Comparing vendors across the network (HQ)

What this view is

When you open a vendor from your network's Vendors home, you get an option to see how it stacks up against the best-scored alternatives in the same category, but read at the level of the whole franchise network rather than one office. This is the HQ analogue of the vendor compare modal your franchisees see inside IQ. IQ's version is built around one operator's own relationship with a vendor: their negotiated rate, their own satisfaction rating, how switchable the relationship is. HQ does not have that per-seat lens on the franchisor side, and it should not, franchisee relationships and ratings are theirs. What HQ has instead is the aggregate: the Verinode score each vendor has earned in Verinode's independent research catalog, which alternatives are already in use somewhere in your network, how satisfied the franchisees using them are on average, and what the network typically pays.

Nothing here is sold to carriers or to any vendor. It exists so you can look at a vendor program decision the way an AI Co-COO would: with the research-backed score next to the real, current network footprint, not a sales pitch from either side.

Where to find it

The comparison lives inside the vendor detail overlay, not as a separate page.

1. 1Open Vendors from the sidebar (/vendors).
2. 2Click any vendor tile to open its detail overlay.
3. 3In the top-right of the overlay, click Compare alternatives (N), where N is the number of same-category alternatives Verinode found in the research catalog. The button only appears when at least one alternative exists and the vendor isn't in an aggregate-only privacy state (see Empty states below).
4. 4The Compare vendors panel opens on top of the vendor detail overlay, tagged HQ · Network-aggregate view under the title so you don't mistake it for the IQ per-operator version.

What you see

The panel opens with a short explainer: "Side-by-side scoring and network footprint vs same-category alternatives. Network-aggregate view, IQ shows the operator's per-relationship lens." Below that is a grid, one column per vendor, up to four columns total: the vendor you opened from, plus up to three of its top-scored alternatives in the same category.

Each column header shows a small Current or Alternative label, the vendor's logo (or a generated placeholder mark if Verinode has no logo on file), and the vendor's name. The current vendor always occupies the leftmost column.

Five rows run underneath, the same five for every column:

• Category. The vendor's category as Verinode's research catalog classifies it (for example, "Water Mitigation Equipment" rather than a raw database category key). Alternatives are chosen from the same category as the vendor you opened from, so this row reads the same across every alternative column. It's shown for the current vendor mainly to confirm which category the comparison is scoped to.
• Verinode score. The vendor's independently researched score, on Verinode's scale, with its plain-language label underneath (for example a score number with "Strong" or "Watch" beneath it) when Verinode has one. This is the same research-layer score used throughout Benchmarks, built from public and licensed sources, never from what any single franchisee paid or said. If no score has been computed yet, the cell reads a dash.
• Network footprint. How many of your franchisees currently use this vendor, phrased as "3 franchisees" (singular "1 franchisee" when there's exactly one). If nobody in your network currently uses it, the cell reads Not in use, meaning it's a catalog suggestion Verinode is surfacing on research merit alone, not a network incumbent.
• Network median spend. The median monthly spend across the franchisees in your network who use this vendor, formatted per month (for example "$4k / mo" or "$1.2M / mo" for very large network totals; under $1,000 it shows the plain dollar amount). This is a median, so a couple of very large or very small accounts don't drag the number around. It reads a dash when nobody in your network is using that vendor yet, there's no spend to take a median of.
• Network avg satisfaction. The average satisfaction rating your franchisees have given the vendor, on a 0 to 10 scale (for example "7.8 / 10"). This comes only from your own network's ratings, not the wider Verinode community. It reads a dash when no franchisee has rated it.

Read the row order as a funnel: first confirm you're comparing like for like (Category), then look at the independent, research-backed read (Verinode score), then look at what your own network is actually doing (footprint, spend, satisfaction). A vendor can score well in research and still have no network footprint yet, that's exactly the "worth piloting" signal this view is built to surface. Equally, a vendor with strong footprint and satisfaction but a middling research score is worth a second look at whether the research catalog is missing something about it, not proof the score is wrong.

How to use it

Use this panel when you're deciding whether to open, tighten, or walk back a vendor program decision at the network level, not for any single franchisee's contract. A few concrete reads:

• Current vendor scores low, an alternative scores high and already has network footprint. That's the strongest signal here, the alternative isn't a cold-start guess, some of your own franchisees are already using it and rating it well.
• Current vendor scores low, alternatives all read "Not in use." Verinode is telling you the research catalog sees better options in this category, but none of your franchisees have tried them yet. Treat this as a candidate for a pilot at one or two locations before a network-wide program change.
• An alternative has a strong Verinode score but a low avg satisfaction from the few franchisees using it. Don't average these two signals away. The research score reflects the vendor generally; your network's own satisfaction rating reflects your franchisees' actual experience with it. A gap between them is worth asking your franchisees about directly before you act on the score alone.

Whatever you decide, Verinode is presenting the comparison, not making the call. Program decisions (approving, requiring, or dropping a vendor) happen through your normal Programs workflow on the vendor detail overlay; this panel is the evidence, not the action.

Empty states

• No same-category alternatives in the catalog. If Verinode's research catalog doesn't yet have any other vendors scored in this vendor's category, the Compare alternatives button doesn't appear at all on the vendor detail overlay, since there's nothing to compare against. If you do reach the panel with zero alternatives, it reads: "No same-category alternatives in the research catalog yet. The comparison row needs at least one peer."
• Aggregate-only view (privacy gate). When a vendor is used by too few franchisees in your network to break out its network numbers without risking identifying a single franchisee, the vendor detail overlay itself switches to an aggregate-only state: "Aggregate-only view. This vendor is currently used by [a small number of] franchisees in your network. Per-vendor metrics are suppressed to protect operator privacy (single-franchisee identification risk)." In this state, neither the Score deep-dive nor Compare alternatives buttons appear, and the compare panel isn't reachable, since the comparison would surface the same protected numbers this state is hiding. This is the same protection principle used across every network-aggregate view in HQ: Verinode will not let an aggregate of one stand in for an individual franchisee's data.
• Missing individual values. Inside the panel itself, any cell without a value (no score yet, no network user yet, no ratings yet) shows a dash rather than a zero or a blank, so you can tell "not measured" apart from "measured as none."

Best-practice example

Say you open Roofing Tarping & Board-Up from Vendors and see your incumbent scoring a middling Verinode score with no plain-language label attached yet. You click Compare alternatives (3). The panel shows your incumbent next to three alternatives: one with a strong score already used by four of your franchisees at a healthy avg satisfaction and a network median spend close to what you're paying now, one strong-scoring catalog name with no network footprint at all, and one that scores about the same as your incumbent. The first alternative is the clearest lead: real network adoption, a real satisfaction read, and comparable cost. Rather than acting on the score alone, the next step is a conversation with the franchisees already using it, through your normal outreach, before deciding whether to bring it into a network program.

Related reading

• Reading a benchmark, how Verinode scores are built and what the plain-language labels mean
• Benchmarks overview, the wider set of network benchmark views HQ has access to
• How benchmarks work, the methodology and eligibility behind every Verinode score
• The decision workspace, where program decisions get planned and acted on once you've compared