Compare supplier quotes and find the best price, item by item

One item list, several suppliers, one comparison

Sourcing the same list of items from two or three suppliers means two or three separate spreadsheets — different column layouts, different item codes, different currencies sometimes — and the real question, which supplier is actually cheapest for which item, gets buried in the process of just lining the files up.

This is a different question from tracking one supplier's price list over time. Comparing multiple suppliers against each other for the same purchase is what CostRift's Supplier Comparison mode is built for — as distinct from Price Change, which compares one supplier's previous and current list.

On a Business workspace, this comparison and the suppliers you save are shared with your whole team — see CostRift for purchasing teams. Evaluating bids as part of a formal sourcing process? See procurement price comparison. To build the same comparison by hand first, comparing supplier quotes in Excel walks through the formulas.

How each item is classified

Every item across your supplier quotes gets one outcome. These are the categories CostRift uses:

Comparable

At least two suppliers quoted the item at a usable price, so a cheapest-price winner is shown.

Single offer

Only one supplier quoted the item — there is nothing to compare it against, so no winner is declared.

Currency mismatch

Suppliers quoted the same item in different currencies. CostRift does not convert currencies, so no winner is shown for that item.

Unit mismatch

Suppliers quoted the same item in different units of measure. CostRift does not convert units, so no winner is shown for that item.

Ambiguous duplicate

A supplier listed the item more than once under different identifiers. The row is excluded from that supplier's comparison until the duplicate is resolved, rather than guessed.

Needs review

Fewer than two suppliers have a usable price for the item, so no winner can be determined yet.

How supplier quote comparison works

1. Add a quote for each supplier — CSV or XLSX — and give each one a name.
2. Map the item identifier and unit cost column for each supplier independently; column names can differ between files.
3. Run the comparison. CostRift matches items across suppliers by identifier and marks the cheapest usable quote for each one.
4. Review coverage per supplier, the winner for each item, and — with quantities mapped — the basket totals and potential savings.
5. Export the results to CSV, or save an uploaded supplier's price list to history when you are signed in, to reuse it as a saved supplier next time.

What you can compare

• Two or more supplier quotes for the same set of items, as CSV or XLSX files — one file per supplier.
• An item identifier (SKU or item code) and a unit cost in each file, mapped independently so column names can differ between suppliers.
• Optional quantity per item. Add it to see the total cost of buying everything from one supplier versus sourcing every item at its cheapest quoted price.
• Optional custom fields — lead time, minimum order quantity, notes, or anything else worth recording next to a price. These are informational only and never change which supplier wins an item.

A small worked example

Three items, two suppliers. Numbers are illustrative and in any currency.

Supplier B is cheaper on SKU-100; SKU-200 is priced identically by both, so it is a tie rather than an arbitrary pick; SKU-300 was only quoted by Supplier B, so there is nothing to compare it against yet. With quantities mapped, CostRift would also show what buying every item from whichever supplier is cheapest for it — the optimized basket — saves against buying the whole list from Supplier B alone.

Recording more than price, without it affecting the winner

A price alone rarely tells the whole story. Custom comparison fields let you attach information such as lead time, minimum order quantity, or a note to each supplier's quote so it sits next to the price when you review the results. These fields are informational only — they are never read by the comparison logic and can never change which supplier is shown as the cheapest for an item.

Frequently asked questions