Published before you talk to me, and priced for a first order rather than a container programme. Every finding carries its evidence, and any finding that cannot be traced to a source you can open yourself is refunded.
| Service | Fee | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Remote supplier check No travel required |
$149 | Registry and licence verification, certificate numbers checked at the issuing body, export-record review, trading-company vs factory assessment, live video call at the factory gate, and a written list of every question the supplier could not answer. 3 business days. |
| On-site factory audit One full day |
$399 | Everything above, plus a physical visit: production line, equipment, capacity against claimed capacity, QC process, storage, dated photographs, video walkthrough, and the 32-point report including what could not be verified. Travel inside Guangdong, Zhejiang or Jiangsu included; elsewhere at cost. Credited in full against commission if I go on to manage the order. |
| Pre-shipment inspection | $199 | AQL 2.5 inspection, defect photographs, count against the acceptance number, pass or hold recommendation. |
| Order management Only if I run the order |
5% | Sampling, negotiation, production follow-up, consolidation. On orders above $10,000. Below that, the flat services above are usually the better deal for you — and I will say so. |
I am building the public case library for this service and I would rather earn the first examples than write them. The first five projects get the remote supplier check at no charge, in exchange for permission to publish the check itself as an anonymised breakdown — what I looked for, what came back, and what I would have missed. No company name, no identifying product detail, and you approve the wording before it goes up.
Conditions, so this does not turn into free consulting: you need a real supplier you are considering and a genuine intent to order within 90 days. One check per client. If it does not meet those conditions, the $149 price applies.
Because this is a new service and I am buying the reference. An established agency charges $400–500 for the same visit; a published rate card with a smaller number is the only honest way for a newcomer to compete on something other than claims.
It is not a permanent discount. When there is a case history to point at, the price goes up to match the work. Clients who came in at these rates keep them on repeat orders.
The landed cost calculator tells you what the order costs if every assumption in it is true. It cannot tell you whether the factory behind the quote will actually deliver at that price, at that specification, on that date. That is the half of the number no calculator can reach.
Three assumptions in that calculator go wrong most often, and all three are things a check can settle: the quoted FOB price is for a smaller MOQ or a lower material grade than the order needs; the factory cannot actually produce at the monthly volume it quoted, so your lead time and your air-freight cost are both wrong; and the supplier is a trader, which means the price contains a margin layer you were never shown. A remote check is $149 and answers those three before you wire anything.
The most common way a sourcing agent earns money without saying so is by discounting the visible commission and recovering it on freight. A 4% commission with a $1,180 freight quote, when the carrier's invoice is $760, costs more than a 10% commission with freight at cost. If an agent will not show you the carrier invoice, the commission number is decoration.
Freight is a pass-through here, shown at the carrier's rate, with the consolidation fee stated separately so the two cannot hide inside each other.
| What if the factory refuses the visit? | It happens, and a refusal is itself information. You get $299 back and I keep $100 for the travel I have already paid for. You also get a short written record: what was asked, what the response was, and on what date — which is often more useful than the audit would have been. |
|---|---|
| Will you contact my supplier behind my back? | No, and the terms are specific because the fear is reasonable. Your supplier is not named in any other client's report, is not introduced to anyone else, and is not used for my own purchasing. If a factory offers me a side commission on your order, it is disclosed to you and deducted from my fee. |
| How many projects do you take at a time? | Four on-site audits a month, because each one is a full day plus a written report. Remote checks I can take more of. If the month is full you get the date rather than a queue position. |
| Do you sign an NDA? | Yes, before any work starts. Product designs, specifications and supplier identity stay confidential. |
| I have not found a supplier yet. | Then a check has nothing to look at. Use the 12-point list to screen whoever you are considering, and come back when you have two or three you are serious about. I do not sell a list of factories — a list is easy to buy and tells you nothing about which one will fail you. |
| I have already placed the order and something is wrong. | That is a different job and usually an urgent one: mid-production intervention, a third-party re-inspection to document the defect, or supervised rework. Priced from $399 depending on what is needed. Say so in the first line of your email and it gets answered first. |
| Remote check | After delivery, if you find it useful. That is the whole point of the guarantee — I invoice on the way out, not the way in. |
|---|---|
| Audit / inspection | Before the visit. |
| Commission | 50% when the order is placed, 50% when it ships. Paid by you, not deducted from the factory payment. |
| Currency | USD, company account. |
Send the supplier you are looking at. If it is outside what I know, you will hear that straight away.
Send a supplier to check