Most vendor scorecards die in a Google Sheet six weeks after they're built. They get reused for the first two evaluations, then someone introduces a new criterion mid-cycle, the weights stop adding to 100, and the template is quietly abandoned. The teams that keep their scorecards alive do four things consistently. Here's the playbook.
1. Pick four scoring dimensions, no more
The temptation is to score on 15 dimensions. Don't. Procurement teams that ship decisions consistently score on exactly four:
- Cost — total cost of ownership across the proposed contract term.
- Security & Compliance — certifications, data handling, breach history.
- Performance & SLAs — uptime, response times, scalability.
- Ease of implementation & support — integration effort, support tier quality.
Anything else either rolls into one of these four or shouldn't drive the decision.
2. Weight by what your team actually values
Default weights are 25% / 25% / 25% / 25%, but they should rarely stay there. A team buying core infrastructure weights security and performance higher (35% / 35% / 20% / 10%). A team buying internal tooling weights ease-of-use higher (15% / 15% / 30% / 40%). Pick weights once per project, document them, and don't renegotiate mid-cycle.
3. Score on evidence, not gut
For each cell, write one sentence of evidence: "Vendor A commits 99.95% uptime in writing with 10% monthly credit on breach (SLA §4.2)". This forces the analyst to find the source, and gives the next stakeholder a reason to trust the score.
4. Archive the scorecard with the comparison
The scorecard is most valuable six months later when the contract is up for renewal — but only if it's findable. Filed alongside the original AI comparison in a vendor library, it becomes the start of the next cycle, not a fresh blank sheet.
Industry starting templates
Three scorecard templates that cover 80% of B2B SaaS procurement:
- Cloud Provider RFP. Cost 30 / Security 30 / Performance 30 / Ease 10.
- SaaS Contract Review. Cost 25 / Security 30 / Performance 15 / Ease 30.
- MSP / Vendor SLA Evaluation. Cost 25 / Security 20 / Performance 35 / Ease 20.
These are the same starter presets POCsheet ships in the dashboard empty state — one click pre-fills the form so your first evaluation lands in 60 seconds.
The AI advantage
AI vendor scorecards calculate the cell-level evidence automatically — pulling SLA percentages, pricing breakdowns and security commitments directly from the source PDFs. The analyst's job moves from data entry to judgement on the weighted output.