Frequently asked questions

Deal Lift AI is an indicative screening tool for people looking at businesses for sale in Australia. It helps you assess where practical AI and automation might improve revenue, reduce operating drag, or make the business more transferable after settlement. It is designed to help you decide whether a listing is worth a closer look before you spend more time on it. It is not a valuation, a due diligence report, or financial advice.

It is built for prospective buyers who want a faster and more structured first pass on a business. That includes first-time acquirers, experienced investors, and buyers comparing several listings at once. It is especially useful when you want a commercial lens on AI opportunity without getting lost in technical hype. If you already have advisers, it can also help you ask sharper questions earlier.

Listings often mix facts, marketing language, and omissions in a way that makes quick judgement difficult. Deal Lift AI helps separate visible signals from inferred opportunity and points you to the areas that may matter most after settlement. It also highlights what still needs checking rather than pretending the public information tells you everything. That can save time and reduce the risk of chasing the wrong deal.

It covers the most common Australian SME categories found on business-for-sale portals, including trade services, hospitality, retail, health and beauty, professional services, home and property services, e-commerce, light manufacturing, transport and logistics, education and coaching, and childcare. Some business types are harder to assess from public information alone — confidential listings, franchise territory resales with no operating business attached, and very thin listings will typically receive lower confidence ratings, which the tool flags clearly. If you are looking at a business that does not fit neatly into a single category, the tool will route it to the closest operating model based on where most of the commercial value sits.

You can paste a listing URL, upload a file, add your own notes, or combine all three. The more clear and relevant the input, the more useful the output is likely to be. You do not need to prepare anything elaborate to use the free screen. A standard business-for-sale listing is usually enough to begin.

No. Where attribution is possible, it may also assess publicly visible information such as websites, reviews, booking paths, ordering paths, and other public-facing signals. That helps test whether key claims are supported by what can actually be seen. If the business cannot be confidently matched to a public footprint, the tool becomes more cautious. That is one reason confidence levels matter.

The free screen generates quickly and is designed to feel like a fast triage step rather than a major exercise. The paid report is more detailed and is typically delivered within 24 hours. If you later return with seller answers, the updated assessment builds on that added information. The overall idea is to help you move from first glance to sharper follow-up without unnecessary friction.

The Deal Lift Score is an indicative measure of how much realistic commercial uplift may be available through practical AI and automation in that specific business. A higher score does not mean the business is better overall, and a lower score does not mean it is a bad acquisition. It simply reflects how much visible improvement opportunity appears to exist from the public evidence reviewed. The score should always be read together with the confidence level and written analysis.

The score does not tell you whether to buy the business. It does not replace a valuation, and it is not a prediction of financial return. A business with a high Deal Lift Score might still have fundamental problems that only proper due diligence would uncover — weak financials, difficult lease terms, regulatory exposure, or owner relationships that do not transfer. Equally, a low score does not mean the business is a poor acquisition; it may simply mean the AI opportunity is limited or that the listing did not provide enough information for a stronger assessment. Use the score as one input alongside your own judgement and professional advice.

A low-confidence result means the evidence base is thin, conflicted, or difficult to verify from public sources. It does not automatically mean the business lacks potential. It means more of the assessment is relying on sector patterns and less on business-specific verification. In practice, that is a prompt to ask better questions before placing weight on the score.

The free screen gives you a quick score, a confidence rating, and headline AI opportunity areas. The paid report goes further with a fuller breakdown, deeper reasoning, deal signals and red flags, practical AI use cases, and a tailored set of questions linked to that specific business. It is designed to help you test whether the apparent opportunity is real rather than merely interesting. It also includes one updated assessment after you obtain seller responses.

Upgrade when a business looks promising enough that you may actually pursue it, or when the risks and upside are not yet clear from the free screen. The paid report is most useful when you want a more commercial view before speaking with the broker or seller again. It can also help if you are comparing a shortlist and need a more consistent framework. If you only want a quick triage, the free screen is usually enough.

When you purchase the paid report ($79 AUD), you receive a detailed assessment of the business covering the full scoring breakdown, evidence classification, deal signals, red flags, worked AI use cases, and a tailored set of questions designed for that specific business. The report also includes one updated assessment, which you can use after you have spoken with the seller or broker. Paid reports are usually delivered within 24 hours of purchase. Where there is an unexpected delay, we will notify you by email. Payments are processed through our payment provider using industry-standard security measures.

Your paid report includes one re-run. Once you have spoken with the seller or broker, you can return to the platform and answer a structured set of questions based on what you learned. These are not free-text fields — they are the specific questions from your original report, with answer fields next to each one. When you submit your answers, we regenerate the report with the new information factored in. The updated assessment shows what changed, what the new information means for the AI opportunity, and what still remains uncertain. The re-run expires 90 days after your original purchase, so there is a natural window to use it while the deal is still live.

Refunds are handled in accordance with Australian Consumer Law. Because a paid report involves analysis generated specifically for your request, change-of-mind refunds are generally not available once the report has been generated. This does not limit any rights you may have under the ACL, including where a service is not provided with due care and skill or within a reasonable time. If a technical issue prevents delivery of your report, contact support@dealliftai.com.au and we will resolve it.

Deal Lift AI is intended to work from listing material, your notes, and other public-facing information relevant to the assessment. You should avoid uploading anything you are not comfortable sharing for analysis, especially sensitive or confidential documents. The safest approach is to submit only what is needed for the screening task. If a later-stage deal involves highly sensitive material, treat that as a separate judgement call outside this tool.

No. The tool works from publicly available information and whatever you choose to submit. It does not claim access to private internal systems, hidden financial records, or confidential broker materials unless you provide them. That matters because the outputs are shaped by what can actually be seen and checked. The limitation is deliberate and makes the boundaries of the analysis easier to understand.

No. The updated assessment is designed for general operational answers rather than raw confidential material. Do not paste financial statements, contracts, staff records, system exports, or other documents covered by an NDA or shared with you on a confidential basis. Instead, answer the structured questions at a higher level using characterised responses, such as whether a system is fully used, partly used, or not in place, or whether a cost area appears higher, lower, or broadly in line with expectations. Information submitted for the updated assessment is used only to regenerate your report within the active report period. It is not intended as a document repository or a place to upload sensitive deal files.

No. Deal Lift AI is a technology platform that provides data analysis and indicative commercial screening. It does not provide financial product advice, legal advice, tax advice, or business valuations. The outputs are generated to support your own research, not to tell you whether to buy a business. Any acquisition decision should still rest on proper verification by qualified financial, legal, and accounting professionals. That is particularly important where the listing is thin, confidential, or hard to verify. See our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Methodology & Disclaimer for full details.

You may submit a confidential or off-market opportunity only if you are authorised to provide that material for this purpose. Do not upload information that is subject to a non-disclosure agreement, legal professional privilege, or another confidentiality restriction unless you have clear authority to disclose it. Where a listing has limited public evidence, the tool relies more heavily on sector patterns and will typically produce a lower-confidence, more conservative assessment. The report will clearly flag where this is the case.

Yes, provided you use it as an early screening layer rather than a final answer. It can help you get your bearings, spot obvious opportunity areas, and prepare more focused questions for the seller or broker. Many buyers find that useful before committing time and money to deeper work. Start with the free screen, then move to the paid report if the deal still looks worth pursuing.