Before assigning a point, write a one-sentence outcome: “We need a partner to originate and negotiate non-exclusive retrieval licences for this specified archive,” or “We need secure delivery for customers we already have.” Those are different procurement problems.
| Service | Outcome to test | Evidence that would answer the question | Claim that is insufficient on its own |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agency or broker | Relevant introductions and negotiated business | Comparable mandates, permissioned references, transaction and remittance records | “We know the major labs” |
| Marketplace/distributor | Suitable discovery, contracting and delivery | Matching buyer enquiries, onboarding terms, delivery demonstration and reports | Number of listings |
| Access/metering platform | Controlled access and reproducible usage billing | Test logs, configuration, charge definitions and reconciliation | Total bot traffic |
| Preparation provider | Agreed transformations at acceptable quality and cost | Pilot output, acceptance tests, task-level scope and change control | Generic annotation capacity |
| Legal adviser | Specific rights and contract advice | Relevant scope, responsible qualified advisers and defined work product | An industry article or conference appearance |
AWS documents that providers determine the legal terms and usage rights of their data offers in the DSA. Cloudflare documents Pay Per Crawl as a mechanism for charging crawler access. These examples support asking exactly which layer a service supplies; they do not rank either provider.
Use the same baseline weights for partners offering the same outcome. For a pure preparation or legal procurement, create a separate specialist rubric before opening proposals; do not reward a supplier for originating demand it was never engaged to originate. If a multidisciplinary plan is assessed here, assign the relevant responsibility to a named firm or internal owner.