction time and define who approves consequential output.

  5. 05

    Access

    List what the tool can read, write, retain, share, and trigger.

  6. 06

    Economics

    Count seats, credits, overages, setup, review, and switching costs.

  7. 07

    Ownership

    Verify output rights, training-data terms, deletion, and export paths.

  8. 08

    Fallback

    Document the manual path and test revocation before rollout.

Decision rule: buy only when the measured benefit exceeds the full monthly cost, the risk controls work, and the team can reverse the rollout without losing essential work.

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