Know what your product actually costs
and whether your supplier is real
and whether your supplier is real
Tooling, decoration, freight, duty, and yield routinely sit outside the headline number. The company quoting you may be a trading company, not the manufacturer. Packaging and components carry their own MOQs and lead times that have to land in sync with production. None of this shows up until it's expensive to fix.
Tooling, packaging, freight, duty, QC, and yield may sit outside the quote you were given.
The company quoting you may be an intermediary, or not the right fit for your volume and quality bar.
Component suppliers, manufacturer, freight, customs, and warehouse all need to connect without gaps.
Illustrative example only: 5,000 units quoted at $6.00 each — a $30,000 first order.
| What was missed or misunderstood | Potential added cost |
|---|---|
| $15,000 tooling charge spread over 5,000 units instead of the assumed 30,000 | +$12,500 |
| 5-25% intermediary markup embedded in supplier pricing | +$1,500-7,500 |
| Decoration omitted from quote at $0.60/unit | +$3,000 |
| Air freight required to protect launch timing at $1.50/unit | +$7,500 |
| Sellable yield 10% below estimate: 4,500 good units instead of 5,000 | ~+$3,000 |
| Illustrative exposure if all five occur | ~$30,500 |
We were two days from wiring a 40% deposit when the check turned up that our "factory" was actually a trading company marking up a $4.10 unit cost to $6.80. Floris had the real manufacturer on a video call within a week. We saved roughly $11,000 on the first order alone, and honestly, knowing exactly who we were paying this time mattered more than the money.
Martin D., Founder, apparel brand
We'd been producing in China for two years and just assumed our landed cost was what it was. The audit rebuilt it from our actual invoices and found we were paying $0.38 a unit more in duties than we should have, plus a freight markup nobody had flagged. On 40,000 units a year that's real money. We renegotiated with our current factory instead of switching, which wasn't the outcome I expected going in, but it was the right one.
John K., Operations lead, home goods brand
I don't have a sourcing background, and running supplier selection, sampling, and freight myself across three countries was overwhelming to even think about. With Partner, I saw every decision before it was made and could've said no at any point, but I never had to. Our first production run landed on time and on budget, with zero surprises I hadn't already signed off on.
Lauren H., Founder, consumer goods brand
Pick a product above to see your results.
A product you believe in. A supplier you can't fully verify. A deposit invoice with a deadline on it. We built a physical product from scratch ourselves, the same way you're doing now, and paid for the same mistakes this audit is designed to catch: a supplier who wasn't quite who they claimed to be, real costs that never showed up in the quote, a timeline that slipped past every promise we were given. That's not a case study we read about. That's the exact moment you're standing in right now.
Read the full story →Already producing? Start with the Audit. Haven't paid a deposit yet? Start with our Sourcing service. Want us to run the complete sourcing and manufacturing for you end to end? Check out our Partner services.
Both the Audit and Sourcing carry a money-back guarantee.
For brands already producing and importing
Fixed fee, 1 week
For founders before they pay a deposit
Fixed fee, 2 weeks, nothing further required
For founders who want it run end to end
Billed monthly, duration depends on complexity
The checks worth doing yourself, and where they stop being enough.
The tells that separate a real factory from a well-dressed middleman.
What routinely sits outside the headline quote, and what it costs.
If your product is ready to quote or sample and you want a second, independent look before the money moves, this is built for exactly that moment.
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