Light evidence (grade D: anecdotal)Template built from official help pages. No small business has reported a result with this method.

List the Auto-Renewals and Exit Fees in a Vendor Contract With AI Before You Sign

Upload a vendor contract or lease PDF to Claude or ChatGPT and get a table of auto-renewal, price-escalation, termination and personal-guarantee clauses with section numbers, to take to your attorney or the vendor. Not legal advice.

Get the prompt

FinanceAdded Oct 18, 2026Source: support.claude.com

What it takes

Cost: Free planClaude: Free plan. Pro is $20 a month billed monthly ($17 a month billed yearly), and Max starts at $100 a month. Team seats are $25 a month billed monthly.Price checked Oct 24, 2026 on claude.com. Prices change; check before you buy.
Setup time: Under an hourOur estimate from the source, for one business.
Skill needed: No codeApps and settings only.

Explain it simply

Owners often find the auto-renewal or early-exit fee only after signing. Before you sign, upload the draft to an AI chat app and ask for every clause that affects cost or flexibility in plain English, with questions to ask. A lawyer still makes the call.

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What was done

This is a template built from the apps' help pages, not a business's story. Redact bank details and signatures, upload the draft contract and run the prompt. Send the flagged questions to the vendor or your attorney.

How it went

No business result is claimed. Claude's help center says chat uploads accept PDFs of up to 1,000 pages and analyze charts and images only in PDFs of 100 pages or fewer.

One person on X used a similar multi-chat check on a residential lease; that is personal, not a business result.
On free consumer plans, check each app's data settings before uploading confidential contracts.

Prompt

PromptWritten by our editors from the source

Context: You are an owner about to sign a vendor agreement, SaaS contract, equipment lease or commercial lease. Run it on the draft before signing or before your attorney call.

Act as a contract risk reviewer helping a small business owner prepare questions. This is not legal advice; I will confirm anything important with an attorney.
I uploaded a [CONTRACT_TYPE] from [COUNTERPARTY] for [BUSINESS_NAME] in [STATE_OR_COUNTRY].

1. Build a table of every clause that affects cost or flexibility: Section # | Exact quote | Plain-English meaning | Risk (High/Med/Low) | Question to ask.
   Check specifically for:
   - Auto-renewal / evergreen terms and the cancellation notice window (give the exact deadline math if the start date is [START_DATE])
   - Price escalators (fixed %, CPI, "at our discretion" fee changes)
   - Early termination fees, liquidated damages, equipment return charges
   - Personal guarantees
   - Exclusivity, minimum volumes, assignment if I sell the business
2. For the [NUMBER] highest-risk clauses, suggest softer alternative wording I could propose, labeled "Suggested edit — confirm with attorney".
3. List anything referenced but not attached (schedules, exhibits, online terms) under "Missing documents".
4. Quote exactly. If a clause is ambiguous, say so rather than interpreting it.

Our template, cleaned from an outside draft and checked against the official help pages. Replace the [brackets]; check every number before you act on it.

Business fit

Who this helps, and how:

Cafés, salons and gyms: check a POS processing, linen or equipment agreement for auto-renewal before signing.
Local & service
SaaS buyers: find the price-increase and notice-period clauses in a software contract.
Solo founders

Similar tools

Other tools for this job, and how they differ. Chosen by our editors, never paid for.

Gemini
Also reads uploaded PDFs; check its data settings before uploading contracts.
Gemini Notebook (NotebookLM)
Load the contract as a source and ask questions; answers point back to the clause.

“Light evidence” (grade D) means: A brief, early or in-progress claim. Treat it as an idea to test, not proof. How we grade. Spotted a mistake? Suggest a correction.