{"id":1755,"slug":"rule-flag-vendor-incentive-on-cost-claims","title":"R6 — Flag the vendor incentive on every cost claim — AWS price-cut count, SaaS build-vs-buy ranges, agency portal estimates","kind":"rule","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["editorial-discipline","cloud-infrastructure-economics","bespoke-build-economics"],"reference_body":"**Rule:** Every cost-floor or cost-ceiling claim cited in a Candid article or client deck gets an **explicit source label** and, where the source has a commercial stake, an **explicit vendor-incentive flag**.\n\n**Why:** The dominant sources on both ends of this brief have incentives. AWS markets \"we cut prices N times\" ([[aws-100-price-cuts-vendor-framing-quarantined]]) because it sells cloud. SPP, Agency Handy, Kavara market portal cost ranges ([[custom-client-portal-build-cost-spp-2025]], [[custom-dashboard-cost-kavara-80-250k]]) because they sell alternatives. Honest editorial discipline names the source and the incentive — and lets the reader weigh it.\n\n**How to apply:**\n- Every published figure carries source attribution inline, not just in a footnote.\n- Vendor framing is named when used — \"AWS's own retrospective\" rather than \"industry consensus.\"\n- The dated primary figures (launch price, current published price) are preferred over vendor retrospectives.\n- See [[caveats-falling-cost-floor-vendor-incentive]] for the formal quarantine.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"aws-100-price-cuts-vendor-framing-quarantined","title":"AWS \"we've cut prices 100+ times since 2006\" framing — quarantined as vendor self-congratulation","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"custom-client-portal-build-cost-spp-2025","title":"SPP (2025): custom client portal $20k–$50k initial development + $10k–$25k/yr maintenance; Agency Handy $25k–$60k all-in over 6–12 months","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"custom-dashboard-cost-kavara-80-250k","title":"Custom dashboards/analytics apps: $80,000–$250,000 depending on real-time/data-source complexity (Kavara)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"caveats-falling-cost-floor-vendor-incentive","title":"Caveats: AWS vendor framing quarantined; build-vs-buy vendor cost pages flagged; DrPeering single-source; sysadmin wages needs-verification","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-three-drivers-decade-2004-2014-not-ai","title":"R1 — Anchor the falling-cost case on the decade 2004–2014 (infrastructure + parts + data); AI-assisted coding is NOT the spine","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-falling-cost-floor-real-web-functionality-smb-june-2026","title":"Research brief: the falling cost floor of \"real\" web functionality for SMBs (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-21T13:17:00.718Z","updated_at":"2026-06-21T13:17:00.718Z"}