The yardstick for AI tools.

How we test, score, and publish

Yardstick Research is an independent firm that publishes Buyer's Guides for B2B AI tools. We test the tools ourselves, score them on outcomes that matter, and publish the results — methodology in plain sight, so any buyer can check our work. Here's how that actually happens:

1. 01

   We evaluate every vendor in the cohort using public information and free-tier hands-on.

   For each guide, our researchers work through the cohort using a defensible mix of inputs: vendor documentation and pricing pages, free-tier or trial-seat hands-on where the vendor offers one, video walkthroughs, third-party reviews (G2, Capterra), published customer case studies, practitioner discussion on LinkedIn / Reddit / Pavilion, and recent funding and news coverage. Where we can sign up and exercise the product directly, we do — and grade the output it produces against a sample prospect. For the Q2 2026 cohort we are not paying for paid tiers, and we are not running a held-out cold-email campaign through every tool — both are cost-prohibitive at the cohort scale this guide covers. A held-out cold-email reply-rate test is the v2 add-on, once we have an opt-in panel and the budget and legal posture for compliant outreach.

   Every claim in a tear-sheet is labelled MEASURED (free-tier hands-on observation, or output graded against a sample prospect), ESTIMATED (cost-per-seat efficiency derived from the vendor's pricing page and feature limits), or CITED (vendor-published or third-party benchmark, with the source linked).

2. 02

   We score on outcomes buyers care about, with weights we publish.

   Vendor decks sell features. Buyers actually buy outcomes — meetings, pipeline, low cost-per-result. We weight seven dimensions: personalization quality 25%, deliverability infrastructure quality 20%, CRM integration depth 15%, cost-per-seat efficiency 15%, setup time 10%, UI heuristics 10%, data accuracy 5%. The weights are public so you can argue with them — and so vendors can't quietly negotiate them.

3. 03

   We publish. Vendors check facts. Affiliate links are disclosed.

   Every vendor receives their scored tear-sheet seven days before publication and can flag factual errors (wrong pricing tier, misquoted feature, integration listed as native that's actually via a third party). Rankings can't be appealed; only factual corrections are accepted. Where the guide links to a vendor's product, that link may earn us a commission — disclosed on every page where the link appears. Vendors do not pay for inclusion, placement, or ranking.