Building the business case for supplier certificate software
If you have decided you want supplier certificate tracking software and now have to justify it to a plant manager or a finance lead, this page is the case, laid out line by line. It covers the numbers worth gathering from your own records, the workflow Certly is built to take over, what a year costs, and the limits you should state yourself rather than have questioned back at you.
The afternoon you sit down to write it
You are not reading this to be convinced. You already know what the spreadsheet costs you: a tab per supplier, a column of expiry dates nobody recomputes, a sent folder full of polite reminders asking a supplier for their certs again. You know which allergen declaration lapsed in March and went unnoticed until someone pulled the approved supplier list. You wrote the corrective action afterwards.
The job in front of you is different and harder. You have to turn a risk you live with into a page that a plant manager, an operations director or a finance lead will sign. They are not in the audit room with you. To them, an out-of-date certificate on file is a filing problem, and filing problems do not usually carry a budget line.
So the case cannot be written as a feeling. It has to be written as four or five lines with numbers beside them, drawn from your own last twelve months, and one line for the price. That is what the rest of this page is for.
The cost lines worth counting, and where your numbers come from
We are not going to hand you an industry average for the price of a failed audit. A case built on your own records survives the first question in the meeting; a case built on a vendor's statistic does not. Here is what to go and count.
Time spent chasing
Take two weeks of your own sent folder and the QA diary and count the hours your team spends asking for certificates of analysis, allergen statements and audit certificates, then filing what comes back. Chasing is the line most likely to be underestimated, because it arrives in five-minute pieces.
What a follow-up visit costs you
Ask your certification body for the current fee schedule in writing, including any charge for a follow-up visit or an additional audit day. That is a real number on real letterhead, and it belongs in the paper rather than in your head.
Closing out a finding
Go back to the last document-related non-conformance you wrote up. Count the hours it took to close, and count everyone else it pulled off their own work: technical, buying, the supplier's side.
Assembling the evidence pack
How long did last year's pack take to put together, and who stopped work to help? An unannounced audit removes the week you usually have to do it in, which is worth saying plainly.
The commercial line
If a retailer or a customer questionnaire has ever asked you to produce a current certificate on short notice, note how long you took to answer. Slow answers are a commercial cost even when no audit is involved.
The case on one page
| Line in your case | Where your number comes from | What Certly is built to change |
|---|---|---|
| Hours spent chasing certificates | Two weeks of your own sent folder, counted honestly | Chase emails for certificates approaching expiry or already lapsed send on a schedule, each send logged |
| Follow-up or additional audit fees | Your certification body's current fee schedule, in writing | Expired, expiring and missing certificates are on one screen before an auditor asks |
| Hours closing out a document finding | The last non-conformance you wrote up, plus everyone it pulled in | Each supplier row names which certificate type is short and what state it is in |
| Assembling the evidence pack | How long last year's pack took, and who helped | A PDF export of the status dashboard, generated when you need it |
| Software cost | The published annual price for the tier that fits your supplier count | Starter is 3,228 dollars a year for one plant and up to 50 suppliers |
The workflow you are proposing, in the order it happens
- List the suppliers and what each one owes you
Add suppliers with contact details and the certificate types you require from each, such as an allergen declaration, a certificate of analysis or an audit certificate. The list of required types is what makes a gap visible rather than invisible.
- Put the documents you already hold against them
Your team uploads the certificates currently sitting in folders and inboxes, each tied to a supplier and a certificate type, with its issue and expiry dates.
- Set how early you want warning
Expiry tracking runs at configurable thresholds of 90, 60 and 30 days before expiry, so the first prompt arrives while a renewal is still an ordinary request rather than an urgent one.
- Let the chasing run without you
Automated email sequences go to the supplier contact for certificates approaching expiry or already lapsed, carrying a one-click upload link, and every send is logged so you can see what actually went out.
- The supplier uploads without an account
The link in the email is single-use, signed and expiring, and needs no login. There is no portal for your suppliers to join and no password for them to keep, so nothing in the rollout depends on registering them anywhere.
- Read one screen, hand over one PDF
The dashboard shows certificate status per supplier in four states: current, expiring soon, expired and missing. The same view exports as a PDF for auditor review, carrying the statement that Certly tracks and reminds and does not verify authenticity or guarantee compliance.
What the person signing it off actually gets
A budget line with a fixed number
Starter is 3,228 dollars a year, billed annually, which works out at 269 dollars a month, 10 percent off the 299 dollar monthly rate for paying up front. No per-seat arithmetic to forecast.
One screen to point at in a management review
Certificate status per supplier, in four states, on a single view. A count of expired and missing documents is a far easier thing to present monthly than a spreadsheet nobody else opens.
Evidence that exists before the auditor arrives
The PDF export of the dashboard is produced when you want it, not assembled over three days under pressure. That matters most for an unannounced visit.
Chasing that continues while you are on the line
The chase sequence does not depend on you remembering. It is the part of the job most often interrupted by production, and the part a scheduled email handles without judgement.
No supplier onboarding to negotiate
Suppliers upload through an expiring single-use link with no account and no password, so the case does not have to include a programme of persuading fifty suppliers to register somewhere.
A scope narrow enough to be believed
Certly is single-site and single-tenant per plant, with plant-scoped data isolation on every query. It tracks supplier certificates and chases them, and the scope you are asking for is the scope it has.
The price line, by supplier count
Starter, 3,228 dollars a year
One plant, up to 50 suppliers. Includes the supplier database with required certificate types, expiry tracking with 90, 60 and 30 day alerts, automated chase emails with supplier self-upload links, and the audit-ready dashboard with PDF export. A 14-day free trial comes with the plan for when we open trials.
Professional, 5,388 dollars a year
One plant with a deeper supplier base, up to 200 suppliers. Everything in Starter. Works out at 449 dollars a month, 10 percent off the 499 dollar monthly rate for paying up front, and carries the same 14-day free trial for when trials open.
Multi-site, 10,788 dollars a year
For groups and consultants covering up to 30 sites under one agreement, with no supplier cap, adding and switching sites from one sign-in. Works out at 899 dollars a month against the 999 dollar monthly rate.
The four objections you will get
We already have a spreadsheet, and it is free
The spreadsheet is not wrong, it is unattended. Nothing in it emails a supplier at 60 days, nothing in it changes a row from current to expired on the right morning, and nothing in it tells you which cell went stale while you were handling a complaint. The thing you are buying is attention that does not depend on anyone remembering.
Does this guarantee we pass the audit?
No, and do not write that it does. Certly tracks certificate expiry and reminds the right contact. It does not verify that a certificate is genuine and it does not guarantee regulatory compliance, and it says exactly that on the dashboard and on the PDF export. What the case claims is narrower and more defensible: fewer documents go out of date unnoticed, and the state of every required certificate is visible on demand.
What will IT and our security reviewer ask?
Better to declare it than be caught by it. Sign-in is email and password. The application and its Postgres database are hosted on Amazon Web Services, and uploaded certificate documents are stored in that database rather than a shared file store. Stripe takes card payments, and card numbers never reach Certly's servers. Resend delivers the chase and upload-link emails and reports delivery and opens back.
What is not in place today: an independent security audit or certification such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001, single sign-on or two-factor authentication, a standard data processing agreement ready to countersign, a published backup and disaster-recovery schedule, a self-serve export of the full data set, and a choice of data residency region. A supplier contact's name and email can be erased on their own from the supplier's page, and any unused upload links sent to them stop working at the same moment.
What if we pay and nobody uses it?
Write the trial into the paper as the evaluation step. Starter and Professional each carry a 14-day free trial, and once your trial opens the test is simple: put your real supplier list in, send one chase, export the PDF, and decide before any money moves. Certly is not open to customers yet, so that step belongs in your plan as the next thing to do rather than as something already done.
Questions
What does supplier certificate tracking software cost?
Certly's Starter plan is 3,228 dollars a year for one plant and up to 50 suppliers. Professional is 5,388 dollars a year for up to 200 suppliers at one site. Multi-site is 10,788 dollars a year for up to 30 sites under one agreement with no supplier cap. The pricing page sets out what each tier includes.
How do I justify the cost without a figure for a failed audit?
Use your own records rather than a published average. Ask your certification body for its current fee schedule for a follow-up visit, count the hours your last document-related non-conformance took to close, count two weeks of chasing from your sent folder, and count how long last year's evidence pack took to assemble. Four numbers from your own plant will hold up in the meeting.
Is it billed monthly or annually?
Annually. Each tier shows an equivalent monthly figure that is 10 percent below the monthly rate, which is the prepay discount for paying up front. There is a separate page on annual billing and the discount if your finance lead wants the detail.
Can I trial it before asking for budget?
Not today. Certly is not open to customers yet, so there is nothing to start this afternoon. Starter and Professional each carry a 14-day free trial, and the waitlist is where we tell you when yours can open. Put the trial in your paper as the evaluation step, so the decision comes after your real supplier list is loaded and one PDF has been exported.
Will it guarantee that we pass our audit?
No, and the case should not say so. Certly tracks certificate expiry and reminds supplier contacts. It does not verify certificate authenticity and it does not guarantee regulatory compliance, and that statement appears on the dashboard and on the PDF export.
We run more than one plant. Does the case change?
The cost lines are the same, but the tier is not: Starter and Professional are single-site, and the Multi-site plan covers up to 30 sites under one agreement with site switching from one sign-in. There is a separate page on tracking certificates across more than one plant.
What should I include for the IT review?
Sign-in is email and password, hosting is Amazon Web Services, payments go through Stripe and chase emails through Resend. State plainly what is absent today as well: no SOC 2 or ISO 27001, no single sign-on or two-factor authentication, no countersignable data processing agreement, no published backup schedule and no choice of residency region.