Buying an SPM platform is one of the most expensive decisions a sales ops team will make. License fees, implementation costs, and the organizational disruption of migrating your comp process add up to a six or seven-figure investment. And yet most evaluation processes are driven by vendor demos, not by rigorous requirements testing.
This checklist covers 40 questions across five categories. They are designed to surface the gaps, limitations, and hidden costs that vendor sales teams are trained to gloss over. Use it during your evaluation. Bring it to vendor demos. Share it with your buying committee.
Check off items as you get satisfactory answers, flag items that need follow-up, and mark items not applicable to your situation. Your progress is tracked automatically and you can export the completed checklist as a PDF.
Falcon Incentives does not sell an SPM platform. We have implemented and configured Optymyze directly, and we have worked alongside deployments of other platforms. This checklist is vendor-neutral. If the right answer for your company is to buy a platform, this list helps you buy the right one.
ℹ️ How this tool works
The question it answers: "Before I sign a 3-year, six-figure SPM platform contract, what are the specific questions I should ask vendors — and more importantly, what's the practitioner reasoning behind each one so I know what a good answer sounds like?"
How to use it
- 45 questions grouped into 9 categories (Data & Integration, Calculation Engine, Reporting, Governance, Implementation, Security, Pricing, Support, Exit).
- Each question comes with a "why this matters" note — the practitioner context for what a good/bad answer looks like.
- Check off questions as you get solid answers. Leave unchecked if the vendor dodged or gave a weak response.
- Export to PDF to share with your procurement, legal, or exec sponsor.
What the output shows
- Progress bar per category + overall
- Total questions answered / remaining
- Downloadable PDF of the full checklist with your annotations
Constraints
- Checklist is vendor-neutral by design — Falcon Incentives does not sell an SPM platform.
- Don't skip categories you assume are "table stakes" — security, data export, and mid-period-change handling are where most post-signing disasters happen.
Benchmarks, ranges, and default values in this tool reflect Falcon's practitioner experience across consulting engagements. They are directional starting points, not substitutes for market survey data. For binding compensation decisions, validate key figures against Radford, Mercer, Carta, or WorldatWork survey data for your specific geography, industry, and company stage.
Need help evaluating?
We have been through SPM evaluations from the buyer side. We can help you define requirements, run a structured evaluation, and negotiate the right deal.
Talk to us