Comparing vendors across your network

What it is

Every vendor in your network's catalog can be checked against the other vendors in its own category: the same restoration line, the same equipment class, the same service type. The vendor-comparison modal is where that check happens. It puts your network's current vendor side by side with up to three same-category alternatives, and lines up Verinode score, how much of your network already uses each one, and what they cost and rate against each other.

This is the HQ analogue of the compare view an individual operator sees in IQ. An operator compares vendors from their own seat: their rate, their rating, whether switching makes sense for their book. HQ doesn't see any single franchisee's private numbers, so this view answers a different question: across the whole network, how does this vendor's standing compare to its category peers, and is the network already using a better-scored (or cheaper, or better-liked) alternative somewhere else. Verinode surfaces the comparison. Deciding whether to promote an alternative into a vendor program, renegotiate a rate, or leave things as they are is yours.

Where to find it

Open Vendors from the HQ sidebar, under Operations (hq.verinode.ai/vendors). Click into any vendor row or tile with network activity to open its detail overlay.

Near the top right of that overlay, look for two buttons: Score deep-dive and Compare alternatives (N), where N is the number of same-category alternatives Verinode found in the research catalog. Click Compare alternatives to open the comparison modal.

Opening the comparison

1. 1From the Vendors page, click a vendor to open its detail overlay. The header shows its category, program status, and its network Verinode score.
2. 2If a Compare alternatives (N) button appears top right, click it.
3. 3The modal opens with the title "Compare vendors" and the eyebrow "HQ · Network-aggregate view."
4. 4Read the grid left to right: the leftmost stub column holds the metric labels; the next column is your Current vendor; up to three more columns to its right are Alternative vendors in the same scoring category, ordered by their research score (highest first, deduplicated so the same underlying vendor entity never shows twice).
5. 5Close the modal to return to the vendor detail overlay, or use Score deep-dive from there to see that vendor's full score history and dimension trend.

Reading the comparison grid

Each column carries a source pill at the top: Current for the vendor you opened the overlay from, Alternative for each same-category peer. Below the pill sits the vendor's logo (an auto-resolved favicon, or the vendor's initials in a plain badge when no favicon resolves) and its name.

Five metric rows run underneath. Here's what each one means, and where the number for the Current column comes from versus the Alternative columns, since they aren't always the same underlying source.

Category. The Current column shows the vendor's scoring category, written in plain words (for example "Roofing Material," not the raw catalog key). The Alternative columns show a dash here, because every alternative shown is, by definition, already matched into that same category. You don't need it repeated on each column; it's the reason those columns are in the grid at all.

Verinode score. This is the row to read carefully, because the two column types pull the number from two different places:

• The Current column shows the network's own average Verinode score for that vendor: the average of the ratings your franchisees have actually submitted for it. It's shown as a plain number (for example "7.8") with no qualitative label underneath.
• Each Alternative column shows that vendor's research score from Verinode's independent research catalog: the platform-wide score computed from the same scoring dimensions, independent of whether anyone in your network has used the vendor yet. Alternative columns carry a qualitative label under the number (for example "Strong") because the research catalog attaches one; the network average shown for your current vendor doesn't carry that label.

In short: the Current column tells you what your own network thinks of the vendor it's using. The Alternative columns tell you how the wider research catalog rates a vendor your network hasn't necessarily tried. Read a strong Alternative score as "worth a look," not as proof it will outperform your current vendor once your own franchisees are using and rating it.

Network footprint. How many of your franchisees have an active relationship with that vendor right now. Reads "N franchisees" (or "1 franchisee") when at least one franchisee uses it, and "Not in use" when none do. An alternative marked "Not in use" is a catalog suggestion only: no franchisee in your network has an operating relationship or spend history with it yet, so there's no network experience behind its number besides the research score above it.

Network median spend. The median monthly spend across the franchisees who use that vendor, formatted as a dollar figure per month (rounded to the nearest thousand above $1,000, to the nearest tenth of a million above $1,000,000). Shows a dash when no franchisee spend is on file for that column, which is always the case for a "Not in use" alternative.

Network avg satisfaction. The average satisfaction rating your franchisees have given that vendor, on a 0 to 10 scale, shown as "X.X / 10." Shows a dash when no franchisee has rated it, again the expected state for a catalog-only alternative.

How to use it

The comparison modal exists to answer one practical question for HQ: is there a same-category vendor the network should be pushing toward, either because it scores higher, costs less, or both. Typical reads:

• An alternative already in network use, cheaper, comparable score. That's the strongest case for tightening a vendor program: negotiate the current vendor down to that median, or start moving qualification toward the alternative.
• An alternative with a strong research score but "Not in use." Worth flagging to your ops or programs lead as a vendor to evaluate before it goes into any program, since no franchisee has direct experience with it yet.
• The current vendor already leads on both network score and spend. Nothing to act on: the comparison confirms the network's existing choice is holding up against its category peers.

If you decide to act on what the comparison surfaces, the next stop is usually the vendor program itself: see Working with vendor programs for how to add or requalify a vendor into an approval tier, and Vendor and process standards for how program requirements get enforced network-wide.

Empty states

If Verinode hasn't found any same-category alternative in the research catalog for a vendor, the Compare alternatives button doesn't appear on its detail overlay at all: there's nothing to open. If you do reach the modal (for instance, on a vendor whose category briefly had alternatives that have since aged out of the catalog), it reads:

No same-category alternatives in the research catalog yet. The comparison row needs at least one peer.

The privacy boundary

Every number in this modal, in both the Current and Alternative columns, is a network aggregate: a median, an average, or a count across the franchisees using that vendor. Nothing here is any single franchisee's own spend, rating, or relationship. HQ never sees a single franchisee's private business data through this view, only the rolled-up picture across the network.

That protection is enforced structurally, not just by what's on screen. In networks made up of independently owned franchisees, a vendor used by too few franchisees can effectively identify which franchisee is behind the number, so Verinode suppresses the vendor's detail overlay entirely below that floor and shows an aggregate-only notice instead: no score, no spend figures, no Compare or Score deep-dive buttons. (Networks made up of your own corporate-owned locations aren't gated this way, since that data is already yours end to end.) The same floor governs the per-dimension "Network team scores" you'll see further down the same vendor overlay: a dimension with too few franchisee raters behind it shows "Insufficient ratings" instead of a number, rather than exposing what would effectively be one franchisee's private score.

Related reading

• HQ overview: how the HQ sidebar and network-aggregate model fit together.
• Understanding network benchmarks: the wider set of network-vs-industry comparisons HQ surfaces.
• Working with vendor programs: approving, requalifying, and enforcing vendor programs off the back of what a comparison surfaces.
• Vendor and process standards: how program requirements get set and checked across the network.
• Network health: the franchisee-level rollups this same privacy floor also governs.