ResourcesCompare
LiteSurface vs. consultantsWhen to hire people instead.
Good consultants bring judgement, relationships, and primary research that no software replaces. LiteSurface is for the part of discovery that should be repeatable: desk research, structured concepts, consistent scoring, and a traceable record.
Start here
When the alternative is the better choiceReasons to stay with a consultant.
You need primary research
Customer interviews, field observation, and expert calls need people. LiteSurface does desk research and does not talk to your customers.
The domain is regulated
Healthcare, finance, and other regulated markets need specialists who can take responsibility. Scores are decision aids, not legal or regulatory advice.
You need introductions
Partnerships, distribution deals, and investor networks come from people with relationships, not from a pipeline.
You need change management
If the hard part is aligning an organisation, a facilitator who can run workshops is worth more than another report.
The differences
What changes, and only what you can checkFive differences, no scores for ourselves.
Each row is something you can verify: in the product, in the sample evaluation, or in the methodology.
| Topic | Consultant or agency | LiteSurface |
|---|---|---|
| Who scores | The consultant’s judgement, often excellent, usually one perspective per engagement. | Two independent model evaluators on every concept, synthesized by code, with disagreement reported. |
| Deal-breakers | Depends on the engagement and the people on it. | The same six gates on every evaluation, configured per project. |
| Evidence behind a score | Varies by engagement; sources may be cited in the report. | Every claim is stored with its source and locator, and scores show evidence coverage per criterion. |
| Ideas over time | A report at the end of the engagement. | A living project: re-evaluate after new evidence or experiment outcomes without overwriting earlier results. |
| After the decision | Recommendations; implementation planning is often a separate engagement. | A 26-section implementation handoff a coding agent can execute. |
Using both
Use LiteSurface to narrow the field and record the evidence, then bring the shortlist to a consultant for interviews and the calls software cannot make.
Questions
Fair questionswith straight answers.
No. It replaces repetitive desk research and inconsistent scoring. Judgement about your organisation, primary research, and accountability stay with people.
Yes. Projects are the unit of ownership and can be shared or transferred with everything in them, so a consultant can hand a client the full dataset.
Solo and Team are free during early access; live research and evaluation spend model credits on your own provider keys. We do not publish comparisons with consulting fees.
Try it on the ideayou are weighing right now.
Solo and Team are free during early access. Explore a sample project before you run your own.
- Solo and Team are free during early access
- Explore a sample project first
- Bring your own OpenAI and Anthropic keys