We don't bill you to keep us around.
No monthly or annual fee. No engagement retainer to start a project. No advisory hours billed back at the end.
How Cardinal Gets Paid · Full Disclosure
Suppliers pay us. You don't. Here's the math.
No retainer. No project fee. No implementation fee. No hourly billing. The supplier you sign with pays us a residual commission — and that commission is built into the supplier's pricing whether you use an advisor or not. We disclose the supplier, rate, and projected commission value in the Decision Memo before signature.
The math.
When you sign a contract with a supplier sourced through The Cardinal Source, the supplier pays us a residual commission — calculated as a share of the monthly recurring contract value, for the duration of the contract. The specific terms are disclosed to you in the Decision Memo before signature.
This commission is structurally part of the supplier's pricing model. It is paid regardless of how you reached the supplier. If you go direct, the same commission flows to the supplier's internal sales team. If you use an independent advisor — us, or any other technology advisory firm — the commission flows to that advisor instead.
The net pricing to you is the same in both cases. What you get by working with us — an independent benchmark, a competitive RFP across qualified vendors, and contract negotiation — is added at no cost on top.
Going direct vs. using Cardinal.
Two routes to the same supplier economics. The flow on the left is what most buyers default into. The flow on the right is the one we run.
Option A · Default
Going direct
Buyer → Vendor rep → One vendor's recommendation
Commission and economic value stay inside the vendor's sales motion. The rep gets paid to close their own product. There is no competitive shortlist. There is no benchmark against peer pricing. The only voice in the room works for the vendor.
Option B · The Cardinal route
Using Cardinal
Buyer → Cardinal → Competitive vendor shortlist
The supplier pays Cardinal if the buyer signs. The same commission dollar that would have funded a captive sales rep instead funds an independent advisor running a competitive RFP, scoring the field against an industry-weighted rubric, and negotiating the contract on the buyer's side of the table.
Same structural supplier economics. More buyer-side leverage.
The trust anchor
We disclose the supplier, commission rate, and projected commission value in the Decision Memo before signature.
Before any contract is signed, the Decision Memo names the recommended supplier, the commission rate Cardinal will earn on that supplier's contract, and the projected total commission value over the contract term. In writing. On the page. Before signature.
The point is not to hide the commission. The point is to put it on the same page as the recommendation, so the buyer can verify that the scoring math holds up against the economics. If the math only works because of the commission, the buyer can see that. If the math holds independent of the commission — which is the standard the Method is built around — the buyer can see that too.
The supplier pool is published. The scoring rubric is published. The commission rate is in the memo. Three things to cross-check, all in writing, before you sign.
What we don't charge for.
We don't bill you to source a vendor.
No project-based fee for running the RFP, building the benchmark, scoring the vendors, or producing the decision memo. The deliverables are part of the sourcing engagement, not a separate line item.
We don't bill you for implementation oversight.
We oversee the supplier's professional services team or a vetted SI partner through go-live. That oversight is included in the sourcing engagement, not a separate consulting fee.
We don't bill you by the hour.
We're not a consulting firm. There is no time tracker. Walk away whenever — you owe us nothing.
The supplier pool we source through.
Our active supplier pool spans UCaaS, contact center, SD-WAN, SASE, managed security, connectivity, cloud, AI, and IoT. We source through the major US-channel technology distributors — the same infrastructure that the rest of the independent advisory channel operates on. The full pool is published openly.
See the supplier pool →What we produce.
Transparency is not only about how we get paid. It is also about what we deliver. Four named artifacts, one per Cardinal Method stage. Sample versions of all four are published openly so you know exactly what the engagement produces before you start.
Sourcing Brief
Defines the outcome, not the product. About six pages.
Benchmark Report
Where you're paying above peer median. About ten pages.
Vendor Scorecard
Vendors scored against your specific context. About eighteen pages.
Decision Memo
Board-ready recommendation, with supplier, commission rate, and projected commission value disclosed. About three pages.
The honest caveat.
Structurally, we can only recommend suppliers in our active pool. We work with hundreds of vendors — which covers the overwhelming majority of enterprise-grade suppliers in each category — but the list is not infinite.
There are edge cases. Some niche startups, some hyperlocal regional carriers, some highly specialized vendors are not in our roster. When the right answer for your specific use case is a vendor outside our pool, we tell you that directly. We would rather lose the engagement than recommend a worse vendor that pays us a commission.
This is the reason we publish the scoring rubric and the supplier pool openly, and disclose the commission inside the Decision Memo. If you can see the pool, the math, and the commission, you can decide for yourself whether our recommendations are honest.
Tier 1 · Self-serve
Contract Benchmark
Upload your current contract. We return a benchmark showing where you're paying above market. No call. No commitment.
10 min upload · 5 biz days
Benchmark my contract →Tier 2 · Named offer
Vendor Shortlist
45-minute scoping call. Written 3-vendor shortlist scored to your industry context.
~1 hour · Free · Written deliverable
Get a vendor shortlist →Tier 3 · Engagement
Sourcing Engagement
Full Cardinal Method. Intake to signed contract. Supplier-paid. Walk away whenever.
30–90 days · Defined milestones · Supplier-paid
Start engagement →