As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly compare prices from your suppliers.
This still needs a person who signs their name to it.
Can you do it?
15 minutesto a draft.
30 minutesto something you’d act on.
Cost, all in£0
Skill neededchat-fluent
Who has to check ityou
What the alternative costsParseur is an AI document extraction tool that pulls data out of invoices, emails and PDFs.
If this goes wrong: you select a supplier using an outdated price, mismatched pack size or missed delivery charge and the business pays more or receives the wrong stock.
What to actually do
Hand it to a person
The route this page recommends
A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.
Use a tool built for this
Second choiceDo it yourself
The distant thirdA chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.
How to actually do it
- Open a new spreadsheet and make a product list with your internal product code, description, specification, pack size and usual unit of purchase.
- Gather the current price lists, quotations, invoices and supplier emails, keeping the supplier name and document date with each file.
- Paste or attach the product list and all supplier documents to an AI tool, then use the comparison prompt exactly as written.
- Ask the tool to keep separate rows for different pack sizes, grades, specifications, currencies and delivery terms rather than treating them as equivalent.
- Copy the comparison into the spreadsheet and compare every quoted figure, product code, pack size and charge against its cited source document.
- Contact the supplier about every CHECK item, expired quote and unclear product match, then enter the confirmed information in the spreadsheet.
- Send the completed comparison and the source documents to the person authorised to approve purchasing before placing an order.
Prompt
Compare the supplier prices in the documents and tables I provide. Create a table with one row per comparable product and these columns: product name, product code, supplier, quoted price, currency, unit of measure, pack size, equivalent price per unit where the units genuinely match, delivery charge, minimum order, payment terms, quote date, quote expiry, and source document. Do not invent, estimate or silently convert any figure. Keep currencies separate unless I provide a confirmed exchange rate. Treat different pack sizes, grades, specifications or delivery terms as non-equivalent and flag them instead of ranking them. Mark missing, ambiguous, expired or conflicting information as CHECK. Show the lowest valid comparable option for each product only when the comparison is like-for-like. List every assumption and every item I need to verify against the original supplier document. Use the product codes and specifications below as the matching key where available: [paste product list and specifications]. Supplier documents: [paste or attach current price lists, quotations, invoices or emails].
Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.
What it gets wrong
- AI cannot know whether two differently named products meet the same operational specification.
- AI cannot guarantee that a price list or quotation is still current when it has no live supplier connection.
- AI can miss delivery charges, rebates, minimum orders or terms hidden in an email or attachment.
- AI cannot take responsibility for selecting the supplier or placing the order.
- This is not professional advice; a solicitor or accountant should handle serious contractual or tax questions.
What caps this at PARTLY: real time truth, judgement under ambiguity and verification cost.
How we scored this
Five axes, each scored nought to two by hand: ten means AI carries the task cleanly, and the thresholds that turn a total into YES, PARTLY or NO are published in the methodology. Each axis name links to its definition.
| Axis | Score (0–2) |
|---|---|
| Output | 2 |
| Inputs | 1 |
| Verification | 1 |
| Liability | 1 |
| Effort delta | 2 |
| Total | 7 / 10 |
The methodology and its thresholds are published in full.
FAQ
- Can ChatGPT compare supplier prices?
- Yes, it can extract prices from the supplier files you provide and arrange them in a comparison table. It cannot confirm that products, pack sizes, delivery terms or quote dates are genuinely comparable, so check those against the originals.
- Can AI compare prices from PDF price lists?
- Yes, AI can read many PDF price lists and pull their contents into a structured table. Scanned pages, poor layouts and footnotes can produce errors, so verify each important figure and charge against the PDF.
- How do I compare supplier prices accurately?
- Give the tool product codes, specifications, pack sizes and current supplier documents, and require it to flag missing or ambiguous information rather than fill gaps. Confirm the results with suppliers and get the comparison approved before ordering.
- Can AI find the cheapest supplier for me?
- It can identify the lowest stated price among options that you have confirmed are like-for-like. It cannot reliably decide whether delivery, quality, minimum orders, payment terms or availability make that option the cheapest overall.
Nearby answers
Assessed by gpt-5.6-luna (gpt-5.6-luna) on 2026-08-13, second-checked by an independent model. Wrong somewhere? Email [email protected] and it gets re-checked.
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