Paid Pilot

A short paid trial with a business customer to prove value before a full contract.

Also known as: paid pilot, paid POC, proof of concept

A paid pilot is a short, paid trial — weeks to a few months, bounded scope, defined success criteria — that proves value before a full contract. Payment distinguishes it from free trials: money committed means executive attention, real data access, and evaluation effort. Free pilots get polite neglect; paid ones get decisions.

agree:  scope + success metrics + timeline + price + conversion terms if successful
run:    deliver, measure jointly, review against criteria
decide:  convert to contract, extend once with reason, or kill and learn

Price it to cover costs plus seriousness — enough that walking away stings slightly, cheap enough to approve fast. And define conversion before starting: what metrics trigger the full deal, at what price, signed by whom.

The classic mistakes:

Free “pilots” (demos with homework). Unpaid trials with vague success criteria drift forever and convert rarely. No money, no commitment — call it evaluation, not pipeline.
Success criteria invented afterwards. Declaring victory on whatever moved invites disputes and discounts. Write criteria jointly upfront; both sides sign.
Piloting with the wrong buyer. Enthusiastic users without budget authority run lovely pilots that never convert. Confirm economic buyer sponsorship before starting.
Unlimited scope creep. Pilot scope grows weekly while price stays fixed. Change-control explicitly: new asks re-scope timeline and conversion terms.
No conversion path agreed. Successful pilot, then procurement starts from zero. Agree the full-contract shape (terms via MSA, price bands) at pilot signing.

Run pilots as sales stages, tracked in the pipeline with conversion rates. A pilot program converting reliably is a growth engine; one that never converts is consulting in disguise.