How we review SaaS terms for these guides
Each post in our two guides answers one question about SaaS contracts, such as how much a vendor agrees to be liable for or how fast it must report a breach, with what the published terms of 41 business SaaS vendors actually say. This post explains where that material comes from and how a post is produced.
The vendors
The 41 vendors are the tools a US software company of about 120 people typically buys, one plan per vendor, and we review the terms that apply to that plan. Plan names are as the vendor's site gives them.
Messaging and meetings: Slack (Business+), Zoom Workplace (Business), Loom (Business).
Work management and docs: Notion (Business), Asana (Advanced), Atlassian Jira and Confluence Cloud (Standard), monday work management (Pro), Airtable (Team), Miro (Business).
CRM and sales: HubSpot Sales Hub and Marketing Hub (Professional), Salesforce Sales Cloud (Enterprise), Gong.
Customer support: Zendesk Suite (Growth), Intercom (Advanced).
Scheduling and automation: Calendly (Teams), Zapier (Team).
HR and payroll: Gusto (Plus), Rippling, BambooHR (Core).
Finance and expense: QuickBooks Online (Advanced), Brex, Expensify (Collect).
Marketing: Mailchimp (Standard), Typeform (Business), Canva (Teams), Jasper.
Engineering and design: GitHub (Team) with Copilot Business, Figma Design (Professional).
Storage and file sharing: Box (Business), Dropbox (Business).
Legal tools: DocuSign eSignature (Business Pro), Ironclad, PandaDoc (Business), Spellbook, Brightflag.
AI assistants: ChatGPT Business, Claude for Work (Team), Perplexity Enterprise Pro.
AI meeting notetakers: Otter.ai (Business), Fireflies.ai (Business).
Writing assistants: Grammarly (Business).
Which documents we read
For each vendor we start from what a customer agrees to at sign-up and follow every document those terms incorporate, directly or through another document. For most vendors that means the terms of service or master agreement, the data processing agreement, security and service level addenda, product-specific terms, acceptable use policies and the subprocessor list. Documents a vendor publishes but does not make part of the contract, such as a cookie notice or partner program terms, are left out. So are incorporated documents that only govern features a standard customer of that particular tool would not use; which those are depends on the tool, and each exclusion is recorded. We read the whole set, not a single page, because the clause that answers a question often sits in an addendum rather than the main agreement.
How a clause is analyzed
Each vendor's documents are run through TermTrax, our contract review software, against the position in our playbook for that clause. Every vendor is analyzed twice, independently. When the two runs disagree on the verdict, a separate judgement step reads both and picks one, and the disagreement is recorded. The result for each vendor is a verdict (the terms meet the position, partly meet it, are silent, or fall short), the clause that supports it and the document and section it came from. Every number in a post is a count of those verdicts, and every quotation is copied from the saved document.
How a post is written
The post is drafted with AI assistance from that analysis. AI does the reading across 41 vendors' findings, a volume where a person working alone misses things. The draft then goes through three separate editing passes: structure, a fact check in which every count, quotation, date and link is traced back to the saved documents, and wording. Where a post mentions a law or court decision, the statement is checked against the statute or the opinion itself and linked to it. The founder reviews every post before it is published. Guest articles by practicing lawyers are named as such on the post, with the author's title, firm and a link to their professional bio.
Dates
Vendors change their terms. Each post states when its vendors' documents were read. We re-check posts at intervals and revise them with new readings rather than replace them.
Scope
Our posts describe what vendors' published terms say and how they compare with the positions in our playbooks. They are reference material for the people who buy and manage software and for their advisers, not legal opinions on any particular contract.
Corrections
If a quotation, count or reading is wrong, tell us through the contact page and we will check it against the documents and correct the post.