Tool Documents

The Twenty-Minute Check

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Everything in this section reduces to twelve questions. They take twenty minutes to send and the answers arrive in writing, dated, from somebody who wants your business. For a related operational perspective, Monitask also publishes a reference on how employees can tell if they are being monitored.

Reviewed August 9, 2026.

The twelve

Money

One. What is the total annual cost for our headcount on the tier that covers our requirements, including anything billed separately?

Two. At what point would we need the next tier, and what would it cost then?

For broader context, see Gartner Peer Insights.

Three. Can the price be increased at renewal, and is any increase capped?

Contract

Four. What is the non-renewal notice window, in days, and in what form must notice be given?

Five. Is there a termination right for convenience?

Data

Six. Where is your data processing agreement, and is it incorporated automatically?

Seven. Where is data hosted and processed, and which subprocessors are outside the EEA?

Eight. What notice do you give of subprocessor changes, and can we object?

Leaving

Nine. What exactly can we export, in what formats, self-service or by request?

Ten. What is not included in the standard export?

Eleven. What happens to our data after termination, and when is it deleted?

Support

Twelve. What are the response targets, who defines severity, and what is excluded?

How to send them

One email, to all shortlisted vendors, on the same day.

Numbered, so the answers can be compared line by line.

Before the trial, not after — the answers eliminate candidates and save you the two weeks.

And keep the replies. They are dated, quotable, and several of them belong in the agreement.

Reading the answers

Speed matters. A vendor answering twelve routine questions within two days has an organisation behind it. One taking three weeks has told you about support.

Completeness matters more. An answer skipping questions ten and eleven has skipped the two that cost most later.

And specificity most of all. "Standard formats" is not an answer to question nine. "CSV and JSON, self-service, all objects except attachment binaries" is.

What to do with them

Put the important ones in the agreement. Export scope and format, the renewal cap, the subprocessor notice term. A vendor who answered clearly has no reason to refuse to write it down, and the request costs nothing.

File the rest with the contract, where the person handling the renewal in three years will find them.

Why twelve and not forty

Because forty does not get sent.

This list is the smallest set that covers the failures that are expensive and invisible — the ones a trial cannot reveal. Everything else is either checkable yourself in ten minutes or discoverable during use.

Twenty minutes, once, before signature. It is the highest-return twenty minutes in a software purchase and almost nobody spends them.

The short version