Prompt sampling

Prompt sampling is asking answer engines a fixed set of buyer questions on a schedule and recording which companies each answer names.

The word sampling is doing real work. An engine's answer is not deterministic: the same question asked twice can name different companies, so a single run is an anecdote. A trend needs repetition against a prompt set that does not move between runs.

What does a sample cost?

One credit buys one prompt answered by one engine. A scan of twenty prompts across three engines is sixty credits, and the arithmetic is deliberately that boring — the cost of a scan is knowable before it is enqueued, which is what lets it be debited exactly and refunded exactly when an engine fails to answer.

The useful discipline is a small, stable prompt set of questions a buyer would actually type in full, rather than a large one you will be tempted to edit. Every edit resets the series.