§Compare — Nexlytics vs a manual audit
Nexlytics vs a manual Power BI audit
What a consultant charges $2,000 for, a vendor quotes $20K, Nexlytics delivers for $9 in about five minutes. The human audit still wins on one dimension: the consultant can fix it, not just find it. Nexlytics is for the finding. When you need the fixing, Onwards Analytics is the honest next step.
Scan your .pbix for $9At a glance
| Nexlytics | a manual audit | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to a full verdict | About 90 seconds | One to two weeks for a vendor, hours for a consultant |
| Cost | $9 per report, $29/mo for ongoing | $2,000+ consultant, $20,000+ vendor quote |
| Scans the entire model | All measures, relationships, tables, RLS | Depends on scope and what the analyst is paid to check |
| Client-ready audit PDF | Produced automatically in the same run | Write-up is a separate billable step |
| Business context and judgment | Risk-ranked by the AI, not by business knowledge | Experienced analyst applies real domain judgment |
| Can also fix what it finds | Finds the issues, does not rewrite the model | Yes, that is often part of the engagement |
| Objective, repeatable scoring | Same framework every time, no consultant variation | Depends on the reviewer |
| Vendor scheduling lag | Immediate | SOW, approval, kickoff, delivery cycle |
The time cost is the real cost
A vendor audit is not just $20,000. It is three weeks before you have a statement of work, another two weeks of engagement, and a final report that arrives after the board pack was already assembled. A consultant is faster but still needs calendar time you do not have: two hours of their time is already more than $9 even before they write anything up.
Nexlytics runs in the background while you brief your stakeholder. The scored verdict is there before you finish the meeting.
Where the human audit genuinely wins
A senior analyst who knows your business can do something Nexlytics cannot: they know which number matters to the CFO, which metric has a known upstream data issue, and which finding is technically true but operationally irrelevant. That business context changes the priority of findings in ways no scan can replicate.
The human also fixes. Nexlytics finds that a measure is double-counting. A consultant finds it, understands why it happened, and rewrites the DAX correctly. If you need both the finding and the fix in one engagement, a consultant is the right tool.
That is why Onwards Analytics offers consulting on the back of a Nexlytics scan. The scan tells you what to fix. The consulting engagement fixes it. You do not pay $20,000 to find out what to fix.
What $9 actually replaces
The typical pattern before Nexlytics: a Power BI file lands from a vendor, you spend forty minutes opening it, checking a few measures by hand, writing up three observations in an email, and hoping you did not miss the one that breaks the board meeting. That forty minutes is a senior analyst at $150-$200 per hour. The email is not a deliverable.
Nexlytics runs the same forty-minute check in ninety seconds, catches the issues you would not have looked for, and produces a PDF you can attach to the vendor sign-off. The $9 is not a discount on a $20,000 vendor audit. It replaces a category of informal review that was never priced at all.
Repeatable quality checks on every deliverable
A vendor audit is a one-off event. Nexlytics is a check you run on every .pbix that comes in, every sprint, before sign-off. The discipline of running an audit once a quarter is replaced by running it every time a file lands. Issues that would have reached production get caught at the gate.
The framework Nexlytics uses is the same one Onwards Analytics has used auditing Power BI environments in tier-one metals and mining for twelve years. The same standard, applied consistently, without scheduling a person each time.
Choose Nexlytics if
- You need a scored audit today, not after a two-week vendor engagement
- You manage vendor or offshore Power BI deliverables and want a consistent quality gate on every file before sign-off
- You want an objective, shareable audit PDF without the cost of a consulting engagement
$9 per full audit report. $29/mo or $290/yr for ongoing use. No SOW, no scheduling, no seat license.
Choose a manual audit if
- You need someone to fix the model, not just identify what is wrong with it
- You have a complex business context that needs a domain expert to apply judgment to the findings
- You are running a formal procurement process that requires a named vendor with enterprise credentials
Consultant time typically $1,500-$3,000 per engagement minimum. Vendor audit quotes typically $15,000-$30,000 with a multi-week timeline.
Questions reviewers ask
What does a Power BI audit cost if I hire a consultant or vendor?
A consultant audit typically runs $1,500 to $3,000 for a focused review engagement, assuming a senior analyst at $150-$200 per hour. A formal vendor audit with a statement of work, kickoff, and written report typically runs $15,000 to $30,000 and takes two to four weeks to deliver. Nexlytics delivers the scored findings and audit PDF for $9 in about 90 seconds. When you need both the findings and someone to fix them, Onwards Analytics can provide the consulting follow-on at a fraction of a cold-vendor engagement cost, because the scan has already done the discovery.
Can Nexlytics replace a full consulting audit?
Nexlytics replaces the finding phase. It scans the whole model, scores the health, ranks every issue by risk, and produces a client-ready audit PDF. It does not apply business context, and it does not rewrite the model. If you need a senior analyst to apply domain judgment to the findings and then fix the underlying issues, that is a consulting engagement. The honest use is: run Nexlytics first, then decide whether the findings warrant a consulting follow-on. Most teams find the findings alone are sufficient for vendor sign-off or board preparation.
How does Nexlytics produce a $9 audit when a vendor charges $20,000?
A vendor audit is priced for the process: scoping, scheduling, senior analyst time, write-up, review, delivery, and relationship management. The cost is the human coordination overhead, not the finding work. Nexlytics runs five AI agents in parallel across the .pbix in about 90 seconds and produces the same scored output automatically. The $9 covers the compute and the infrastructure. There is no kickoff call, no write-up phase, and no account management overhead.
Will Nexlytics miss things a human auditor would catch?
Yes, on one dimension: business context. A human auditor who knows your organisation knows which findings matter to which stakeholder and can apply judgment that a model scan cannot. Nexlytics catches everything the model contains: unused measures, relationship gaps, DAX quality issues, RLS coverage, governance risk, and more. It will not know that a particular measure has a known upstream data issue that the business has accepted. For the technical layer, Nexlytics is thorough and consistent. For the business context layer, a senior analyst is still the right answer.
Can I use Nexlytics as a pre-check before bringing in a consultant?
Yes, and that is one of the most common use cases. Run Nexlytics on the file first. The scored audit tells you whether the model is fundamentally sound or has serious structural problems. If the score is low, you know the consulting engagement is warranted and you can brief the consultant with a concrete findings list rather than starting from scratch. That focus cuts the consulting cost significantly.
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