Consulting is reasoning written down. A proposal frames a client's problem, a statement of work turns it into a plan, the engagement inbox records every hypothesis tested and dropped, and the final deck argues for one answer. Behind all of that sits the firm's own method: the frameworks, interview guides and templates that partners teach every new analyst.
Buyers describe wanting exactly this kind of record. micro1 names consulting and professional services, and lists internal docs, SOPs, templates, knowledge bases and project histories. Mercor and Polyshares both name professional services.
The catch is ownership. Much of what a firm writes is about a client, and some of it may belong to the client. So the useful question for a firm is not only what its archive is worth, but which part of it is clearly the firm's own. This page separates the two, names the buyers that take firms your size, and lists what to ask before any client material leaves the building.
Worth
What a firm's data may be worth
Pre-set for a typical firm: 45 staff and 10 years of records. No buyer publishes pricing by industry, so industry does not move the band. Our estimate, not a buyer quote.
Buyers
Which buyers want this data
Each reason is the buyer's own published statement about the tools, data or industries it takes, matched to how management consulting firms work.
Featured partners
micro1
Names consulting and professional services, and lists templates, knowledge bases, internal docs and project histories.1,12
- $100K to $2M+, micro1 says9
Watch out for: Says it removes personal details only "when relevant", so ask exactly how.13
Polyshares
Names professional services and buys email, Drive, Slack and design files, and says it excludes data held on behalf of clients.7,14,15
- $100K to $2M+, Polyshares says10
- None, Polyshares says16
- An offer in 1 to 2 weeks, then paid in 30 to 60 days17
Watch out for: Exclusive by default, and every deal it lists is exclusive with no end date.18,19
Everyone else we reviewed
By score, with full reviews. We have no referral agreement with these companies, so we do not link out to them.
Buyer demand
How buyers' own tools rate management consulting firms
No buyer publishes a price list by industry. These are settings inside buyers' and brokers' own estimators and intake forms, read from their public pages on 2026-10-14. They show how each company sorts industries, not what any firm was paid. The category shown is the one a firm would most likely pick; that match is ours.
| Company | Its category | How it rates the industry |
|---|---|---|
| Troveo | Consulting or advisory | Tier 2 of 4: "Your industry carries above-average buyer demand." Price factor 1.15 in its estimator.26 |
| Polyshares | Consulting and advisory | Marked premium in its intake list27 |
| VMS | Consulting or agency | Standard weight in its estimator (factor 1.12)28 |
Size rules buyers publish
Checked against 45 staff, the typical firm size this page's calculator is set to. Ask each buyer whether contractors and part-time staff count.
Polyshares
No headcount rule; the length and texture of the record matter more29
Mercor
None stated30
Troveo
No minimum stated; its estimator starts at 2031
Nyne
20+ US W-2 employees and 3+ years32
Handshake AI
20+ full-time employees and 3+ years33
micro1
Pewter
20+ staff and 3+ years35
Endless
Roughly 30+ employees36
Ventra
30+ US employees and 3+ years of records37
Supersoniq
50+ employees and 5+ years38
What buyers value
What in a firm's records buyers value
The column on the right is not legal advice: it lists what to raise with the buyer before anything is exported.
| Data | Where it lives | Why a buyer values it | Raise with the buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proposals and statements of work | Word, Google Docs, shared drive | How a firm scopes an ambiguous problem into phases, staffing and deliverables. | Client names and fees in each proposal. |
| Frameworks, interview guides and templates | Knowledge base or intranet | The firm's own method, usually its clearest-owned asset. Templates and knowledge bases are on micro1's list. | Nothing specific |
| Engagement email and chat | Outlook, Teams or Slack | Hypotheses raised, tested and dropped, with partner feedback on each draft. | Client staff names and anything covered by an engagement NDA. |
| Draft and final decks | PowerPoint or Google Slides | The argument in its finished form, and the revisions that got it there. | Whether the client owns the deliverables under the engagement letter. |
| Project plans and workstream trackers | Smartsheet, Asana, Excel | How work is sequenced and re-planned when a finding changes the scope. | Nothing specific |
| Internal training and case write-ups | Learning platform, wiki | Anonymised cases written to teach judgment, close to what AI training sets imitate. | Whether the cases are fully de-identified. |
A week of records
A week of data at a firm
- Monday: a steering-committee pre-read drafted, red-lined by the partner, and sent.
- Tuesday: six client interviews, each with typed notes against the interview guide.
- Wednesday: a hypothesis dropped after the data came back, and the workplan re-cut in the tracker.
- Thursday: a proposal for a follow-on phase, built from last year's template.
- Friday: the internal debrief, written up for the knowledge base.
Process
How it works with each buyer
In each buyer's own published words. Where a buyer publishes nothing, we say so rather than guess.
micro1
- Internal docs, SOPs and playbooks, knowledge bases, project management workflows, internal comms, templates, CRM and workflow metadata, task histories12
- 30 to 200 employees34
- $100K-$2M+ per data package; over $1M for unique data9
- PII removed "when relevant"13
- The company keeps ownership of its data and reviews samples before release39
- Not published
Polyshares
Selling or closing
Selling or closing your firm? License its data first
Firms are sold, merged and wound down, and the archive can outlive the partnership. Buyers are already approaching companies at the moment of a deal: Mercor approached Warmly about its archives after HubSpot acquired it. If a sale or retirement is coming, ask each licensing company whether your own method library can be licensed before the deal, separately from client work.3
FAQ
Management consulting: questions, answered
You can offer exactly that. Your frameworks, interview guides and training cases are the parts least tied to any one client, and Polyshares says it excludes data held on behalf of clients. Describe the package on the first call so the buyer prices what you are actually offering.15
It might feed one; that is what the data is for. Ask which AI labs will receive it and whether you can exclude named competitors. The buyer's answer belongs in the contract, not in a sales call.12
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company: their team reviews this with you before anything is signed.
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company: their team reviews this with you before anything is signed.
Before you sign
Legal questions go to the licensing company
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company before you sign: their team reviews these with you.
Questions for this kind of business
- Which engagement letters assign deliverables to the client, and are those excluded?
- How will client names, client staff and confidential findings be removed?
- Can we bar named competitors from receiving the data?
Questions for any buyer
- Is the license exclusive, and for how long?
- Can you sublicense the data, and to whom?
- Which AI labs will receive it, and will you tell us?
- How long do you keep it, and how is it deleted?
- What is your liability cap, and who indemnifies whom?
- Will the contract ban re-identification of people in the data?
- Who removes personal data, by what method, and do we approve it first?