What is a trust receipt?
A trust receipt is a concrete piece of evidence that reduces uncertainty before purchase. It can be a public pricing page, a sample output, a changelog, an export button, a security page, a refund policy, a model card, or a visible limitation.
For AI tools, receipts matter because the demo is often easier than the durable product. A model can generate a convincing mockup in seconds; building reliable workflows, safe permissions, good billing, and clear support takes much longer.
The six receipts to ask for
| Receipt | Buyer question | Good evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing receipt | What will this cost after the trial? | Plan limits, usage units, overage rules, cancellation terms, and whether API/model costs are included. |
| Product receipt | Does the product do a real job? | Annotated screenshots, sample projects, before/after examples, and a workflow that starts and ends outside the AI box. |
| Output receipt | Can I judge the result without becoming the product's QA team? | Confidence labels, sources, diffs, citations, logs, structured exports, or review queues. |
| Data receipt | What happens to the data I provide? | Retention policy, training policy, region notes, deletion controls, and a clear list of subprocessors or model providers. |
| Control receipt | Can I stop, undo, approve, or audit actions? | Permission scopes, approval steps, change history, admin controls, and activity logs. |
| Exit receipt | What happens if I leave? | Export formats, data deletion steps, billing cancellation, and whether generated work remains accessible. |
Receipts differ by category
A chat assistant, an image generator, a coding agent, and a business automation agent do not need the same evidence. The risk surface changes with what the tool can touch.
| Category | Most important receipt | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Chat assistant | Data and output receipts | You need to know what is retained and how to verify answers. |
| Coding assistant | Control and output receipts | The main risk is unreviewed code, wrong diffs, or hidden security changes. |
| Image generator | Pricing and rights receipts | You need to know cost per output, reuse rights, and export quality. |
| Agent workflow tool | Permission and audit receipts | The tool may read data, write records, contact people, deploy changes, or spend money. |
| API provider | Pricing and reliability receipts | Small per-call differences become large bills at scale; downtime can block your product. |
Red flags that deserve a pause
- No visible pricing: acceptable for enterprise sales, risky for individual or small-team tools.
- No sample outputs: especially bad for tools selling summaries, code, research, or analysis.
- No cancellation explanation: a cheap trial can become expensive if exit is hidden.
- No data policy near the product: a legal page buried in the footer is not enough for sensitive workflows.
- Only benchmark claims: benchmarks can be useful, but they rarely describe your workflow.
- Unlimited language with limited details: "autonomous", "agentic", and "enterprise-grade" should come with controls.
A small-team due diligence workflow
You do not need a procurement department to do useful diligence. For a tool under personal or small-team consideration, use this lightweight sequence:
- Read the pricing page first. If the pricing model is unclear, do not start a serious trial yet.
- Run one non-sensitive task. Use realistic input, but avoid private code, customer data, or confidential files.
- Evaluate the output as a cost. Count review time. If every output needs heavy repair, the tool is not saving work.
- Find the delete/export/cancel path. Do this before you depend on the tool.
- Write a one-paragraph internal note. State when to use it, when not to use it, and what data is allowed.
The receipt score
Give one point for each receipt you can find before paying: pricing, product, output, data, control, exit. A consumer tool with 4 or more is usually trial-ready. A team tool that can touch code, money, customers, or production should have 5 or 6 before serious use.