Once your front door is fixed,
the back office still has to work.
The free AI Secret Shopper snapshot scores how AI tools see your website — that is your CDI. The Alignment Review picks up where that ends: a 21-question diagnostic that scores how your CRM, accounting, ecommerce, and operations tools actually work together. Same 0–60 scale, same four readiness bands. Different problem space.
21 questions. 154 stack-specific overlay rules naming the tools you actually use (Clio, Wealthbox, Dentrix, ServiceTitan, Sage Intacct, NetSuite, and 32 more). 97 calibrations across industry, size, and industry-and-size. 14 compound risk findings (3 stack-aware). Drift monitoring. Compliance-aware framing built in for 10 regulatory regimes. Shipped. Buyable. Yours for $149 one-time.
AI is starting to help run small businesses, not just market them.
In May 2026, Anthropic shipped Claude for Small Business — an AI that connects directly to QuickBooks, HubSpot, PayPal, Canva, DocuSign, Google Workspace, and Microsoft 365 to handle payroll planning, month-end reconciliation, cash-position briefs, campaign asset generation, and audience segmentation. ChatGPT Apps and Microsoft Copilot are shipping similar workflows. The premise behind all of them: your business is connected enough, structured enough, and clean enough for AI tools to help with daily work.
Most SMBs are not ready. The Alignment Review is the diagnostic that tells you how close you are — before an AI tool tries to handle a workflow and gets it wrong because your CRM and your accounting disagree about who the customer is.
What you get today
The Alignment Review is the back-office complement to the free AI Secret Shopper snapshot. The snapshot scores your website (your CDI). The Alignment Review scores how the systems behind your website actually work together (your Alignment Score). Both run on the same 0–60 scale with the same four readiness bands (Starter / Builder / Operator / Leader).
Compliance moat: the engine produces findings with explicit regulatory references where applicable — HIPAA, IOLTA, SEC Rule 17a-4, FINRA 4511, SEC Marketing Rule, Schedule B + 501(c)(3), ITAR/EAR + US persons rule, Fair Housing, FERPA, PCI DSS. Not generic "compliance posture" language. Named rule, named consequence, named fix.
The six-phase model
The Alignment Review fits inside a larger six-phase arc — from passive discovery to active orchestration. Phases 1–3 are live today (that is the diagnostic the Alignment Review delivers). Phases 4–6 are the roadmap. Each phase builds on the last. You control how far and how fast.
Discover
Scan and map the visible business layer: website, CMS, ecommerce, analytics, SEO, schema, performance, forms, product catalog, navigation, conversion paths, integrations, tracking, and observable data structure. Shipped via the AI Secret Shopper snapshot (free) and the full CDI assessment.
Diagnose
Identify misalignment across the operating stack: CMS, ecommerce, CRM, accounting, warehouse management, inventory, shipping, and ERP source of truth. Shipped via the Alignment Review (21-question assessment). 154 stack-specific overlay rules detect mismatches across declared tools; 14 compound rules (3 stack-aware) flag multi-question patterns by industry and stack.
Recommend
Produce ranked fixes with business impact, system affected, root cause, data owner, implementation steps, risk level, and required human approval. Shipped: every Alignment Review finding includes time-to-deploy, named tools with pricing, 3–5 numbered steps, and a success metric. Sorted by impact (Critical / High / Medium / Low).
Generate
Step-by-step fix instructions by platform and role. "For Shopify admin: update metafield mapping X." "For QuickBooks admin: normalize item class Y." "For developer: update middleware transform rule Z." "For marketing: revise product collection page schema."
Orchestrate
Caidance becomes the remote agent: opens task tickets, drafts implementation specs, generates safe API payloads, monitors deltas post-fix, verifies changes, and maintains a full audit trail.
Govern
You decide what Caidance does automatically versus what requires your approval. Human-in-the-loop controls, permissions by system, rollback plans, change logs, and escalation paths. The autonomy boundary is a product feature, not a limitation.
What each layer understands — and what you get
| Layer | What Caidance Understands | What You Get |
|---|---|---|
| Website Intelligence | CMS, SEO, performance, schema, tracking, conversion paths | CDI score + AI Secret Shopper findings + conversion fixes |
| Data Structure | Products, categories, forms, events, metadata, taxonomies | Data map and inconsistency report |
| System Alignment | CRM, WMS, accounting, ecommerce, ERP source of truth | Alignment Score + source-of-truth gap analysis |
| Recommendation Engine | Business impact, urgency, dependencies, risk | Prioritized fix roadmap with owners |
| Implementation Copilot | Platform-specific instructions, role assignments, effort estimates | Step-by-step tasks for teams and vendors |
| Agentic Operations | Approved actions, monitoring, verification, audit trails | Caidance as remote business systems agent |
What misalignment actually looks like
These are real examples of the kind of misalignment the Alignment Review is built to detect and resolve. Every SMB operating more than three systems has some version of these problems — most just don’t know it until something breaks.
Product titles differ between WooCommerce and the accounting system — search engines index one name, invoices show another, customers get confused.
Inventory is shown from ecommerce stock counts, not the warehouse management system — oversells and backorders that erode trust.
Lead forms route to email but never reach the CRM lifecycle stage — leads fall through the cracks, attribution is impossible.
GA4 conversion events do not match actual revenue events in accounting — marketing reports fiction, finance reports reality, nobody agrees.
Accounting SKUs and ecommerce SKUs are not governed by the same master record — every reconciliation is manual.
CMS product categories do not reflect ERP product taxonomy — the website tells one story, fulfillment tells another.
Today, these problems are found by accident — usually when a customer complains or a report doesn’t add up. The Alignment Review finds them proactively, before they cost you revenue or trust.
The Alignment Score — CDI for the systems behind your website
You already know the CDI — Caidance’s 0–60 score that measures how well AI tools can find, trust, and recommend your business. The Alignment Score extends that same mechanic deeper: it measures how well your business systems work together.
Measures what AI tools see on your website. Discovery, clarity, trust, conversion paths. From the free AI Secret Shopper snapshot or the 5-minute industry assessment.
Measures how well the systems behind your website agree. Product data, customer data, order data, inventory, financial data, reporting data. From the $149 Alignment Review.
Same brand, same scoring DNA, deeper layer. The CDI gets you found. The Alignment Score keeps your business running from one source of truth — and tells you whether your stack is organized enough for AI tools (Claude for Small Business, ChatGPT Apps, Microsoft Copilot) to safely help with daily work.
Honest status
We tell you what is shipped, what is in progress, and what is on the roadmap. No vapor.
- AI Secret Shopper snapshot — free 60-second front-door diagnostic
- Full CDI assessment — 0–60 readiness index across 10 industries
- Alignment Review — $149 one-time, the back-office diagnostic on this page
- 154 stack-specific overlay rules + 14 compound risk findings + 97 calibrations across industry / size / industry-and-size
- 10 regulatory regimes in the compliance moat: HIPAA, IOLTA, SEC 17a-4, FINRA 4511, SEC Marketing Rule, Schedule B + 501(c)(3), ITAR/EAR, Fair Housing, FERPA, PCI DSS
- Drift monitoring — assessment freshness + per-finding lifecycle + stale-in-progress alerts
- $79 Toolkit — all 10 CDI fixes with progress tracking and 10 AI playbooks per industry
- $9.95/mo Caidance Pilot — all 10 fixes + playbooks, weekly health checks, score trends, and an advisor that remembers your business
- AI Advisor — 3-mode chatbot with industry intelligence, memory, and stack-aware reasoning when the Alignment Review is complete
- Published methodology — the 7-category rubric, fixed prompt set, and non-determinism posture
- Vertical-specific landing pages — AI Secret Shopper for RIAs (live), more verticals to follow
- Marketing attribution + dashboard — first-touch UTM capture is live; in-product dashboard build queued
- Platform-specific fix generation (Phase 4) — step-by-step instructions by system and role
- Agentic orchestration (Phase 5) — Caidance as the remote business systems agent
- Governance controls (Phase 6) — you decide what the agent can do automatically
- CRM, WMS, accounting, and ERP connectors (read-only first, then approved writes)
The end state
In a few years, Caidance will be so intelligent about your business — your systems, your data flows, your industry constraints, your history — that it operates as a trusted remote agent. The owner’s job shifts from chasing systems to approving outcomes.
We get there incrementally: earn trust at each phase, prove value before requesting deeper access, never move faster than the business owner is comfortable with. The governance layer isn’t an afterthought — it’s how the whole system earns the right to do more.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Alignment Review?
The Alignment Review is the back-office diagnostic that runs after the free AI Secret Shopper snapshot. It is a 21-question assessment scoring how well your CRM, accounting, ecommerce, and operations tools actually work together — with 154 stack-specific overlay rules that name the tools you use (Clio, Wealthbox, Dentrix, ServiceTitan, Sage Intacct, NetSuite, and 32 more), 14 compound risk findings, 97 calibrations across industry / size / industry-and-size, and compliance-aware framing for 10 regulatory regimes. $149 one-time.
How is this different from a generic SEO or AI-readiness tool?
Generic SEO tools score your website. The Alignment Review scores the systems behind it. It does not tell you what tools you could use — it tells you what is actually misaligned in your specific stack, what to fix first, and what to do about it. Diagnostic and operational, not educational.
Do I need the $79 Toolkit before I can buy the Alignment Review?
No. The Alignment Review is a standalone $149 one-time purchase. Most buyers come through the free AI Secret Shopper snapshot first to fix the front door (CDI), then take the Alignment Review to fix the back office (Alignment Score) — but either order works.
What systems does the Alignment Review cover?
The 21-question assessment covers your CMS, ecommerce platform, CRM (including 38 named vertical SaaS tools across legal, healthcare, financial services, home services, nonprofit, manufacturing, real estate, and ecommerce), accounting / billing, inventory or warehouse management where relevant, and operational tools. The engine knows the generic stack (HubSpot, Salesforce, QuickBooks, Xero, Shopify, WordPress) plus the vertical stacks that matter for regulated industries.
Will Caidance make changes to my systems automatically?
No. The Alignment Review is a diagnostic — it produces findings and step-by-step fix instructions you (or your team / vendors) execute. Active orchestration (phases 4–6 on the roadmap) is gated behind explicit per-action approval, with audit trail and rollback. Trust is earned incrementally, starting read-only.
How does this pair with the AI Secret Shopper snapshot?
The AI Secret Shopper is the free 60-second front-door diagnostic — it tests how AI tools see your website. The Alignment Review is the $149 back-office diagnostic — it tests how your systems behind the website work together. Same 0–60 scale, same four readiness bands (Starter / Builder / Operator / Leader). Two scores, one business. Both need to climb together.
Get your Alignment Score.
21 questions, 10 minutes. Stack-specific findings calibrated to your industry, declared tools, revenue, and team size. $149 one-time.
Related
- Methodology — the 7-category rubric, fixed prompt set, and how we handle non-determinism
- Caidance Discovery Index (CDI) — the methodology behind the 0–60 readiness score
- Sample results — CDI journey + sample Alignment Review findings
- The Caidance method — measure, fix, align, monitor — the four-step cycle
- Pricing — Free, $9.95/mo Caidance Pilot, $149 Alignment Review
- Industries — 10 verticals with calibrated playbooks and compliance framing
- Take the Alignment Assessment — the 21-question diagnostic itself