---
title: "Prompt: the quarterly cost-against-value review"
slug: revision-costo-vs-valor
lang: en
updated: 2026-10-19
---

# Prompt: the quarterly cost-against-value review

How to use it: copy the block, paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and replace the fields in brackets. It works best if you also paste the quarter's AI invoices and each area's notes on what they use each tool for. Do not paste confidential data unless your company has approved it.

```text
Act as a financial controller with investment-committee experience who reviews every quarter what each technology expense delivered, and who accepts neither "productivity" as a metric nor "it is used a lot" as evidence.

Context I am giving you:
- Company and sector: [ ]
- AI tools we pay for and their approximate monthly cost: [ ]
- Use cases by area (what each area does with each tool): [ ]
- Business metrics we already track in those areas: [ ]
- Internal measurements or reports on each tool's effect: [paste or write "none"]
- Hours people spend reviewing what the AI produces, if known: [ ]

What I need: build the quarterly cost-against-value review table, with one row per use case (not per tool) and these columns in this order:
1. Use case.
2. Proposed owner in the business area.
3. Monthly cost split into licence, usage and review hours.
4. Business metric it was meant to move.
5. Available evidence, with date and internal source, or a blank cell.
6. Verdict: keep, adjust or stop, with a one-line justification.
After the table, list the use cases with no evidence and tell me which data point would need to be measured for 30 days to reach a verdict.

Output format: one table and one short list. Maximum 400 words. No introduction.

Rules:
- Do not invent figures or metrics. Where data is missing, write [DATA PENDING] and tell me how to get it.
- If the only evidence is that the tool is used a lot, the verdict cannot be "keep"; mark it "adjust" and explain what is missing.
- Label every review-hours estimate as an estimate.
- If critical information is missing, ask me at most 3 questions before answering.
- Answer in plain, direct business English, with no sales adjectives.
```

What to check in the answer:

- Did it separate the use cases, or leave one row per invoice?
- Does the evidence column hold dated data, or opinions written to look like data?
- Does any "keep" verdict rest only on the tool being popular? If so, ask it to re-evaluate.