Stop Guessing on Metal Costs: TandemOne's Cost Intelligence Tool Gets a Major Upgrade
The Quote Looked High. Now You Can Find Out Why.
A buyer gets two quotes for the same stamped aluminum part. One's 12% higher than the other. Is that supplier inefficient? Are they overcharging? Or did aluminum prices just move and nobody told you?
Until now, you'd have to dig through trade publications, call a few contacts, or just take the supplier's word for it. None of those are great options when margin is on the line.
That's the gap we built our newest update to close.
What's new in TandemOne Insights
We've added metal price index tracking directly into the Cost Intelligence tool. Now you can follow pricing trends over time for the metals that actually move your numbers — without leaving the platform or piecing together data from five different sources.
This is part of a pattern you've probably noticed if you've been on TandemOne for a while: we keep building tools that solve problems in the pre-RFQ phase, not because it's flashy, but because that's where most of the wasted time and misalignment actually happens. Long before an RFQ goes out, buyers and suppliers are trying to answer questions like "is this price fair?" and "should I lock this in now or wait?" Price index tracking gives both sides a real answer.
What it means for buyers
Quote variation isn't automatically a red flag — but you should be able to tell the difference between normal market movement and something else. With historical and current metal pricing inside TandemOne, you can:
Benchmark incoming quotes against actual market movement, not guesswork
Separate "the market shifted" from "this supplier's margins shifted"
Spot potential overcharging before you sign anything
Walk into negotiations with data instead of a hunch
This is the same logic behind why we built TandemOne in the first place — buyers shouldn't have to choose between moving fast and doing real supplier due diligence. Every supplier on the platform is already pre-vetted before a buyer ever sees their profile, so price benchmarking is one more layer of confidence stacked on top of a foundation that's already solid. You're not starting due diligence from zero — you're refining a decision among suppliers you already know are legitimate.
What it means for suppliers
Volatile metal markets put suppliers in a tough spot: lock in a price too early and a spike eats your margin; wait too long and you lose the bid. Price index tracking helps you:
Time quotes around real market conditions instead of last quarter's numbers
Adjust strategy ahead of volatility instead of reacting to it
Justify pricing to buyers with shared data, not just your word
Avoid the slow bleed of negative margins on long-running contracts
It also strengthens your negotiating position. If copper jumps 8% mid-contract, you're not stuck having an awkward, undocumented conversation about a price increase — you've got the index data to back it up.
Built for contracts that last longer than the quote
Material costs don't sit still for the life of a contract, but a lot of sourcing agreements are written like they will. With market data inside TandemOne, buyers and suppliers can build in language tied to actual index movement — escalation clauses, renegotiation triggers, review windows — instead of guessing at thresholds or avoiding the conversation altogether.
It's also useful well past the negotiation table. When finance or leadership asks why costs went up this quarter, "the market moved and here's the index that shows it" is a much easier conversation than "trust me."
Another step in the same direction
This isn't a standalone feature — it's the latest in a series of additions aimed at the same goal: getting buyers and suppliers to the RFQ stage faster, with fewer blind spots and less wasted back-and-forth. We've heard directly from users that the friction before RFQ is often worse than the friction during it. Cost Intelligence, supplier verification, and now metal price tracking are all built to chip away at that same problem from different angles.
And because every supplier on TandemOne is pre-vetted from day one, none of this data exists in a vacuum — you're applying it to a pool of suppliers who've already cleared the bar. That's the difference between a tool that gives you numbers and a platform that gives you context.
Curious what else is coming? We're not done. See what else TandemOne offers or explore manufacturing process guides to see how pricing intelligence fits into sourcing decisions across categories.
