Supplier Catalog Comparison

What does Supplier Catalog Comparison do?

Compare two supplier price-list PDFs by exact product code. Find price increases, decreases, unchanged prices, and products appearing in only one extracted catalog. Download a CSV with source evidence for purchasing reviews and catalog updates.

Try the fictional demo by leaving both PDF URLs blank. It returns five comparisons without paid product events. You can run the Actor from Apify Console or connect it to your workflow through the Apify API and integrations.

Why use it?

Use it to review supplier revisions, prioritize price changes, and prepare catalog updates without manually comparing every line. It compares documents you provide; it does not search suppliers, place orders, or certify that a product is discontinued.

How to use it

1. Run the blank-input demo to see the output.
2. Enter both direct, public HTTPS PDF URLs.
3. Select the same currency, number format, and price basis for both documents.
4. Choose the appropriate table layout for each PDF. Include all relevant pages and annexes.
5. Set a spending ceiling, run the comparison, and inspect SUMMARY and REVIEW before using COMPARISON.csv.

Input and supported formats

The default ruled layout supports English text-based PDFs with table borders and recognizable SKU, description, and price headers. Optional zero-based column maps select these columns and an optional unit column.

The optional borderless-price-list layout supports three single-line columns: description/category, Product code, and List price followed by USD, CAD, AUD, EUR, or GBP. Product codes and prices must be right-aligned. It does not automatically guess a layout. Wrapped descriptions, shifted columns, or extra columns cause the affected section to require review. Column overrides in this mode must be description=0, sku=1, price=2, with no unit column.

Limits are 10 MiB per PDF, 20 pages and 5,000 candidate rows per PDF. Scanned PDFs require OCR elsewhere. General-purpose borderless tables and password-protected documents are unsupported.

Tested historical example

The 2024 Exact Tools list and 2025 list were tested across all five pages. Keep the 2025 annex: it contains older models still listed while stocks last.

{
  "beforePdfUrl": "https://pijpzaagmachine.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Exact-Tools-price-list-2024.pdf",
  "afterPdfUrl": "https://pijpzaagmachine.nl/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Exact-Tools-price-list-2025.pdf",
  "currency": "EUR",
  "numberFormat": "decimal-comma",
  "maxPages": 3,
  "beforeTableMode": "borderless-price-list",
  "afterTableMode": "borderless-price-list"
}

This example produced 68 usable comparisons: 8 increases, 4 decreases, 41 unchanged, 4 only in before, and 11 only in after. Two product codes containing spaces were preserved for review in each document. The cloud CSV matched the locally verified output. These results establish compatibility with this pair, not every supplier PDF.

Output

The dataset contains one usable comparison per product code. You can download the dataset in formats such as JSON, CSV, or Excel using Apify's export options. COMPARISON.csv is a separate flat export in the key-value store.

Field or file	Meaning
sku	Exact product code, with leading zeros preserved
change_type	Increased, decreased, unchanged, or observed in only one document
before / after	Price, description, currency, unit, source page and row evidence
price_change	After price minus before price
price_change_percent	Percentage change from the before price
flags	Caveats such as an unstated pack size
COMPARISON.csv	Flat export of delivered comparisons
REVIEW	Ambiguous identities and rejected records; uncharged
SUMMARY	Extraction counts, warnings, delivered count and budget stop

A simplified fictional result:

{"sku":"001","change_type":"price_increased","price_change":"2.50","price_change_percent":"25.0000"}

Pricing and cost estimation

$5 per 1,000 delivered comparisons ($0.005 each), with platform usage included. Unchanged and one-sided observations also count. Only price changes are not the billing unit. Demo and REVIEW records are uncharged.

A 68-comparison run has a listed event price of $0.34. A $0.25 ceiling allows at most 50 paid comparisons; increase it when you need a larger complete output. Inspect budget_stopped and delivered_rows in SUMMARY. The CSV contains only delivered comparisons. A per-run ceiling is not an account-wide cap.

Tips and limitations

Match list price to list price or net price to net price. A changed description, currency or unit requires review and does not produce a numeric change claim. Missing units carry a pack-size verification flag. Product codes are compared exactly without case folding or removing leading zeros. Codes containing spaces are conservatively held for review.

Only-in-before/after means absence from the extracted pages, not proof of addition or discontinuation. Partial or unsupported extraction is flagged. If either document has no usable products, no comparisons are emitted. Import SKU columns as text; formula-like CSV values, including negative deltas, are prefixed with an apostrophe for spreadsheet safety.

FAQ and support

Will it monitor suppliers automatically? Each run compares one supplied pair. No recurring schedule is created automatically.

Does it use an AI model or OCR? No. It uses deterministic PDF text extraction and exact-code comparison.

Why does SUMMARY say needs_review? Review records, unsupported sections or partial page ranges remain visible even when other rows are usable. Check REVIEW and the source documents before importing prices.

Only process documents you are authorized to use. Inputs, results and evidence remain in Apify run storage under its retention settings. Public document availability can change. This Actor does not certify completeness or correctness.

Use the Actor's Issues tab for support. Include the layout mode and a non-sensitive description of the problem; do not post confidential supplier documents publicly.