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Bounded reviewAI Vendor and Contract Review: what your vendors' terms actually permit
One vendor, one defined contract set, one to two weeks. What the terms permit on training, retention, subprocessors and liability - read against the commitments you have already made to your own customers, so the gap between the two is visible before someone else finds it.
- Published range
- $1,000–2,500 / engagement
- Timing after intake
- 1–2 weeks
- Quoted in India
- ₹50,000–1,25,000 / engagement
Fixed scope, not hourly. Quoted before we start, with the exclusions written down. The India figure is a separate price for a separate market, not a conversion.
How this is actually delivered
One defined thing examined properly - a vendor, a feature, a questionnaire - with findings, decisions and the evidence behind them. It does not cover the rest of the business.
The scope is fixed before the work starts, which is why the price is a published range rather than an hourly estimate. Anything outside it is quoted separately rather than absorbed quietly or billed by surprise.
- Why companies buy this
- AI vendor terms move quickly and rarely say what people assume. Training on submitted content, retention windows, subprocessors and liability caps are all decided in documents nobody on the delivery side has read.
- What we actually do
- We take one vendor and the defined contract set around it, and work through what the terms actually permit on training, retention, location, subprocessors, security commitments and liability. Then we read that against what you have promised your own customers, so the gap between the two obligations becomes visible rather than theoretical.
- Where it stops, and who takes over
- Negotiating or drafting contract language, and any opinion on enforceability, goes to a qualified lawyer. We establish the operational position and the questions that need answering; counsel settles the terms.
- What you can show afterwards
- A completed vendor review record, a documented approval or exception decision with its conditions, and the configuration settings that have to hold for the decision to remain valid.
What you receive
What your AI vendors' terms actually permit on training, retention, subprocessors and liability, against what you have promised your own customers.
One vendor and a defined contract set. Negotiating or drafting contract language is legal work and goes to a qualified lawyer; this engagement establishes the operational position and the questions worth paying counsel to answer.
- A term-by-term position on training use, retention, deletion, location and subprocessors
- The security and confidentiality commitments the vendor actually makes, as distinct from marketing claims
- Liability, indemnity and service-level position, stated plainly
- A comparison against your own customer commitments, with any conflict named
- The configuration settings that have to hold for your position to remain true
- An approval, conditional approval or rejection record, with the conditions written out
- The questions that need a qualified lawyer, scoped and ready to send
What it costs, and what it replaces
Both figures are published ranges for the same unit of work. Ours is fixed before we start; if our process gets faster, that is our gain and your price does not move.
How engagements are structured →Published range for this engagement, against the span of the whole card. In India the same scope is quoted at ₹50,000–1,25,000 — a separate price for a separate market, not a conversion. Where in the range a quote lands is set by scope, entities and how much usable evidence already exists.
Midpoint $1,750 per engagement
How the work runs
01
Define the set
We agree which vendor and which documents are in scope. An enterprise agreement, a clickwrap and a data processing addendum often say different things, and the review is only useful if it covers the ones that bind you.
02
Read the terms
Training on submitted content, retention windows, deletion rights, processing location, subprocessors, security commitments, audit rights, liability caps and change-of-terms provisions. We note the effective date of each document we read.
03
Check the configuration
Terms frequently permit something your settings disable, or the reverse. The operative position is the combination, so we check the account rather than relying on the contract alone.
04
Compare against commitments
We read the vendor position against what you have told your own customers. Where you have promised more than your vendor gives you, that becomes a named finding with options.
05
Decision record
The outcome is a recorded decision - approved, approved with conditions, or not approved - with its reasoning, its conditions and a review date, so it can be shown later rather than remembered.
What we need from you
- The vendor's current terms, data processing addendum and any order form or enterprise agreement
- Your account configuration, or a walkthrough of it with whoever administers the account
- The customer commitments the tool has to live inside: contract clauses, your own trust page, questionnaire answers already given
- What the tool is actually used for, and by whom
What we check before delivery
- Every conclusion cites the clause and the dated version of the document it came from
- Configuration findings are confirmed with the account administrator before they are recorded
- Anything that turns on enforceability is marked as a legal question rather than answered
- A second reviewer checks the comparison against your customer commitments
When firms send us this
- A customer asked whether their data is used to train anyone's model
- You are about to standardise on one AI vendor across the company
- Procurement needs a documented basis for approving a tool
- A vendor changed its terms and nobody has read the new version
Questions about ai vendor and contract review
Is this legal advice on our contracts?
No. We establish what the terms say, what your configuration does, and where the two conflict with your own commitments. Advice on enforceability, and any drafting or negotiation, goes to a qualified lawyer - and we scope that question so counsel is not paid to start from scratch.
Can you review several vendors at once?
Yes, priced per vendor. Most companies start with the one or two tools that touch the most sensitive material rather than attempting the whole stack at once.
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This engagement
Scope it in fifteen minutes.
AI Vendor and Contract Review at $1,000–2,500 per engagement, delivered in 1–2 weeks after a complete intake. Scoping costs nothing, and we will say if a smaller engagement would serve you better.