The agreements, read.Not summarised.

Supplier rebate agreements are private, so almost nothing accurate is published about how they work. We read the ones attached to SEC filings and write down what is in them.

A step chart of the rebate rate against purchases, under the column header quoted from the filing, PERCENTAGE REBATE APPLIED TO ALL PRODUCTS PURCHASED IN CALENDAR YEAR. The rate lies flat at 0 percent up to $5,999,000 of purchases. One orange riser lifts it to 10 percent at $6,000,000, marked $600,000 of rebate on $1,000 more in purchases, and four shorter steps carry it to 11, 12, 13 and 14 percent by $10,000,000.

14 minute read

The rebate cliff

One supply agreement filed with the SEC pays nothing on $5,999,000 of purchases and $600,000 on $6,000,000, and the reason sits in a single line of the column header.

Read it

What goes on this page

Three rules the writing here holds itself to. Every one of them is checkable.

  1. Every figure carries its document.

    The source link and the date somebody opened it sit under the number, not in a footnote.

  2. Our counts say they are ours.

    Where a number is our own count rather than published research, the piece says so and publishes the method.

  3. No case studies.

    We have no customers to make one from yet, so there are none here to read.

Bring us one of your own agreements.

Send a supplier statement and the purchase export for the same period. We read the agreement behind it, match every line against what you bought, and send back the difference with the clause under each figure.

Send one statement

The first pass is free while we onboard the first ten distributors.