Paid PoC vs free pilot
A free pilot often lacks a business owner, scope, and acceptance criteria. A paid PoC creates the decision-ready proof needed for software, API, and AI workflow investment.
Decision criteria
Use a paid PoC when there is a business decision to make. Use a free demo only when the goal is early education and no sensitive data is involved.
- Budget owner
- Acceptance criteria
- Data access
- Next-step decision
Why free pilots drift
Free pilots often avoid the hard questions: who owns the decision, what data can be used, what happens after the demo, and which result is good enough to justify budget.
- No named decision owner
- Synthetic data instead of real workflow samples
- Vague success definition
- No handover or next-scope document
What a paid PoC should buy
A paid PoC should buy serious attention, not a large project. The scope should be narrow enough to finish and concrete enough to change a buying decision.
- Written scope and exclusions
- Access to realistic data or APIs
- Weekly demo with business owner
- Measured result or clear technical finding
Good paid PoC examples
The best examples are specific enough that the final demo can lead to a yes, no, or narrower next step.
- Natural-language search with editable filters
- Document extraction with human review
- Support email triage with audit logs
- API integration between SaaS tools and an internal dashboard
Métricas clave
- Paid: Best when budget decision matters - Use when the result must support approval, rejection, narrowing, or scale-up.
- Free: Best for early education - Use for vendor familiarization when no sensitive data or operational commitment is needed.
- Scope: Main control - A paid PoC should have exclusions and acceptance criteria before work starts.
- Demo: Decision moment - The demo should answer what to fund next, not simply show activity.
Preguntas frecuentes
- How much should a paid PoC include?
- Enough to prove one decision path: one workflow, one user group, one data path, one demo, and one written recommendation.
- Can a free pilot come before a paid PoC?
- Yes. A free pilot can help stakeholders learn the category. A paid PoC should start when the buyer wants real evidence with real constraints.
- What is a bad paid PoC?
- A paid PoC is weak when it has no acceptance criteria, no business owner, no data realism, and no decision after the demo.