Sourcing cost analysis

That quotation has a number in it.
We tell you what it should be.

Send us the quote a Chinese supplier sent you. You get back an itemised cost model — material, tooling, labour, packaging, certification, freight — a set of comparable quotes on the same or equivalent product, the retail band it sells into, and the room you actually have to negotiate. Every figure carries the link we took it from, so you can check it yourself.

We're paid by you, not by the factory.

No supplier commissions, no referral fees, no marketplace affiliate revenue. Our only income is the fee you pay us — which is why we can tell you a quote is too high.

Start with the free read

You do not have to buy anything to find out whether the quote is worth arguing about.

Free diagnosis

Send the quote. Get one honest sentence back.

Within one business day we reply with a single line: roughly how far off the number looks, and which two line items carry the gap. No call, no signup, no card. If the price looks fine, we say so — and you have lost nothing but an email.

Three worked samples from public listings: smart pet feeder  ·  pet water fountain  ·  self-cleaning litter box

Get the free read

Fixed fee, per product

Priced by how much of the answer you need, not by how long we spend. Start at $29 for the number on one page; go deeper only if the decision warrants it.

Single Page
$29 / one SKU

One page: the band, and three prices to compare it against.

  • FOB cost band for the quoted product
  • 3 comparable quotes, each linked
  • One paragraph on where the gap sits
  • 2 working days
Request Single Page
Quick Check
$99 / one SKU

Is this number in the right neighbourhood?

  • FOB cost band, broken into its component parts
  • 12 comparable quotes for the same product
  • Source link behind every figure
  • 3 working days
Request Quick Check
Deep Dive
$299 / one SKU

Full model, plus the case for your side of the table.

  • Everything in Quick Check
  • Retail price distribution in your target market
  • Certification and packaging cost, itemised
  • Negotiating room, with the specific levers
  • Excel cost model you can edit
Request Deep Dive
Three SKUs
$499 / three SKUs

Same category, three products, one pricing story.

  • Deep Dive treatment on three products
  • Side-by-side cost comparison
  • Which SKU carries the margin, and which one does not
  • 5 working days
Request Three SKUs
No savings, no fee. If the audit finds no credible room to bring your cost down, we refund the fee in full. The judgement is ours to make, from the same model the report is built on — not an argument over small print.

What arrives in your inbox

A 10–15 page PDF report plus an editable cost model. Not a dashboard, not a login — a document you can forward to your partner or your buyer and defend line by line.

  • 01
    FOB cost band
    Material, processing, tooling amortisation, packaging, certification, freight to port. A range, not a single number, with the assumptions written next to it.
  • 02
    12 comparable quotes
    The same product or a genuine equivalent, taken from public sourcing listings, each with its product ID and a live link.
  • 03
    Retail price band
    What the product actually sells for in your target market, sampled from marketplace listings — so you can see the multiplier between factory cost and shelf price.
  • 04
    Negotiating room
    The gap between the quote and the modelled cost, and which line items move when you push. Where the supplier has genuine cost pressure, we say so.
  • 05
    Editable model
    An Excel file with the arithmetic exposed. Change an assumption, watch the band move.

Report skeleton

1. Scope — the product, the quote, the assumptions
2. Cost model — component breakdown and band
3. Comparables — 12 quotes, linked
4. Market — retail distribution, multiplier
5. Negotiation — room, levers, script
6. Sources — every link, in one place
You get the report in English. Chinese-language notes on request, if you are forwarding it to a local agent.

Three steps

No platform to sign up to, no demo call. The bottleneck in this service is the analysis, so we keep everything else out of the way.

Send the quote

Email the PDF, or paste the numbers. Include quantity, target market and anything you already know about the supplier. Fifteen minutes of your time — the free diagnosis comes back first.

We model it

We rebuild the cost from parts, pull comparables and retail data, and check the arithmetic against more than one source. If the data will not support a number, we say so instead of guessing.

You get the report

PDF plus Excel within the stated turnaround. One round of written questions included. If the report does not answer the question you asked, tell us and we fix it.

Scope, stated plainly

What this service is good at, and the things it will not do — because knowing the boundary up front saves both of us a wasted week.

We do

  • Consumer products with a public sourcing market: small appliances, pet electronics, cleaning devices, outdoor gear.
  • Quotes in the $10–200 FOB range, where a few percent is real money.
  • Say which figures are solid and which are estimates, line by line.
  • Decline the job, before you pay, if the category has no reliable public data.
  • Tell you when the quote looks fair — the free diagnosis is not a sales call.

We do not

  • Take money from suppliers, agents or marketplaces. The fee you pay is the whole revenue.
  • Factory audits or supplier vetting — that needs someone on site, and we will not certify a company we have not visited.
  • Customs, legal or compliance advice.
  • Promise your supplier will drop the price. We show the room and the levers; the negotiation is yours.
  • Bespoke engineering or product design.

Send us the quotation

Tell us the product, the quantity and the price you were quoted. We reply within one business day with a free read on the number — and, if you want the full audit, a fixed quote and a delivery date. Or an honest no.

[email protected]