Choose a subscription plan
A reader-supported publication. Everything published is free to read in full — subscribe to receive it, and to support the reading of primary documents that produces the numbers. Paid tiers add the brief, the archive and the deep dives.
31 analyses · 303 sourced figures ·167 named primary sources ·42 instruments indexed · no ads, no sponsors, no tracking
Monthly
Billed monthly. 3 off the list price while the site is young.
- The weekly policy brief
- The full archive, including pieces from before you arrived
- Every sourced figure, with its retrieval date
- The cost models, and the arithmetic behind each one
Annual
Works out at $10.00 a month.
Saves 17% — two months against paying monthly
- Everything in Monthly
- First look at each quarter's deep dive on one supply chain
- The annual review: what moved, and what it cost
- Help with one question a year, in depth
Team
For sourcing teams who need the same numbers in one place.
- Everything in Annual, for five people
- CSV export of every figure and its source
- Cost models with your own inputs, saved
- A direct line for questions about a specific line item
Founding Member Plan
A one-off payment for the readers who arrive before there is much to subscribe to.
- Everything in Annual, for as long as the site publishes
- One question answered in depth: name an instrument, a route or a product category
- Your name on the founding readers list, unless you ask otherwise
- The Excel model behind every cost table, as it stands
None
What you have now, and what the site will keep giving.
- Every analysis, in full — no truncation, no teaser
- The sourced figure behind every number, with its retrieval date
- Instrument pages: every value drawn from a primary document
- Change alerts, when a tracked change moves a per-unit cost
The free tier is live. Paid subscriptions are not open yet. No payment provider is connected, so the buttons above are deliberately inert rather than broken. The prices are provisional: they sit below Net Interest at $30 a month and Sinocism at $218 a year, and above The Ken's $75 annual tier, and none of them has been tested against a real reader. Subscribe free and you will be told once, when paid tiers open — not a campaign.
Questions people ask before subscribing
Is the free tier actually everything?
Yes. Every analysis is published in full, with every sourced figure, on the open web. Nothing is truncated to sell a subscription. The paid tiers add cadence and convenience — a weekly brief, the archive in one place, a quarterly deep dive — and they fund the reading that produces the numbers.
Why is there no ad-supported tier?
Because advertising and this product pull in opposite directions. A number telling you your landed cost just rose is not a number a sponsor wants beside its logo. The site has no advertising networks, no third-party analytics and no tracking scripts — that is a promise on the privacy page, and a reader-supported model is the only one consistent with it.
What does the annual discount actually buy me?
Two months against paying monthly, and the same thing monthly buys: the brief, the archive, the figures. The percentage shown on the annual card is calculated from the two prices on this page rather than written by hand, so it cannot drift away from them.
What happens when a figure turns out to be wrong?
It is corrected in public, with the change recorded on the article and the date moved. The methodology, and the sources that could not be read, are onthe sources page. Every article states which claims are established and which are the analyst's inference.
Can I expense this?
Usually — it is research, and the Team tier exists for that reason, with five seats and CSV export so the numbers can go into a spreadsheet someone else maintains.