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How is Heartwood different from Gartner?
Gartner sells research subscriptions written for buyers comparing vendors against generic criteria. Heartwood gives you an AI Decision Brief grounded in how a former CIO or CTO at your size and in your industry would approach the call. Instead of a Magic Quadrant, you get a specific recommendation on your specific decision. Starts at $0 for the first brief.
How is it different from hiring a fractional CIO?
A fractional CIO typically costs $5,000 to $20,000 a month and requires you to fit their schedule. Heartwood gives you the same structured thinking on demand, as a written Decision Brief, priced per brief or by subscription. Use it for the three decisions a year that actually matter instead of paying a retainer all year.
Are M. Reyes, S. Laurent, and A. Kim real people?
They are synthetic advisor profiles, not specific individuals. Each persona was modeled on the actual decision-making frameworks, judgment calls, and recurring failure patterns of mid-market CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs. We made this choice deliberately. A real CIO advisor on call for every brief would either be impossible to deliver consistently or priced out of reach for most mid-market companies. The reasoning patterns are real. The names are stand-ins for a methodology.
Who writes the Decision Briefs?
Each brief is generated by an AI panel trained on the methodologies of mid-market CIOs, CTOs, and CISOs. The output is grounded in how seasoned operators think about the tradeoffs in your situation. Deep Research Briefs add a quality-review pass before delivery.
Is the advice really vendor-neutral?
Yes. Heartwood takes no referral fees, reseller commissions, or sponsored content from vendors. Our revenue comes only from customer subscriptions and per-brief purchases. If a brief recommends NetSuite over SAP, it's because of your revenue, complexity, and growth trajectory, not because a vendor paid us.
How long does a Decision Brief take?
A standard Decision Brief generates in about 90 seconds after intake. A Deep Research Brief, which includes vendor pricing lookups, current market data, and advisor review, is delivered to your email within 10 to 15 minutes as a PDF.
How much does it cost?
The first Decision Brief is free. Heartwood Pro is $99 a month and includes unlimited standard briefs plus 2 Deep Research credits each month. A standalone Deep Research Brief, without a subscription, is $99 and includes live vendor research, cost modeling, and a PDF suitable for your board.
What size company is Heartwood for?
Heartwood is built for mid-market companies: roughly 50 to 2,000 employees, or $10M to $300M in revenue. Below that, the advice tends to be overkill. Above it, you usually need more than a written brief. If you're unsure, start with a free brief and we'll tell you if we're the wrong fit.
What if my industry isn't one of your specialists?
The core panel (infrastructure, growth CTO, and risk) covers the decisions every mid-market company faces. If your industry isn't in our specialist list (healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, SaaS, professional services, retail, nonprofit, government), you'll still get a brief grounded in the cross-industry patterns that apply to your situation.
How do you protect our data?
Your company profile and question text are stored in Supabase (SOC 2 Type II). We anonymize questions and briefs at ingest: they're never stored in the same table as your user ID. We don't share data with vendors, sell it, or use it to train external models. See our Privacy Policy for the full picture.
Can we get a brief on a specific vendor evaluation?
Yes. That's the most common use case. Submit the decision you're making (e.g. "Do we renew Workday or move to Rippling?") and the brief will cover the current vendor options, cost modeling, risk factors, and an explicit recommendation. Deep Research Briefs include current pricing pulled from live sources.
Still deciding? Read a real example.
A Decision Brief on which ERP to pick at 200 employees.
See the example brief