Vic Sol · Decision DeskEditable template · 10 min to use
The month-6 cost: three costs the demo never mentions
For whoever signs or renews an AI tool and wants to see the sixth month's invoice before approving the first one.
When to use it
A proposal arrived with a per-licence price and nothing else.
You are about to renew a tool and the invoice no longer looks like the one you started with.
Finance asked for "the total cost" and all you have is the list price.
The sheet
In month one you pay the licence and it looks cheap. By month six, lines appear that nobody budgeted. Fill both columns with your real volume. Every example number is illustrative.
Line
What it covers
Month 1
Month 6
Where the figure comes from
Licences
Users or seats under contract.
____
____
Vendor proposal.
Usage
If you pay by volume, what it costs once people really use it.
____
____
Real volume from the last quarter × rate.
Integration
Connecting it to sales, accounting or support. Almost never included.
____
____
Separate quote or IT hours.
Review time
Hours of the person who checks what the AI produces before it goes out.
____
____
The reviewer, not the vendor.
Training
Team hours spent learning and hours of whoever teaches.
____
____
Adoption calendar.
Data cleanup
Preparing the information so the tool can work with it.
____
____
Whoever handles the data today.
Exit cost
Exporting data, migrating and paying out the contract.
____
____
Contract clauses.
Total
____
____
Illustrative example: if the month-1 licence is worth 100, by month 6 usage may add 40, integration 30 and review 50. The total goes from 100 to 220 and the licence stops being the biggest share.
How to fill it in 10 minutes
Copy the licence price into the Month 1 column. It is the only figure the demo gave you.
Fill Usage with your real volume, not the trial's. If the tool works, people use it more, and if you pay per use, the invoice grows.
Ask in writing whether integration is included. If the answer takes a while, keep it as a separate line.
Ask whoever will review the outputs for an estimate of hours per week and multiply by their hourly cost.
Check the exit cost in the contract before signing, not when you want to leave.
The most common mistake: filling only Month 1 and projecting month 6 as "the same times six". Month 6 has more lines, not just more months.
The line that is almost always missing
Review time. Usage and integration eventually show up on some invoice; the hours of whoever checks what the AI produces never show up on any, which is why nobody budgets them. Without that line the tool looks cheaper than it is, and the reviewer ends up doing work nobody counted.
Vic Sol · Decision Desk · vicsol.org/resources/ · Free to use with attribution. This sheet structures a conversation; it is not legal, financial or audit advice.
Open the .docx in Word (or the .xlsx in Excel) or print it before the meeting.
Fill the fields with the team; leave the blanks visible, they are the discussion.
Close with one owner, one date and one next action. Nothing else.
Prompt
Generate this sheet for your case
Paste this prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini together with your proposal, process or policy. It reproduces the sheet with your data and flags what is missing.
Act as a finance director with experience in mid-sized companies who has reviewed many software proposals and distrusts any budget with a single line.
Context I am giving you:
- Company and area: [e.g. distribution company, 150 people, customer service team]
- AI tool and pricing model (per licence, per usage, mixed): [ ]
- Proposal price and what it includes according to the vendor: [ ]
- Real monthly volume we would process: [ ]
- Systems it would need to connect to: [ ]
- Who would review what the AI produces and their approximate hourly cost: [ ]
- Proposal or contract, if I have one: [paste text or write "none"]
What I need: build the month-1-to-month-6 total cost table with exactly these lines, in this order:
1. Licences.
2. Usage, calculated with my real volume, not the trial's.
3. Integration with my systems.
4. Review time: hours of the person who checks what the AI does.
5. Training.
6. Data cleanup.
7. Exit cost if it does not work.
8. Total for each column.
Output format: a table with the columns Line · Month 1 · Month 6 · Where the figure comes from · Assumed or verified, followed by three lines with the questions I should put to the vendor in writing. Maximum 350 words. No introduction.
Rules:
- Do not invent figures. If data is missing, write [DATA PENDING] and tell me how to get it.
- Flag every assumption as an assumption and every example number as "illustrative".
- Do not project month 6 as "month 1 times six": each line is calculated separately.
- 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:
Does the review-time line have hours and a cost, or was it left blank because "it depends"?
Was usage calculated with your real volume or with the demo's volume?
Did it separate verified from assumed on every line, or present everything as a firm figure?
Vic Sol