How it works

1. It learns what you buy

You tell us what you buy repeatedly and what you pay for it now — the case, the pallet wrap, the haulage. Each line gets a specification precise enough that two suppliers quoting it are quoting the same thing, because most of the difficulty in comparing quotes is that they are not comparable.

2. It links each line to the market

Every monitored line is linked to the public price series that actually drive it. A corrugated case is mostly board, partly energy, partly freight, so it is weighted across all three rather than pinned to one headline number.

An index tells you which way the market moved. It does not tell you what a price should be, and we never present it as one. Every index statement carries the series, the source, the exact periods compared and the publication lag, so you can go and check us — and so can your supplier.

Where a series stops publishing, it stops counting. A retired series that keeps serving its last value would produce a confident claim about a market that has moved on, and you would have no way of telling.

3. It tells you when something is worth doing

Not every movement is worth your afternoon. A signal has to clear a value threshold before it reaches you, and where several things point the same way you get one alert with several reasons rather than three alerts.

• Your supplier's own invoice price moved.
• The market index for that line fell while your price did not.
• A line has never been tendered, or has not been for years.
• Your volume grew past a minimum that previously ruled suppliers out.
• A quote that beats your current price is about to lapse.

4. It drafts; you send

CostSpring shortlists suppliers who can actually serve your category, geography and volume, and drafts the enquiry in your name. You read it and send it from your own email client.

Nothing goes to a supplier that you have not read. The drafts never name another supplier, never quote a rival's figure, never state a volume commitment, and never use language that could form a contract. That is enforced by a validator on every message, not left to the model's judgement.

5. It puts the answers on one basis

Quotes arrive in different units, with different minimums, tooling charges, freight terms and payment terms. CostSpring converts all of it to a landed cost per unit you actually use, shows the caveats next to the number, and never quietly rounds a difference away.

Then it tells you what the gap is worth in money, in the rhythm you order in. If someone orders monthly, an annual figure is the wrong unit.

What it will not do

• Agree a price, accept an offer, or commit you to a volume.
• Tell a supplier what another supplier quoted.
• Present an index figure as a target price.
• Write to a supplier who has asked not to be contacted.
• Claim a saving. The arithmetic is certain; the outcome is not.