DXP Negotiation Playbook

1. Vendor Question Bank

Ask these across AEM, Sitecore, Optimizely, Acquia, Liferay, and Kentico. 100+ questions in 10 categories — score each vendor 1–5 per answer.

Architecture & Deployment (15 Qs)

How are environments provisioned (auto-scaling, geo-redundancy)?
What is the deployment model — SaaS, PaaS, self-managed, hybrid?
How are upgrades delivered? Major version cadence and forced upgrades?
Can the platform run fully air-gapped or in a regulated region?
What is the rollback procedure for a failed release?
How are CI/CD pipelines integrated (APIs, CLI, webhooks)?
What monitoring and observability tooling is built in?
How are content and code released independently?
What is the disaster-recovery RTO/RPO by tier?
How are third-party extensions sandboxed or isolated?
What database and search infrastructure is required?
How are traffic spikes handled — bursting, queues, autoscaling SLAs?
Is there a public status page and incident history?
How are security patches delivered and tested?
What is the max multi-region deployment topology supported?

Headless & API Maturity (12 Qs)

Is GraphQL generally available? Versioning and deprecation policy?
What content models are exposed via REST/JSON:API?
Can all authoring features be driven via APIs (not just content)?
How are previews handled for headless front-ends?
What is the API rate limit and cost per request?
Are webhooks supported for content change events?
How is multi-site/multi-brand content routed via APIs?
Is there an SDK ecosystem for React/Vue/.NET/Java?
How is media delivered and transformed via API?
Can API keys be scoped per environment and team?
What is the cache invalidation story for CDNs?
Is there an API changelog and compatibility guarantee?

Authoring & Visual Editing (10 Qs)

How do authors edit live vs. staged content?
What is the workflow engine — approvals, roles, scheduling?
Can multiple authors edit the same page concurrently?
What versioning, compare, and rollback tools exist?
Is inline/visual editing available for headless sites?
How are reusable content fragments shared across pages?
What is the localization workflow — translation memory, LLM integration?
How do you onboard non-technical editors (training, UI simplicity)?
Are there per-role content permissions and audit logs?
How are A/B tested variants authored and managed?

Personalization & Experimentation (12 Qs)

What audiences/segments can be defined natively?
How are visitor profiles built — real-time vs. batch?
What experimentation types are supported (A/B, MVT, holdout)?
What is the statistical methodology and sample-size handling?
How are personalization rules versioned and tested?
What is the data-retention policy for profiles?
Can experiments run on headless/API-delivered pages?
How does AI-driven personalization learn — training data, control groups?
What integration exists with your CDP and analytics?
How are privacy consent states respected in targeting?
What is the latency impact of real-time decisioning?
How are experiment results exported for governance?

Search & Discovery (8 Qs)

What search engine backs the platform (Lucene, Solr, Azure AI, Elastic)?
Can search be federated across multiple content sources?
What faceting, synonyms, and relevance tuning exist?
How is search indexing latency and freshness handled?
Is search licensing separate from the core license?
Can search queries and analytics be exported?
How are permissions enforced in search results?
What is the query-per-second capacity by tier?

DAM & Media Management (10 Qs)

Is DAM included or a separate license/SKU?
What asset types and file-size limits are supported?
How are dynamic renditions generated (resize, crop, WebP/AVIF)?
What metadata, tagging, and AI auto-tagging exist?
How are assets governed — retention, expiry, rights management?
Can assets be used across multiple sites/brands centrally?
What is the upload throughput and storage cost model?
Is there an approval workflow for assets?
How are video assets transcoded and streamed?
Can external agencies upload without full platform access?

CDP & Marketing Integration (10 Qs)

Is a CDP included, or must we integrate a third party?
What identity resolution and stitching capabilities exist?
How are customer profiles unified across web, email, and offline?
What integrations ship native (CRM, MAP, ad platforms)?
How is event data collected — SDKs, server-side, streaming?
What are the data-ingestion limits and event pricing?
How is consent stored and synced across systems?
Can segments be activated to ad platforms in real time?
What data-export capabilities exist (warehouse sync, APIs)?
How does the CDP handle GDPR/CCPA deletion requests?

Security, Compliance & Governance (10 Qs)

What compliance certifications are current (SOC2, ISO 27001, HIPAA)?
Can we get a signed DPA and sub-processor list?
How is encryption handled at rest and in transit?
What SSO/SCIM support exists (SAML, OIDC, Okta, Entra)?
How are privileged access and admin roles controlled?
What audit logging and retention are available?
Where is data stored geographically? Data-residency options?
How are vulnerabilities disclosed and patched?
What penetration-testing cadence and reports exist?
How are content permissions enforced across sites and brands?

TCO & Vendor Viability (12 Qs)

What is the full license price by tier, and what is included vs. add-on?
What usage metrics drive price (page views, authors, APIs, events)?
How do true-up audits work and what triggers them?
What is the historical price increase on renewals?
Are support, training, and success services separate?
What is the vendor's R&D investment and roadmap confidence?
What is the vendor's revenue growth and profitability trend?
How many customers run your use case at your scale?
What is the average implementation cost by deployment type?
How many certified partners are available in our region?
What are the exit costs — data export, migration support, termination fees?
Can we get a 3-year price-lock and multi-year discount?

Exit Strategy & Lock-in (8 Qs)

What data-export formats and APIs exist for content and assets?
Can we take the full database and search indexes with us?
What is the contractual termination-for-convenience window?
Are customizations portable (open extension points vs. closed)?
What migration assistance does the vendor provide on exit?
How are code and content separated for portability?
What are the penalties or fees for early termination?
Is source code access available (open-core or escrow)?

2. RFP Scoring Worksheet

Weight categories to 100%, score each vendor 1–5, and rank. A printable matrix you can replicate in Excel.

Category	Weight %	Vendor A (1–5)	Vendor B (1–5)	Vendor C (1–5)	Notes
Architecture & Deployment
Headless & API Maturity
Authoring & Visual Editing
Personalization & Experimentation
Search & Discovery
DAM & Media Management
CDP & Marketing Integration
Security, Compliance & Governance
TCO & Vendor Viability
Exit Strategy & Lock-in
Weighted Total	100%

Weighted score = Weight % × Vendor score (1–5), summed across categories. Normalize weights so the total equals 100%.

3. Platform-Specific Discount Levers

What to push on, and what to watch for, by vendor. Ranges are typical negotiated outcomes, not vendor-published pricing.

Adobe Experience Manager

License tiers: Sites, Assets, Forms, Cloud Manager
Typical discount range: 15–25% (multi-year)
Leverage: Adobe Creative Cloud bundle, multi-brand, partner commitment
Watch: True-up audits, premium support upsell

Sitecore XM Cloud

Consumption-based pricing (page views + authors)
Typical discount: 10–20% (year 1)
Leverage: XP → XM Cloud migration, partner commitment
Watch: Overage fees, preview environment limits

Optimizely One

Suite pricing (CMS + Experiment + CDP + Commerce)
Typical discount: 20–30% (suite bundle)
Leverage: Experimentation volume, .NET team, partner
Watch: Feature flag limits, CDP event pricing

Acquia Cloud Platform

Tiered: Starter, Professional, Enterprise, Gov
Typical discount: 10–15% (multi-year)
Leverage: Drupal expertise, public sector, Site Factory
Watch: Environment limits, Edge/CDN overages

Liferay DXP

Per-server or per-user (SaaS)
Typical discount: 20–35% (source access included)
Leverage: Open source core, portal use case, partner
Watch: Support tier gaps, marketplace add-ons

Kentico Xperience

Editions: Xperience, Xperience by Kentico (SaaS)
Typical discount: 15–25% (new logo)
Leverage: .NET 8, marketing features, fast TTM
Watch: Contact limits, marketing automation caps

4. Contract Redline Library

Clauses to push on in every enterprise DXP contract.

License Metrics & True-Ups

Define the exact metric counted (page views, authors, API calls, contacts)
Cap true-up price increases at the original per-unit rate
Require 30-day grace before any overage billing
Audit rights limited to once per year, at vendor cost

SLAs, Credits & Escalation

Availability SLA with credits that scale with outage duration
Credits payable as cash, not service, above a threshold
Named escalation paths and response-time SLAs by severity
Credit caps that don't gut the remedy (min 25–30% of fees)

Data Ownership & Portability

Customer owns all content, data, and derived analytics
Export APIs and full data export on termination at no charge
No data retention fees after termination (reasonable window)
Deletion obligations with certification on request

Termination Rights

Termination for convenience at 90 days, no penalty
Termination for cause on uncured material breach (30 days)
Pro-rata refund of prepaid fees on early termination
Transition assistance period (90–180 days) at no extra fee

Price Caps & Renewal Protection

Renewal price increase capped (e.g., 3–5% annually)
Multi-year price lock with fixed step increases
Most-favored pricing if vendor lowers list prices
Auto-renewal requires 60-day written notice

Indemnification & Warranties

Vendor indemnifies IP infringement claims (uncapped or high cap)
Warranty: no material defects, year-round, with repair/refund remedy
Security incident notification within 24–48 hours
Liability cap carve-outs for indemnities, confidentiality, IP

5. Concession Tracker

Log every ask, counter, and give/get across up to 5 negotiation rounds.

Round	Our Ask	Their Response	Got	Gave	Monetary Impact ($)	Risk Flag
1
2
3
4
5

Risk flags: legal / technical / commercial. Capture the decision rationale for each concession — it becomes your audit trail for stakeholders.

6. Negotiation Runbook

Six phases from prep to signature.

Phase 1 — Internal Alignment

Secure budget sign-off, define must-haves vs. nice-to-haves, agree on decision authority and walk-away price before you engage vendors.

Phase 2 — RFP & Shortlist

Issue the RFP with weighted scoring to 3–4 vendors. Insist on written answers — verbal claims are not contract terms.

Phase 3 — Demos & PoCs

Run scripted demos against your top use cases, and a proof-of-concept with your data. Score everything.

Phase 4 — Leverage Map

Identify each vendor's pressure points: competitive fear, quota timing, renewal exposure, partner deals. Assign a negotiation lead.

Phase 5 — Multi-Vendor Negotiation

Run vendors concurrently. Never accept a first quote. Trade concessions in a logged tracker. Use the discount levers above.

Phase 6 — Contract & Signature

Apply the redline library, verify every verbal promise is written, get legal review, and confirm renewal terms before signing.