Procurement intelligence for chemical buyers
From the chemical market to the negotiation table, in one tool. CostAdvisor maps 1,700+ chemical products to the public indexes that drive their cost, then carries that knowledge through your portfolio, your category strategy and your next negotiation.
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One tool, seven steps, from market to negotiation ◆ each fed by the library
Driven by: iron · acid · energy · labour┄ 94.8 by Dec
ThenBrief · floor €252›Coagulants plan›5 actions
Real library data to Jun 2026 ·Illustrative Aquaverde and Supplier A are fictional. Follow it ↓
Public indexes, monthly · data to Jun 2026 · FX: ECB daily
Index data in one tab. The cost model in a spreadsheet. The supplier's letter in your inbox. The category plan in last year's deck. Every hand-off is a copy-paste, and every copy-paste goes stale.
CostAdvisor keeps the seven jobs in one tool, on one set of numbers. Each step hands its result to the next. Follow one purchase through all seven.
Today
The worked example
Aquaverde, a water utility, buys about 2,200 tonnes of ferric chloride 40% a year for its Rotterdam plant. In Q2 2026, Supplier A invoiced €339 a tonne. Is that fair, and what should Aquaverde do about it? The next seven steps answer that, one hand-off at a time.
Illustrative example, real library. Aquaverde and Suppliers A and B are fictional, and so are their prices. The library data in blue is real: the card, its index, the sources, the counts.
Pick the line that sounds like your week. We'll take you to the first step that answers it and mark your path on the rail.
01 · Discover · in the app: Intelligence Rolling out to early-access teams
The library's real card for ferric chloride 40%: a cost recipe on public indexes, a should-cost index and forecast for each region, how it is made, who buys it, and how far its makers are checked.
Independent makers of this exact product are verified on their own pages.
Iron scrap · hydrochloric acid · electricity · process water · labour
6 cost lines, margin included, each named with its index. The weights stay in the app.One of 1,750 cards, all built the sameindex by regionforecastcycleseasonalityvolatilitytwo mapssupply badge
recipe · 6 cost linesAdd to portfolio copies the recipe into your private workspace. Nothing flows back.
02 · Model · in the app: Portfolio
Add to portfolio turns the card into Aquaverde's cost model: the recipe and its index from the library, the terms from the team. DAP Rotterdam adds a freight line. Try it: move an index.
Illustrative weights, not the library recipe.
Run this on your own productshould-cost · €291/t · every quarterMonitor puts it next to every invoice from Supplier A.
03 · Watch · in the app: Monitor
Every product next to what it should cost, ranked by the money at stake. The should-cost follows the library's index: in a year it rose about €6 a tonne. Supplier A's price rose €49.
| Product | Supplier | Should-cost | Actual | Gap | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ferric chloride 40% | Supplier A | 291 | 339 | +48 | Alert |
| Polyaluminium chloride 18% | Supplier A | 486 | 507 | +21 | Watch |
| Caustic soda 50% | Supplier C | 382 | 391 | +9 | Watch |
| Ferric chloride 40% | Supplier B | 291 | 299 | +8 | Watch |
| Aluminium sulphate liquid | Supplier A | 272 | 276 | +4 | On track |
€/t · Q2 2026 · ranked by gap. Alert at €25/t above should-cost (your threshold). Should-costs are priced on the library's indexes.
| Quarter | Should-cost | Supplier A | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q3-24 | 281.94 | 285 | +3.06 |
| Q4-24 | 282.67 | 286 | +3.33 |
| Q1-25 | 290.28 | 293.5 | +3.22 |
| Q2-25 | 285.58 | 290 | +4.42 |
| Q3-25 | 282.28 | 291 | +8.72 |
| Q4-25 | 280.81 | 304 | +23.19 |
| Q1-26 | 293.11 | 325 | +31.89 |
| Q2-26 | 291.27 | 339 | +47.73 |
gap · €48/t ≈ €105,600 a yearBefore you call Supplier A: which way is the market going?
04 · Anticipate · in the app: Forecast and Dashboard
The library forecasts each index six months ahead and reads its cycle, seasonality and volatility. Your workspace turns that into euros and ranks the whole book.
Shaded months are a projection: the library's six-month forecast on your starting point. When an index has no model yet, the app shows a flat carry-forward and says so.
| Period | Should-cost | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Q3-24 | 281.94 | history |
| Q4-24 | 282.67 | history |
| Q1-25 | 290.28 | history |
| Q2-25 | 285.58 | history |
| Q3-25 | 282.28 | history |
| Q4-25 | 280.81 | history |
| Q1-26 | 293.11 | history |
| Q2-26 | 291.27 | history |
| Jul 2026 | 289 | projection |
| Aug 2026 | 287 | projection |
| Sep 2026 | 285 | projection |
| Oct 2026 | 283 | projection |
| Nov 2026 | 281 | projection |
| Dec 2026 | 279 | projection |
Ferric chloride sits in Act now: the largest exposure in the book, and more volatile than the book's median.
Exposure = should-cost × last four quarters of volume. Volatility = spread of quarter-on-quarter changes. Dashed lines = portfolio medians.
timing · act now · outlook easingNow build the case.
05 · Negotiate · in the app: Negotiate
The brief gives Aquaverde a target, a walk-away floor and the library's index evidence. Then it checks each claim Supplier A makes against what the index really did.
Defensible range €252–€291. Open near should-cost; treat the floor as your walk-away point, not your opening offer.
Our reading of the acid index is +6.6%, not +30.0%. At its share of the recipe, that move is already inside the should-cost.
Index moves explain about €6 of Supplier A's €49 increase in a year. The €48 above the should-cost is not explained by the indexes in the recipe, nor by the freight and delivery line.
Same rules as the app, against the library's index series: within 2 points of the index = already priced · under 0.5% = did not move · opposite sign = contradicted.
position · floor €252 · target €291One price is a negotiation. The category is a strategy.
06 · Plan · in the app: Strategy Rolling out to early-access teams
Ferric chloride sits in Aquaverde's Coagulants spend. The library's report and playbook pre-fill the analysis and the opportunities; the team's spend and choices do the rest.
from the reportPESTELPorter's five forcesKraljic
Ringed: serves a selected objective. Hover or focus a bubble for its lever type.
plan · 2 objectives · 19 opportunitiesA strategy is only as good as its next action.
07 · Act · in the app: Strategy › Actions Rolling out to early-access teams
Each chosen lever becomes an action with an owner, a due date and a status, as a table or a timeline. Overdue work shows up before the next quarter does.
| Action | Playbook family | Owner | Due | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Share should-cost evidence with Supplier A | Pricing & Conditions | CM | 30 Oct 2026 | In progress |
| Ask for an index-linked price clause | Pricing & Conditions | CM | 15 Dec 2026 | Not started |
| Request a reference quote from a second maker | Global Sourcing | BY | 27 Nov 2026 | Not started |
| Jar-test ferric chloride against PAC | Product Spec Improvement | QA | 13 Nov 2026 | In progress |
| Align both ferric chloride contract end dates | Volume Concentration | BY | 30 Sep 2026 | Overdue |
Strategy family from the Coagulants playbook. Owners are roles: CM category manager · BY buyer · QA quality.
new starting point · the agreed priceBack to Model: the next quarter starts here. ↺ step 02
The whole loop
No exports. No copy-paste. The library feeds every step, and the agreed price starts the next round.
Your prices never go into the library.
The tools that don't need a step of their own. The tags show which steps each one feeds.
Drop a supplier PDF. Each line is matched to a cost model; you confirm it.
Fields pulled from a quote PDF, each with its source location. Rule-based, no AI.
Notice periods become deadlines on the radar.
Test "what if" index moves before they happen.
Index moves, new gaps and buy-window flips.
Already pay for a price agency? Use your values.
Roles, invites, notes, @mentions and an activity log.
Every index with its provider, region and frequency.
A first recipe for a product the library doesn't hold. A draft; nothing saves until you approve it.
What the blue thread drew on Rolling out to early-access teams
As of October 2026, with index data to June 2026. Every count comes from the data and is rounded down.
Built mostly on public statistics and exchange benchmarks: US BLS, World Bank, FRED, USGS, Eurostat, EIA, LME and others. Every series names its source where one is documented. How a should-cost is built →
Not sure your product is in it? Ask us in the demo →
Honest by design
One chemical company deflected nearly half of its suppliers' cost increases with data-driven negotiation.
World-class procurement organisations can reduce a company's purchasing cost base by an average of 8–12%.
Built by StaminaChem, chemical-industry strategy and procurement consultants.
How every number is built →
A shared, read-only library and a private workspace for each team. Data flows one way.
Each team's data is isolated on every request.
Encrypted in transit and at rest.
Every change, export and role change is logged.
Team roles and permissions. Invite-only sign-up. Google sign-in; we never store passwords.
AI runs on a model we host. Nothing goes to a third-party AI provider.
Straight answers. The longer version of each is on the Method and Security pages.
They come from public statistics and exchange benchmarks, not from suppliers. Every series names its source where one is documented, and every chart shows its data date.
Mostly public statistics and exchange benchmarks: US BLS, World Bank, FRED, USGS, Eurostat, EIA, LME and others. If you already pay for a price agency, you can use your own index values.
Indexes are monthly, with history since January 2023; the current release runs to June 2026. Outlooks run six months, and flat carry-forwards are labelled. Exchange rates update daily from the ECB.
The library holds 1,750 product cards across 25 families and 50 industries, and grows with each release. Anything missing can be modelled in the cost model builder.
On 935 cards, makers of that exact product are verified on their own pages. Other cards say they are not yet verified.
No. Your prices, suppliers and strategies stay in your team's private workspace. The shared library is read-only, and nothing flows back into it.
Start from the library: one click per product gives you a cost model. Price lists and quotes come in as PDFs you confirm line by line; CSV and Excel cover the rest. No ERP integration is needed.
The brief shows which indexes moved and by how much, with their sources, and checks the supplier's own claims against them. It never guesses the supplier's real costs.
CostAdvisor does not replace a price agency. It turns index moves into your should-cost, your gap and your negotiation position, and you can use your own agency values.
Research is AI-assisted and evidence-checked: sources named, makers verified on their own pages, no invented numbers. In the product, the figures in a brief come from the calculation engine, not from a language model. The AI features run on a model we host, and nothing goes to a third-party AI provider.
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