How it works
Same process every time, in the same order. Working a fixed rubric beats skimming for things that feel wrong, because the clauses that cost the most money are the ones that read as boilerplate.
Step 01
Everything the agency is actually promising is pulled out of the document and written down as a list: price, billing cadence, contract term, notice period, every named deliverable with its quantity, and who ends up owning what. Slide decks and email threads get the same treatment. This step alone often surprises people, because a proposal that reads like six pages of work usually reduces to four or five concrete commitments.
Step 02
The document is then worked through against a fixed rubric, in order, rather than skimmed for things that feel wrong. The flags that cost the most money are the boring ones: RF-09 agency ownership of content and accounts, RF-05 silent auto-renew, RF-13 no cancellation clause at all. Several flags fire on something missing, so the absence of a termination heading is a finding, not a blank. Each raised flag gets a severity of 1 to 3, a verbatim quote with its section, and a plain explanation of the cost to you.
Step 03
The monthly figure is compared against what a comparable scope sells for, and against what the stated deliverables would cost to produce honestly. This is where RF-07 inflated keyword volumes and RF-16 bulk AI content usually surface: a retainer justified by global search volume presented as local demand, or fifty articles a month that cannot be reconciled with the team described three pages earlier.
Step 04
Your live website is opened and examined: what it ranks for now, what is obviously broken, whether the proposed plan addresses any of it. This is what turns RF-08 from a hunch into evidence. When a proposal never mentions anything that exists on your actual site, and the site check finds obvious problems the plan ignores, the proposal was written before anyone looked.
Step 05
Fair, Overpriced, or Walk Away. The 0-100 risk score is built from the flags raised and their severity, so two audited proposals sit on the same scale. Stacking matters more than any single flag: a long term plus a silent renewal plus no exit clause is a trap regardless of how each one scores alone, and when that combination appears it is named explicitly.
Step 06
The last section is an email addressed to the agency, written for you to paste and send. It asks for the specific amendments that would make the agreement signable, in the order they matter, in language that is firm without being hostile. Where a flag has a known fair version, the script asks for that version by name rather than complaining in the abstract.
A PDF of roughly six to ten pages depending on how much the proposal contains, in six fixed sections. No dashboard, no login, no video walkthrough you have to schedule.
Page one. One of three verdicts, the score out of 100, and a short paragraph saying why. If you read nothing else, this is the part that answers the question you paid for.
The three findings that carry the most money or the most lost control, each with the quoted line, its location in the proposal, and what to do about it.
Every flag raised, with its ID, severity, the quoted evidence, and the fair version. Flags that were checked and not raised are listed too, so you can see the proposal was read in full.
What you are being asked to pay, what that scope typically costs, and what the total commitment is over the full contract term rather than per month.
What was observed on your live site, and whether the proposal reflects it.
The last page, and the one most clients use first. A ready-to-send email requesting the amendments.
Three business days, measured from your intake
The clock starts when the intake form is submitted, not when payment clears. Submitting on a Friday afternoon means delivery by Wednesday.
Missed deadline means a full refund
If the report is late, the $199 comes back and the report is still delivered. No claim form, no argument.
One human reads it
Tools assist with the first pass; every flag, quote and judgement in the delivered report has been checked by Andy before it is sent. The verdict is his opinion, signed.
Seven days of follow-up
Reply to the delivery email with questions about anything in the report and the answers are included.
Your proposal is deleted after 90 days
The file you upload is used for the audit and then removed. Anonymized benchmark data (price, term length, flags raised) is kept so the rubric keeps improving.
A flat $199. One proposal, read line by line, with a written verdict.