IT is the floor and stays first. The other seven arrive with their own supplier lists, their own contract vocabulary, and their own order of tools, because a freight buyer and a licensing manager do not open the same door first.
Hardware, peripherals, software licences, SaaS, cloud, telecom, and managed services.
1,380 benchmarks across 1,160 vendors
Order form, Enterprise agreement, Subscription and SaaS agreement, Cloud commitment.
The benchmark library, the contract decoder, renewals.
Property and lease, utilities, cleaning, catering, security, maintenance, and office furniture.
50 suppliers benchmarked, each with its own curve
Facilities management agreement, Property lease, Utilities supply agreement, Cleaning services agreement.
The contract decoder, spend optimization, renewals, compare.
Management consulting, legal counsel, audit, and tax advisory.
50 suppliers benchmarked, each with its own curve
Consulting engagement, Statement of work, Legal services engagement, Rate card agreement.
The SOW agent, the MSA agent, the contract decoder.
Media buying, creative and PR agencies, promotional items, events, and trade shows.
50 suppliers benchmarked, each with its own curve
Agency master services agreement, Media buying agreement, Public relations retainer, Sponsorship agreement.
The contract decoder, compare, spend optimization.
Recruitment, contingent labour, training, benefits administration, and payroll.
50 suppliers benchmarked, each with its own curve
Payroll services agreement, Benefits brokerage agreement, Recruitment services agreement, Staffing supplier agreement.
The instant benchmark, renewals, the contract decoder.
Corporate airfare, hotels, ground transport, and conference and client event costs.
74 suppliers benchmarked, each with its own curve
Travel management agreement, Airline corporate discount agreement, Hotel rate agreement, Car rental agreement.
The contract decoder, spend optimization, compare.
Maintenance, repair and operations supplies: safety gear, stationery, and cleaning consumables.
25 suppliers benchmarked, each with its own curve
Supply agreement, Distribution agreement, Safety equipment agreement, Spare parts and consumables agreement.
The sourcing project, the contract decoder, spend optimization.
Freight and parcel, warehousing, customs brokerage, and the corporate vehicle fleet.
25 suppliers benchmarked, each with its own curve
Freight forwarding agreement, Parcel carrier agreement, Warehousing agreement, Fleet leasing agreement.
The sourcing project, the contract decoder, compare.
The benchmark library now carries 324 suppliers across the seven categories that are not software, each with its own buyer side curve: the median outcome and the range across four contract size bands, on the commercial lines that supplier actually sells, with the evidence graded line by line. Sixty six of them are fee rate curves rather than discount curves, because most indirect money is a management fee, an overhead and profit percentage or a markup, where a lower number is the better outcome and reading it as a discount would rank the worst quote as the best. Where a supplier publishes no price, the curve measures the movement off the opening quote or the rate card and says so, and nothing is invented to fill a gap.
Each category also carries its own negotiation playbook, written from the same curve set: where the money actually moves, which clauses carry it, which suppliers are in a position to concede at all, and which arguments reliably fail. The paper read clause by clause, the supplier set, the sourcing motion from requirement to award, and an agent that drafts what you send travel to every category as before.
All eight are on every plan. Start with one contract and see what the desk makes of it.