Certly vs Safefood 360°
If you are weighing Certly against Safefood 360° for supplier certificates, the practical difference is scope: Certly does one job, tracking certificate expiry for a single plant and chasing suppliers until the document is in. Safefood 360° is a product we have not verified for this page, so what follows is exactly what Certly does, and the questions to put to them yourself.
Where each product sits
You are probably reading this because a certificate lapsed, or nearly did, and someone asked which software would have caught it. Answering that question narrows the decision faster than comparing module lists, because the two products in front of you are not the same shape.
Certly is one workflow from end to end. You add each supplier with its contact details and the certificate types it owes you, allergen declaration, certificate of analysis, audit certificate. You or your QA team can upload a document directly against a supplier and certificate type, and a supplier can upload one with no login at all, through a single-use signed link that expires. Certly tracks the expiry date on each document and raises alerts at thresholds of 90, 60 and 30 days before expiry, and those thresholds are editable per certificate type on the alerts settings screen.
When a certificate is approaching expiry or has already lapsed, Certly emails the supplier contact a chase sequence carrying a one-click upload link, logs every send against that supplier, and shows whether each send was sent, failed or opened rather than assuming delivery. There is a chase now button on the dashboard row and on the supplier page for the days when you do not want to wait for the next scheduled reminder.
The output is a single screen: every supplier's certificate status as current, expiring soon, expired or missing, exportable as a PDF whose status badges, labels and wording match the screen exactly, so an auditor reads the same thing you do. Both the dashboard and the PDF carry the same two-sentence line: Certly tracks and reminds on certificate expiry, and it does not verify certificate authenticity or guarantee regulatory compliance. Data is scoped per plant, one tenant per plant, with that scoping applied on every supplier and certificate query.
What Certly is not
It is not a quality management system. There is no HACCP builder, no monitoring log, no non-conformance or corrective action workflow and no specification management. If those are also missing from your plant, a certificate tracker fixes one line of a longer list, and you should know that before you compare prices.
What we can and cannot tell you about Safefood 360°
Here is the limit of our research, stated flatly: we hold no verified description of Safefood 360° at all. Nothing we gathered was confirmed against the company's own pages and no text from them was captured, so we will not put a category, a module list, a scheme claim or a price in their name. Their site is listed in the sources on this page, and that is the place to read what they say about themselves.
That gap is not only about features. We hold no verified account of their current modules, scheme coverage, hosting arrangements, data processing terms or price either.
So the third column of the table below is not a feature list. It is the set of questions we would put to a vendor in writing before signing anything, and every one of them applies to us as well. Hold us to the same standard on anything we say about ourselves.
The shape of the choice
A broad platform, whichever one you shortlist, tends to offer one system of record across more than certificates, and one vendor to point at when an auditor asks how the system hangs together. A single-workflow tool gives you the certificate problem handled and nothing else: a shorter setup, a smaller bill, and a narrower scope that will not cover your monitoring logs or your corrective actions.
Neither answer is right in the abstract. It depends on whether your gap is that you have no system at all, or that you have systems and supplier certificates still go out of date inside them.
Side by side, with the questions we cannot answer for them
| Dimension | Certly | What to ask Safefood 360° (not verified by us) |
|---|---|---|
| Primary job | One workflow: required certificate types per supplier, expiry dates tracked, suppliers chased by email until the document is in. | Ask them to state in one sentence what the product is bought to do, and where certificate expiry tracking sits inside it. |
| Breadth | Supplier database, manual upload by your QA team, supplier self-upload, expiry tracking, chase emails, status dashboard, PDF export. Nothing beyond that. | Ask for the module list in writing, and which modules are inside the quote you are given rather than priced separately. |
| Expiry alerts | Alert thresholds at 90, 60 and 30 days before expiry, configurable per certificate type or as a plant-wide default. | Ask whether alert timing is configurable per certificate type, who receives the alert, and what the record shows on the day a certificate expires. |
| Chasing suppliers | Automated email chase sequences to supplier contacts for certificates approaching expiry or lapsed, each send logged with its delivery result, plus a manual chase now action. | Ask whether the software emails your supplier or only your team, whether the sequence repeats, and whether each send is logged. |
| Supplier side of the upload | No login for the supplier: a single-use, expiring signed link emailed to their contact. | Ask whether suppliers need an account, because every extra step between the email and a filed PDF changes how many of them respond. |
| Auditor-facing output | Single-screen status view per supplier showing current, expiring soon, expired and missing, exported as a PDF with the same badges and labels as the screen. | Ask for a sample of the document you would actually hand an auditor, not a dashboard screenshot. |
| Sites | Starter and Professional are single site, one tenant per plant, with plant scoping on every query. Multi-site covers up to 30 sites under one agreement, with no supplier cap, and you add and switch si | If you run a group, ask how sites and shared supplier records are handled, and how they are licensed. |
| Pricing | Published, all three tiers: Starter 3,228 dollars a year for up to 50 suppliers, Professional 5,388 dollars a year for up to 200, Multi-site 10,788 dollars a year for up to 30 sites with no supplier c | We hold no verified price for them, so take no figure from us. Ask for a written quote separating licence, implementation and any per-user or per-site charges. |
| How you start | Certly is pre-launch, so the step today is a waitlist place. Starter and Professional each declare a 14-day free trial for when sign-up opens; Multi-site does not. Sign-in is by email and password, an | Ask what a trial or pilot looks like, and how long implementation takes before the first certificate is actually being tracked. |
| Data handling | Hosted on Amazon Web Services, with documents kept in the product's own database rather than a shared file store, plant scoping on every query, a right-to-erasure endpoint for supplier contact persona | Supplier certificates often name individuals. Ask any vendor for a data processing agreement, a hosting region and a stated retention period before real documents go in. |
| Not in place at Certly | No independent security audit or certification such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001, no single sign-on or two-factor authentication, no data processing agreement ready to countersign, no published backup and di | Ask the same list of them, and ask for the answers in writing rather than on a call. |
| What it claims about the documents | Certly tracks and reminds. The two-sentence line quoted above sits on the dashboard and on the PDF export, unchanged. | Ask what the product asserts about the documents it holds, and whether that statement appears on screen or only in the contract. |
When to choose which
Certly is the closer fit when
Your quality management system already exists, on paper or in a shared drive, and the one thing that keeps failing is supplier documents going stale without anyone noticing. You have one plant and a supplier list somewhere between a dozen and a couple of hundred names, which is the range the Starter and Professional caps are drawn around. Your QA team is one or two people with no implementation project in them this quarter. You want a published price you can put in front of a finance manager this week, and a status view you can export and hand across the table when an auditor asks for the supplier pack.
Certly is also the closer fit when the real incumbent is a spreadsheet with conditional formatting and a calendar reminder. A spreadsheet holds dates well enough. It does not email the supplier, it does not record whether that email was delivered, and it does not leave evidence that you asked.
A broader product is worth the longer evaluation when
Your gap is wider than certificates. If you are digitising monitoring logs, document control, non-conformances and corrective actions at the same time, a single-workflow tracker leaves most of that on your desk, and one system from one vendor is a reasonable way to avoid buying four tools. The same applies if certificate status needs to live in the same records as your audit findings.
In that case, put Safefood 360° and anyone else in the category through a demo, and get the scope, the quote and the implementation timeline in writing. Then compare that total against a narrower tool plus whatever you would keep doing by hand. A suite nobody finishes configuring helps less than a small tool that runs by itself, and a small tool that covers a tenth of your gap helps less than a suite you commit to properly.
If several plants are the sticking point, the Multi-site figure is published rather than quoted, so you can do that arithmetic without a sales call: our page on tracking certificates across more than one plant explains how the per-plant scope works, the page on annual billing and the prepay discount sets out how the yearly figure is arrived at, and the pricing page carries the plan limits in full.
Questions worth asking in either evaluation
Who sends the chase, the software or a person
Expiry visibility and expiry chasing are different features. Ask whether reminders go only to your team or to the supplier contact as well, whether the sequence repeats when it is ignored, and whether each send is logged with its delivery result so you can show an auditor what was actually asked for and when.
What the supplier has to do to comply
Count the steps between the email landing and the PDF being filed. Certly's answer is a single-use expiring link with no account to create. Ask what the equivalent journey looks like elsewhere, because supplier effort is the variable that decides whether certificates arrive at all.
What you hand the auditor
Ask to see the artefact, not the dashboard. Certly exports the four-state status view per supplier as a PDF that matches the screen badge for badge, with the tracking-and-reminding line on it. Ask any vendor for a sample export rather than a screenshot.
How personal data on certificates is handled
Audit certificates and analysis reports name auditors, signatories and quality managers. Ask where the documents are stored, how long they are kept, whether a data processing agreement is available, and how an erasure request is handled. Certly publishes its stored-data list, its retention position and what is not yet in place.
What the quote actually covers
Published pricing and quoted pricing are different purchases. Certly lists all three plan prices, from Starter at 3,228 dollars a year to Multi-site at 10,788, with the supplier and site caps attached to each and a 14-day trial on Starter and Professional. Where a price is quoted instead, ask for licence, implementation, training and renewal uplift separately, and ask what happens to the price in year two.
How long until the first certificate is tracked
The date that matters is not the contract date, it is the day a lapsing certificate first triggers a reminder. Ask who loads the supplier list, who sets the alert thresholds, and how much of your QA week the setup takes before any of it pays back.
Questions
What is the main difference between Certly and Safefood 360°?
Certly is a single workflow for one plant: suppliers and their required certificate types, expiry tracking with 90, 60 and 30 day alerts, automated chase emails with supplier self-upload links, a four-state status dashboard and a PDF export. We hold no verified description of Safefood 360°, so we describe only what Certly does and leave the rest to them.
Why does this page not list Safefood 360°'s features or price?
Because we have no quoted source for them. Nothing was captured from their own pages, so publishing a feature or price column in their name would be guesswork presented as fact. The table instead gives you the questions to ask, and their site is in the sources below.
Can I try Certly today?
Not yet. Certly is pre-launch, so the only step today is joining the waitlist. Starter and Professional each declare a 14-day free trial for when sign-up opens; the Multi-site plan does not declare one.
Our supplier certificates name individual auditors and signatories. How is that handled?
Certly is hosted on Amazon Web Services, stores uploaded documents in the product's own database rather than a shared file store, and includes a right-to-erasure endpoint for supplier contact personal data, which also stops any unused upload links sent to that contact. We publish what is not in place too, including no independent security certification, no data processing agreement ready to countersign and no choice of data residency region. Ask every vendor on your shortlist the same questions before real documents go in.
Does Certly check that a certificate is genuine?
No. Certly records the certificate, computes its status from the expiry date you or your supplier enter, and reminds you before it lapses. The dashboard and the PDF export both carry the tracking-and-reminding line quoted on this page, and verification stays a judgement your QA team makes.
Does Certly cover HACCP plans, monitoring records or corrective actions?
No. The scope is supplier certificates: the supplier database, uploads, expiry tracking, chase emails, the status dashboard and its PDF export. If you also need monitoring logs, document control or corrective action workflows, a broader platform is the honest answer and our guide to choosing software as a small plant works through that trade-off.
We run three plants. Which plan applies?
Multi-site, at 10,788 dollars a year, which covers up to 30 sites under one agreement with no supplier cap and lets you add and switch sites from one sign-in. Starter (up to 50 suppliers) and Professional (up to 200) are single-site, one tenant per plant. Multi-site does not declare a free trial, where Starter and Professional each declare 14 days. The separate page on tracking certificates across more than one plant explains how plant-scoped data works in practice.
How does Certly compare with the other platforms on our shortlist?
We write one comparison page per named product rather than one ranking, because the honest comparison depends on scope. There are separate pages for SafetyChain, TraceGains, Trustwell FoodLogiQ, Qadex, FoodDocs, FoodReady.ai and Intelex, each written to the same rule: claim-backed on Certly, questions only where we hold no verified source.