Decision tool
Do you need a sourcing agent?
Use three practical questions to decide whether a defined sourcing, verification or quality scope is worth discussing.
This tool is a planning aid only. It does not provide legal, customs, tax or compliance advice, and it does not determine whether a supplier is suitable.
Last reviewed 15 September 2026
What this tool is deciding
Not whether sourcing support is good in general, but whether a defined scope is worth paying for on the order in front of you right now. Those are different questions, and the second one has a real answer that is sometimes no. A buyer who already has a verified factory, a sealed reference sample and a working inspection routine does not need an agent; they need the next inspection booked.
When a scoped check is usually worth it
The pattern is consistent: the cost of the check is small against the cost of the failure it prevents, and the failure is one you cannot recover from afterwards. Paying the wrong entity is the clearest case — a USD 99 desk check against an unrecoverable payment. A first order with a new supplier, a reorder that has to match a product your reviews were written about, and a tooling payment about to leave are the others.
- You are about to pay a supplier you have not verified
- It is a first production run with a factory you have not seen
- The reorder has to match a sealed reference you never sealed
- A tooling payment is due and the ownership terms are not written down
When it is probably not worth it yet
If the product requirement is not written down, no check can be run against anything. An inspection needs a specification and an approved sample to compare against; without them the report can only say the goods exist. Sort the requirement first — the RFQ template on this site is free and is the cheaper starting point.
- There is no written specification and no approved sample yet
- You are still comparing categories rather than suppliers
- The order is small enough that a single check costs a large share of it
- You already have a verified supplier, a sealed sample and a working inspection routine
What the answer is not
It is three questions and a rule, not an assessment of your supplier, your product or your business. It cannot tell you whether a particular factory is any good, and it has no information about your order beyond what you just typed. If the result and your own judgement disagree, your judgement has more to go on.
Common questions
Does the result commit me to anything?
No. Nothing is stored, nothing is sent, and no one is contacted. It runs entirely in your browser.
What is the smallest thing you would take on?
A single supplier verification at USD 99. Standalone checks have no minimum order value. A full sourcing engagement on commission only makes sense from about USD 5,000 of order value, and below that we will say so rather than take it.
I already have a supplier I trust. Is there anything useful here?
Usually one thing: whether the party you pay is the party on your contract, and whether the registered address and the production address are the same place. That is desk work, it costs USD 99, and trust is not evidence about either question.