Know the true cost of a deal before it's signed.
The quoted price isn't the cost. Benchside surfaces hidden exposure (change orders, the SSO tax, renewal uplifts) and sizes it in dollars, calibrated to your deal.
2-3x
TCO inflation typical
Change orders, integration, the SSO tax, and renewal uplifts compound on the quoted price.
10% / yr
Roughly doubles cost in 7 years
An uncapped annual uplift is open-ended exposure. Cap it before signing or model it on the way in.
$30,141
Past a $100 alert that never fired
Marketplace billing bypasses standard cost-anomaly detection, so the safeguard you rely on does not cover AI spend.
1 page
The executive summary the board reads
Worst-case ceiling, change-order cap, renewal-uplift cap, switching projection at year 3, 5, and 7. Auditable, defensible, board-ready.
- ~9%
- of a contract's anticipated value is lost to poor contracting, up to 15% in complex sectors.
- #1 vs #6
- Scope is the term buyers rate most important, but only the 6th most negotiated.
Source: World Commerce & Contracting (formerly IACCM), Most Negotiated Terms & contract value-erosion research.
- ~1 in 4
- contract negotiations hit a significant dispute during performance, buyers and suppliers agree.
- #1 cause
- of those disputes is changes to terms after signing, cited by 51% of buyers, ahead of every other clause.
Source: Commerce & Contract Management Institute (NCMA & World Commerce & Contracting), Most Negotiated Terms 2024, US procurement.
The deck is stacked before you start.
Three structural disadvantages every buyer walks in with - and exactly what Benchside neutralizes.
- 01
Quoted price ≠ total cost
Change orders, integration, and renewal uplifts inflate TCO two to three times.
- 02
Exposure is unquantified
Risk lives in legal language, not a number you can put in a model.
- 03
Overruns surprise the board
They appear mid-implementation, too late to renegotiate.
Model the true cost, not the quoted price
TCO model includes change-order zones, renewal uplifts, integration, the SSO tax, and a worst-case ceiling in dollars, sized to your deal.
Cap the open-ended exposure
Change-order cap, renewal-uplift cap, and agentic spend ceiling drafted as clauses the negotiation can hold the line on.
Project the exit cost
Switching cost projected at year 3, 5, and 7 with a one-page summary for the board: defensible if it comes up in audit, useful when you renegotiate.
Every output, vendor-ready.
Structured deliverables you can take straight into the room, the contract, and the board deck.
- Dollar-estimated exposure across exclusions, with a worst-case ceiling.
- Change-order cap clauses to hold the line.
- Quantified lock-in exit cost and multi-year switching projections.
- An executive one-pager for the board.
- Scope package
- Negotiation playbook
- Scope-drift sentinel
- Interrogation kit
- Going alone
- Vendor's quoted price, plus a buffer
- Consultant
- Ad-hoc spreadsheet, point estimate
- Benchside
- Dollar-estimated exposure across exclusions with a worst-case ceiling
- Going alone
- Discover it at renewal
- Consultant
- A standard cap clause
- Benchside
- Cap clause plus a multi-year true-up model
- Going alone
- Change orders surface mid-implementation
- Consultant
- Engagement is over
- Benchside
- Change-order cap clause and drift sentinel across versions
- Going alone
- Rebuild from scratch under pressure
- Consultant
- Long deliverable, hard to defend
- Benchside
- Executive one-pager with worst-case ceiling and a defensible model
Model the true cost before the board approves it.
Dollar-estimated exposure, a worst-case ceiling, change-order cap clauses, and a one-pager you can defend in any boardroom.
It's a range, not a point. Calibrated to deal size, vendor, and project type from documented exclusion patterns. You can defend it because you can show how each number was built.
Yes. The output includes an executive one-pager with the worst-case ceiling, the top three exposure drivers, and the mitigations already in the redline. Defensible without a footnote stack.
Two layers: a change-order cap clause sized to deal value sits in the contract, and the drift sentinel flags every commitment that weakens between proposal versions. The cap is the ceiling; the sentinel is the alarm.
Yes. Benchside drafts the renewal-uplift cap clause and the escalation ladder, sized to vendor norms for your deal type.
CFOs & finance
Know the true cost.
Before the board approves.
Dollar-estimated exposure, a worst-case ceiling, change-order and renewal-uplift caps, and an executive one-pager built to survive scrutiny.