Disqovr vs a spreadsheet
The short answer
Most software evaluations are still run in a spreadsheet and a shared inbox, and for a small, single-team decision that is a perfectly rational choice. It stops working when several teams have to agree, when vendors answer in free text nobody can compare, and when someone asks six months later how the decision was reached. Disqovr keeps the structure of the spreadsheet and adds the parts a spreadsheet cannot do: a vendor portal, independent scoring, and an audit trail.
What Disqovr does
The same structure, plus vendor responses, independent scoring and a record of how you decided.
What a spreadsheet does
A requirements grid, an email thread, and somebody keeping the master copy.
Disqovr vs a spreadsheet, side by side
| Disqovr | a spreadsheet | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup time | Minutes — the six phases and a capability library are already there. | Hours to days, and rebuilt from scratch for the next evaluation. |
| Cost | A flat monthly subscription for the whole workspace, billed monthly or annually — never per user. Each tier includes a set number of active projects; every tier and its price is on our pricing page, and you can start a 14-day free trial with no card and no sales call. A tier priced “Custom” is quoted on a call. | Free, apart from the time it takes. |
| Gathering requirements | A shareable survey collects importance and current-satisfaction ratings from everyone who will use the system, then auto-prioritises them. | Whatever the person building the sheet thought of, plus whoever shouted loudest. |
| Getting vendor answers | Each vendor completes a structured capability grid in a portal branded as yours. No account needed. Answers arrive comparable. | An emailed workbook comes back in a different shape from each vendor, if it comes back at all. |
| Scoring demos | Each attendee scores independently before discussion; variance analysis shows where the team is split. | A conversation after the demo, anchored on whoever spoke first. |
| End-user testing | Real users score the shortlist against real tasks; results aggregate by role, team or department. | Rarely happens, and when it does it is anecdotes. |
| The audit trail | Every score traceable to the person and the moment it was given, exportable. | Version 7 of the workbook, and an inbox. |
| Six months later | A post-launch survey generated from the original requirements asks whether the winner delivered. | The file is on someone’s laptop, and they have left. |
When a spreadsheet is the better choice
- One person is deciding, for one team, and nobody will ask how.
- You are comparing two options on three criteria — that is a spreadsheet, and it should stay one.
- There is no budget at all and the decision genuinely is low-stakes.
When Disqovr is the better choice
- More than one team has to agree, and they currently disagree in email.
- You want vendors answering the same questions in the same structure.
- Somebody will eventually ask why you chose this, and you want a better answer than "it felt right".
Ask both vendors these
We will not tell you what another product cannot do. These are the questions that actually separate them — put them to us and to a spreadsheet, and compare the answers.
- 1Who owns the master copy, and what happens when they are on leave?
- 2How would we prove to a losing supplier that we treated them fairly?
- 3How much of this evaluation could we reuse for the next one?
Common questions
- Why not just use a spreadsheet for software selection?
- For a small, single-team decision you should. Spreadsheets fail on three specific things: vendors return answers in incompatible shapes so nothing is comparable, scoring happens as a group conversation anchored on the first opinion, and there is no record afterwards of who decided what. Those are the three things Disqovr replaces.
- Can I import my existing requirements spreadsheet?
- Yes. Requirements and questionnaire content can be imported from a spreadsheet, with a mapping step and a validation preview before anything is created, so a half-built evaluation is not thrown away.
- Can I get my data back out?
- Yes. Responses, scores and the audit trail export from the workspace, and the decision record exports as a document you can circulate.
Other comparisons
See it on your own evaluation
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