Paste or upload the statement of work before you sign it. The Scope prices the phase in per cent of your company, hunts the text for the decisions nobody closed, and tests every deliverable for evidence. Then it gives you a verdict: Build, Amend, or Can It. Two minutes, no sign-up.
The Scope is a free build-contract auditor you run in your browser. It does the three checks from The Read N°61 in one pass: the arithmetic that converts the invoice into equity, the hunt for "both", "for now", "TBD" and every other unclosed decision, and the O and E test that asks whether the deliverables are outputs you will own or evidence a user will have generated. The tool proposes, you decide: every automated pass is editable. It works on whatever the supplier sent you: a formal SOW, a proposal PDF, a quote, or the email thread. Nothing you paste or upload leaves your device, which matters when the document is a live commercial contract. These are the basic checks, and they catch the expensive mistakes. When the contract is big enough to deserve a human, send us the statement of work and we'll review it properly: the offer is at the bottom of your results.
1The numbersThe phase, priced honestly
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The build phase you are about to sign. One total quote, no phases? Use that. Type 180k or 1.2m if quicker.
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The round this money comes from, closed or planned.
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Not priced yet? Leave blank and we'll show a typical range instead.
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What the business actually holds today.
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Optional. Burn shows the runway this phase removes; profit shows the months of earnings it takes to pay back.
Enter the numbers and the phase gets priced in the unit that does not lie: what it really costs the company.
2The scopePaste it or upload it
Analysed in your browser. The document never leaves this page.
3Unclosed decisionsThe "both" hunt
Every both, for now, TBD and we'll decide later is a decision someone deferred. Mark each one closed only if it has a written answer today. Hard deferrals (solid tags) carry full weight in the score; soft qualifiers like optional and subject to (outlined tags) carry half, because some of them are just how contracts talk. An open decision upstream becomes a change request downstream, and the invoice prices the consequence, never the cause.
4The O and E testOutputs vs evidence
O is an output: a thing that will exist because you paid for it. E is evidence: a thing a real user will have done that you could show an investor. "Onboarding flow" is an O. "Ten target users complete onboarding unaided" is an E. The suggestions are a starting point; correct them, then count the E's.
5The two questionsOwnership
By the end of this phase, what will a real user have done that they could not do before? Is that written in the scope, as a deliverable?
Who on your side owns the decisions this phase depends on? A named person with the time and authority to close them, not the supplier.
The audit, turned into the email. These are the asks, phrased so you can send them as they are. And to be clear: none of this is a complaint about your build partner. A good partner welcomes closed decisions and evidence criteria, because they make the job easier. This list is how you buy accountability, not how you start a fight. And when the revised scope comes back, run it through here again: the score tells you whether the amendments landed.
Copied
How to read it: the score weighs evidence heaviest (40 points), then open decisions (30), the phase's cost weight (20) and ownership (10). The cost weight follows your funding: raised money is scored in per cent of the company, bootstrapped money in per cent of the cash you hold, and if you are raising but the round is not priced yet, the audit scores conservatively against the top of a typical UK pre-seed range. Open decisions are weighted: hard deferrals like "both" and "TBD" cost full points, soft qualifiers like "optional" and "subject to" cost half, because some of them are just how contracts talk. Two gates no arithmetic can override: a scope with no E on the page can never score better than Amend, and no E plus a heavy load of open decisions is an automatic Can It. Build means sign it: evidence is on the page, the decisions are closed, the per cent is defensible. Amend means the scope is fixable before signature: close the open decisions, convert at least one deliverable to evidence, or renegotiate the phase size. Can It means do not sign this version: you would be selling equity for a list of outputs with the expensive questions still open. The argument in full is in N°61, what your build actually cost you, and the per cent mechanics are in The Round. One more honest line: this is a product audit, not legal advice. Have a lawyer read the contract terms; have this read what the contract builds.
That was the basic check. Want the full review?
The Scope catches what a text scan can catch. A full review is a senior product operator reading the actual document: the commercials, the phase sequencing, the acceptance criteria, what is missing entirely, and the specific amendments to ask for before you sign. Your scope text is already filled in below, so one click sends everything we need to start. If the original file matters (tables, diagrams, tracked changes), attach it when we reply, or send it to hello@productpieces.io.