Service Evaluation

What you get back:

• service -- Full service details (name, category, pricing, features, URL).
• evaluation -- AI-generated ROI assessment including:
  • recommendation -- One of "buy", "skip", or "compare".
  • roiScore -- Score from 1 to 10 indicating projected return on investment.
  • reasoning -- Detailed analysis of why the service is or is not worth it.
• budgetImpact -- How the purchase affects your budget:
  • currentRemaining -- Budget before purchase.
  • afterPurchase -- Budget after purchase.
  • percentOfBudget -- What percentage of total allocation this represents.

Notes:

• The service name must match a known service in the catalog. If you get a "not found" error, use searchServices first to find the correct name.
• The evaluation is personalized to your agent role. A Marketing agent evaluating SEMrush gets different reasoning than a Dev agent evaluating it (if they could).

Rules

1. Minimum 2x ROI projection before recommending purchase. If the expected return does not at least double the cost, the purchase is not justified unless there is a compelling strategic reason documented in your reasoning.
2. Always compare at least 2 alternatives. A single evaluation tells you if a service is decent. Comparing two tells you which is better for your money. Run evaluateService on your top 2-3 candidates.
3. Factor in the full cost. The evaluation tool extracts the base price, but you must consider: per-user costs if scaling, annual commitment vs monthly flexibility, add-on features that you will inevitably need, and migration cost if you later switch.
4. Check the budget impact. If percentOfBudget is above 10% for a single purchase, provide extra justification. Large allocations to a single service deserve scrutiny.
5. Re-evaluate on renewal. Do not auto-renew without checking if: the service was actually used, the ROI materialized as projected, a better alternative has emerged, and the pricing has changed.
6. A "compare" recommendation means you need more data. Do not skip this. Browse the alternative, evaluate it, and make an informed choice.
7. A "skip" recommendation is a strong signal. If the tool says skip, you need a very good reason to override. Document it explicitly.

ROI Calculation Framework

When evaluating ROI, consider these dimensions based on your role:

Marketing Agent

• Revenue impact: Will this service increase conversions, reduce CAC, or improve ROAS?
• Time savings: Does it automate work you currently do manually?
• Competitive edge: Does it provide data or capabilities your competitors lack?
• Metric: Projected revenue gain or cost reduction divided by service cost.

Dev Agent

• Reliability improvement: Does this reduce downtime, incidents, or deployment failures?
• Developer velocity: Does it save engineering hours on ops, monitoring, or debugging?
• Scaling cost: How does pricing scale as your infrastructure grows?
• Metric: Hours saved multiplied by engineering cost per hour, plus incident reduction value.

HR Agent

• Cost-per-hire impact: Does this platform reduce the total cost of filling a position?
• Quality of hire: Does it attract higher-quality candidates than alternatives?
• Time-to-fill reduction: Faster hiring has direct business value.
• Metric: (Current cost-per-hire minus projected cost-per-hire) multiplied by expected hires.

Personal Agents

• Value per use: Cost divided by expected monthly uses. Is each use worth it?
• Replacement cost: What would you pay to get the same value another way?
• Enjoyment and quality of life: Not everything is purely financial. A $12/month service that genuinely improves daily life can have high ROI.

Example Flow

1. Evaluate top candidates
   → evaluateService { service: "SEMrush", purpose: "keyword research for Q2 campaign" }
   → Result: BUY, ROI score 8.5/10, budget impact 2.6%

   → evaluateService { service: "Ahrefs", purpose: "keyword research for Q2 campaign" }
   → Result: COMPARE, ROI score 7.8/10, budget impact 2.0%

2. Compare results
   → SEMrush: Higher ROI score, broader feature set, slightly more expensive
   → Ahrefs: Lower cost, strong backlink focus, narrower overall value
   → SEMrush wins on breadth of use for a marketing agent

3. Check budget impact
   → SEMrush at $129.95 = 2.6% of budget → acceptable
   → Remaining budget after purchase still supports planned campaigns

4. Decision: Proceed with SEMrush purchase
   → Move to x402-payment skill with full reasoning

Evaluation Checklist

Before moving from evaluation to payment, confirm:

• At least 2 services evaluated for the same purpose.
• ROI score meets the 2x minimum threshold (or exception is documented).
• Budget impact is understood and acceptable.
• Free tier was considered and found insufficient for the need.
• No existing tool in your stack already covers this functionality.
• Pricing tier selected is appropriate (not over-buying features you will not use).