SaaS Business Health Diagnostic vs Vendor Evaluation

SaaS Business Health Diagnostic

By Dean Peters (PM)

Diagnose your SaaS business health, spot red flags, and prioritize what to fix first.

Vendor Evaluation

By Mohit Agarwal (PM Skills)

Compare suppliers with weighted scorecards and get a recommendation on who to buy from.

SaaS Business Health Diagnostic

• Assesses business health across four dimensions: growth & retention, unit economics, capital efficiency, and strategic position
• Identifies red flags and categorizes them by urgency (critical, high priority, medium priority)
• Applies stage-specific benchmarks so early-stage businesses aren't judged by scale-stage standards
• Delivers a comprehensive scorecard with clear, prioritized action items
• Connects metrics together to reveal systemic issues (e.g., strong growth masking poor unit economics)

Vendor Evaluation

• Creates a weighted scorecard with criteria like functional fit, pricing, implementation difficulty, and vendor stability
• Generates specific questions to ask each vendor about their product, pricing, support, and security
• Scores each vendor against your criteria and calculates a total weighted score
• Delivers a recommendation with the winner, runner-up, key risks, and contract terms to negotiate
• Includes reference check questions to ask existing customers of each vendor

Reach for SaaS Business Health Diagnostic when…

• You're preparing for a board meeting or investor update and need a complete business health snapshot
• You suspect problems but can't pinpoint whether it's growth, retention, economics, or burn
• You're doing a quarterly business review and want to prioritize improvement areas
• You're fundraising and need to know your numbers inside-out before pitching
• A new executive is joining and needs to understand where the business stands

Reach for Vendor Evaluation when…

• You're comparing software tools or service providers and need a systematic way to decide
• You're running an RFP process and need to score multiple vendors fairly
• You need to justify a vendor choice to your team or leadership with data
• You're evaluating suppliers and want to avoid missing important criteria or risks