Most AI content evaluations begin with output quality and a monthly price. Those are useful starting points. They do not answer whether the tool will lower the cost of accepted marketing work after people review, repair, export, and publish it.

Procurement needs a short set of questions that marketing, finance, and security can answer together.

A vendor is affordable when the team can explain what it costs to produce accepted work and what happens when the contract ends.

Ask how the price is formed#

Request a complete price model before comparing vendors:

Price area	Question
Seats	Who needs access, and which roles can share a seat?
Usage	What is metered: requests, tokens, characters, images, storage, or exports?
Minimums	Is there a committed volume, annual minimum, or overage rate?
Integrations	Are connectors, API calls, or publishing destinations charged separately?
Review	Does the vendor charge for collaborators or approval access?
Support	What support, implementation, and response time are included?
Change	How much notice is given for model, price, or feature changes?

Put the vendor price beside internal production cost. If a tool saves $600 in subscriptions and adds 40 hours of review, the subscription line is not the result.

The unit economics guide gives a way to compare these costs by accepted asset. Use the same denominator in a vendor trial and in the renewal review.

Define the output before the trial#

“Generate content” is too broad for a useful evaluation. Choose two or three real processes and state what counts as accepted:

a product page with approved claims and required metadata;
a group of lifecycle emails for a known audience;
a localization package with glossary and legal review;
a set of campaign variants with defined channels and limits.

For each process, record:

the brief and source set;
the people who review it;
the acceptance conditions;
the maximum attempts;
the expected time to approval;
the destination where the asset will be published.

The vendor should be evaluated against that process. A polished demo can avoid the source, review, and publishing work that determines the real cost.

Put data handling in the same document#

Marketing often learns about data settings after a tool has been adopted. Ask before the trial:

What data is sent to the vendor and its model providers?
Is customer, employee, pricing, or unreleased product information allowed?
Are prompts and outputs used for training?
How are files, embeddings, logs, and backups retained?
Which regions store and process the data?
Can the customer delete data and receive confirmation?
Which subprocessors can access it?
How is access removed when a user leaves?

These answers should become a usable rule for the team. The data-boundary guide shows how to classify common marketing inputs and choose a safe path for each.

Require evidence that leaves the tool#

An evaluation should test retrieval as well as generation. Ask whether the vendor can export or link:

Evidence	Why it matters
Source versions	Explains which facts supported a claim
Attempt history	Shows repeated work and repair
Reviewer decision	Establishes who accepted or returned the asset
Accepted asset ID	Connects production to the final output
Provider and usage detail	Supports finance reconciliation
User and access history	Supports security review
Published destination	Connects approval to what customers saw

A tool can have a useful interface and still leave the buyer unable to answer a later question. Test an export with someone who was not in the original trial. If they cannot understand what happened, the evidence is too dependent on the vendor’s screen.

Test limits and failure behavior#

Ask the vendor to demonstrate what happens when:

the usage budget is close to its limit;
a source is missing or expired;
a reviewer returns an asset;
a connector is unavailable;
a model or provider request fails;
a user loses access;
a campaign is cancelled;
the customer needs all content and evidence out.

The important detail is the action. Does work pause, queue, retry, or continue with a new charge? Who receives the alert? What does the buyer see? An error message without an owner creates a future invoice question.

Score the trial with a simple table#

Measure	Target	Owner
Accepted assets per process	Agreed count	Marketing
Attempts per accepted asset	Threshold	Content ops
Review minutes	Baseline or lower	Brand or product
Direct usage cost	Budgeted range	Finance
Source coverage	Required fields present	Product marketing
Evidence export	Usable by another reviewer	Security
Time to remove access	Agreed service level	IT

Do not average these into a single score too early. A tool that passes quality but fails evidence should have a visible decision, not a flattering average.

Write the exit terms before the renewal#

The buyer should know:

how to export accepted assets and source references;
how to export usage and approval evidence;
whether the export includes IDs that can join to finance data;
how long the vendor keeps data after cancellation;
which integrations need to be disconnected;
what happens to prepaid usage and committed minimums.

The tool-sprawl guide covers the cost of leaving context in several tools. Exit terms are part of the price because a future migration will use the evidence the contract preserves.

Deixic can provide the operational view around agent spend, current activity, approvals, connected tools, and missing cost proof. Use the product view as one part of the evaluation, and ask every vendor to show the same full path from request to accepted asset.