Contract Negotiation Checklist

Fork this template on Google Docs

Negotiating contracts is an important part of managing costs, but it’s also something that you only do infrequently. Particularly in an earlier stage company, you might only negotiate one large contract a year. It’s quite hard to get better at something that you do so infrequently, but using a checklist is one way to be consistent in your approach, and to ensure learnings from one negotiation carry over into the next.

Contract Negotiation Checklist

There’s no perfect checklist: you should customize the checklist for your company based on your process, preferences and the experience level of those who are involved. If this feels too heavy, then by all means remove some steps.

How to Use

1. Fork this template on Google Docs
2. Follow the template’s checklist
3. Link your template into an internal repository of all negotiations so folks can find it the next time you’re negotiating this or related contracts
4. Now you’re done!

Tips

• Negotiating contracts is a learned skill, and you’re probably not going to be good at it for the first few. That’s ok! Find someone else with more experience to partner with on your first few, even if it’s just asking a more experienced friend at another company to brainstorm with you through the process
• Whenever possible, negotiate knowing how much other companies are paying the vendor you’re talking to. This creates a clear price ceiling to negotiate towards
• If the vendor hasn’t hit their quota and is approaching their financial year or quarter, you can almost always make significant progress on terms if you’re willing to move quickly
• Everyone should know their role in each negotiation. Sometimes your role is being the difficult, inflexible person! Sometimes your role is being the person who thinks they’re the final decider but is infact mistaken when your manager “take overs” later “much to your chagrin”
• Not all contracts are equal. Sometimes the absolute number of dollars isn’t high enough to follow a time consuming process. On the other hand, sometimes the numbers are genuinely massive and are worth pulling in even your most senior leadership to get the best possible deal