LLM Platform RFI & RFP Template
Choosing a foundation-model API is a multi-year bet on price, latency, safety, and lock-in. Ask the questions that make vendors prove it.
Available to paid subscribers as an add-on inside the portal. Purchase a single RFI or RFP — no bundle required.
What it de-risks
- ▸Compare model governance, evaluation, and safety controls on the same yardstick across providers.
- ▸Pin down latency, rate limits, and cost predictability before they hit production.
- ▸Test data-handling, training-data use, and regional residency against your compliance posture.
- ▸Expose switching costs and portability so a model deprecation does not strand you.
What it covers
27 sections, plus an LLM Platforms / Foundation Model APIs feature layer — covering the controls that decide an enterprise-AI purchase.
Universal enterprise sections
AI-specific sections
A few of the questions
A small sample. The full, scored question set is delivered in your portal after purchase.
State the full legal name, jurisdiction of incorporation, registered office address, and company registration number of the entity that will contract with {{issuer.org_name}}.
Why it matters · The contracting entity is the legal counterparty that bears liability and obligations. Buyers must verify the entity exists, is in good standing, and is the same entity making sales representations. Operating-entity / contracting-entity mismatches are a documented failure mode at this stage of diligence.
List any trade names, brand names, or 'doing business as' (DBA) designations your company uses in market that differ from the legal entity name.
Why it matters · Buyers often encounter vendors under marketing names that do not match the legal contracting entity. Surfacing these aliases prevents confusion during contracting and ensures references and litigation searches cover all relevant names.
Identify the operating entity (the entity that employs the product engineering and support staff) and confirm whether it is the same as the proposed contracting entity. If different, explain the relationship.
Why it matters · When the operating entity differs from the contracting entity, buyers can be left contracting with a thinly capitalised shell while the actual product is delivered by a related party. This pattern is one of the known failure modes this module exists to surface.
List all subsidiaries, affiliated entities, and group companies of the proposed contracting entity, indicating which will play a role in service delivery to {{issuer.org_name}}.
Why it matters · Group structure determines which legal entities touch buyer data, perform processing, and have rights and obligations under the contract. Buyers need this to scope data-protection agreements, sub-processor reviews, and export-control assessments.
FAQ
Does this cover open-weight as well as commercial APIs?
Yes — the questions apply to hosted commercial APIs and self-hosted open-weight platforms alike, with deployment and hosting questions to separate the two.
Should I use the RFI or the RFP?
Use the RFI to shortlist two or three LLM platforms quickly — it is a lighter questionnaire designed for early-stage vendor evaluation. Move to the RFP once you are ready for a full scored selection: it goes deeper on model lifecycle, evaluation methodology, SLA enforcement, and contractual portability. Both are available inside the portal through your Xither subscription.
How is this different from the general template?
It adds an LLM-platform-specific layer — model capabilities, evaluation methodology, and model lifecycle management — on top of the universal enterprise sections. Those topics require specialist questions a general AI template was not built to ask.
How is the questionnaire scored?
Each question ships with what a strong answer looks like and the red flags to watch for, plus a default weight you can tune — so you can score vendors side by side instead of comparing sales decks. The RFI (lighter shortlisting questionnaire) and RFP (full scored evaluation) each ship as a separate document inside the portal. Access either through your Xither subscription.
Build a defensible LLM Platform selection
Subscribers purchase the RFI ($299) or RFP ($699) inside the portal, then assemble and export it against their own project and shortlist.
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