➡️What are smart suppliers?
Smart Suppliers is a Ply feature that lets you register the cost of different suppliers for each material in your catalog. Once you've added those suppliers, Ply can automatically pick the best option for you (by default, the lowest cost), so you always know where to source each material for less.
➡️Adding suppliers to a material
All supplier pricing is added manually, right inside each material.
Go to Catalog > Materials and open the material you want to edit.
Click the Prices & Suppliers tab.
Click the arrow (›) next to the material's row to expand it.
Click + Add Supplier.
Choose the supplier and enter their cost for the material (for example, $10).
Repeat for as many suppliers as you need. There's no limit.
That's it. You now have a list of suppliers and their prices for that material.
💡 Tip: If you're loading pricing for more than a handful of materials, don't do this one by one, jump to How to Bulk Upload & Edit Prices and Supplier instead. It's built exactly for this.
➡️Turning on Smart Suppliers
Once your suppliers are loaded, you can activate the feature:
Go to Settings > Procurement > Smart Suppliers.
Turn on the Smart Suppliers toggle.
With it on, Ply reviews all the supplier prices you've registered across your materials and, by default, flags the lowest-cost supplier as the "Smart Supplier" for each one. So if you've added five suppliers with different prices to a material, Ply will detect which of the five is cheapest and set that as the Smart Supplier. In short, the feature always looks for the lowest cost.
➡️Choosing how smart suppliers are applied
After the toggle is on, you'll pick an application method under Select Method:
Adjust Automatically: Ply automatically sets the lowest-cost supplier as the Smart Supplier across all your materials, with no extra steps.
Suggest Adjustments: Ply gives you a list of all materials that have supplier prices configured. You open the suggestions and confirm, case by case, which supplier you want as the Smart Supplier.
The system will only give you suggestions if you have options added under Prices & Suppliers. Otherwise, it won't.
💡 Tip: If you're not sure which mode to use yet, start with Suggest Adjustments. It lets you see exactly what Ply would change before it changes anything, safer while you're still getting familiar with the feature.
➡️ Preferred Suppliers: when you don't want the cheapest option
Sometimes the lowest cost isn't what you want. Maybe for a specific material you'd rather go with a mid-range supplier because the quality is better, even if it costs a little more. For those cases, you can set a preferred supplier.
A preferred supplier is the supplier you manually choose for a material, regardless of whether it's the cheapest.
To set one:
In the Prices & Suppliers tab, find the material's row and turn off the Smart Supplier toggle on the right-hand side of that row.
2. Checkboxes will appear next to each supplier. Check the one you want as your preferred.
Why bother? Because the next time you create a PO for that material and choose to build it for your preferred supplier, Ply will automatically pull in that supplier and its cost, with no manual editing needed.
For a full step-by-step walkthrough of this same setup, see Setting Up Preferred Suppliers in Ply.
➡️ Disabling Smart Suppliers in bulk
Yes, you can turn Smart Suppliers off across all materials at once:
Keep the general Smart Suppliers toggle on (under Settings > Procurement > Smart Suppliers). This one should always stay on.
Under Select Method, switch from Adjust Automatically to Suggest Adjustments.
Switching to Suggest Adjustments stops Ply from automatically applying the lowest-cost supplier everywhere and lets you keep the per-material Smart Supplier toggle off. That's how you effectively disable Smart Suppliers in bulk.
➡️Important: Preferred suppliers need the general toggle on
Here's a key detail: if the general Smart Suppliers setting (Settings > Procurement) is off, you won't be able to register Preferred Suppliers at all.
So if all you want to use is Preferred Suppliers, do this:
Turn on the general Smart Suppliers toggle.
Set Select Method to Suggest Adjustments.
Don't make any adjustments.
Go into the material, register your prices per supplier, and mark your preferred supplier.
➡️ Common issues & fixes
"I set up a preferred supplier, but the PO dropdown won't let me switch back to it; it's stuck on the smart supplier."
This was a known bug: the supplier dropdown on the PO could get locked whenever a preferred supplier was set, even in Suggest Adjustments (suggestion) mode, which blocked switching between suppliers on the PO. This has been fixed and is live in production; the dropdown stays editable in suggestion mode, correctly defaults to your Preferred Supplier, and lets you switch suppliers directly on the PO. If you're still seeing this behavior, reach out to us with the PO number so we can take a closer look.
"Can I set prices in Prices & Suppliers in bulk instead of one material at a time?" Yes; this is supported. Use How to Bulk Upload & Edit Prices and Supplier from the Catalog's three-dot menu to update or add supplier pricing across many materials at once, instead of opening each one individually.
"My bulk upload failed, and it's flagging a Supplier/Supplier UPC error."
In Ply's bulk import template, Supplier and Supplier UPC are linked; if one is filled in, the other must be too, or that row will fail. If you don't have the real UPC yet, either leave both columns blank and add them later material-by-material, or use a temporary placeholder UPC and correct it afterward. See Common Error: Supplier Without UPC During Bulk Upload for the full breakdown.
"I don't want to do this myself: can your team load supplier pricing for me?"
Yes. If you send our support team a file with your materials, supplier(s), and cost per item, we can coordinate with our data team to get Smart Suppliers configured and the pricing loaded on your behalf. Just reach out with the file attached.
"Smart Suppliers isn't suggesting anything for a material I know has multiple suppliers."
Suggestions only appear for materials that already have pricing registered under Prices & Suppliers. Open the material and confirm each supplier and cost is actually saved there; if it's missing, that's why nothing is being suggested.
➡️ Best practices
✅ Load pricing before turning the feature on.
Smart Suppliers can only compare prices you've actually registered under Prices & Suppliers; no pricing loaded means no suggestions and no automatic selection.
✅ Use "Suggest Adjustments" while onboarding a new catalog.
It keeps you in control until you trust how Ply is prioritizing suppliers, especially if pricing was just bulk-loaded.
✅ Double-check the per-material toggle after any bulk pricing update.
If you bulk-load new supplier costs for materials that already have a Preferred Supplier set, verify the toggle for those materials is still where you expect it.
✅ Keep at least two suppliers per material where possible. Smart Suppliers is most useful when there's an actual price to compare; a material with a single supplier won't benefit from automatic switching.
➡️FAQs
Can I disable Smart Suppliers in bulk for all materials?
Yes. Keep the general toggle on and change Select Method from Adjust Automatically to Suggest Adjustments (see "Disabling Smart Suppliers in bulk" above).
Can I set the prices in Prices & Suppliers in bulk for each supplier?
Yes; see How to Bulk Upload & Edit Prices and Supplier. You're not limited to updating materials one by one anymore.
Does turning off Smart Suppliers for one material affect the rest of my catalog?
No. The per-material toggle only affects that specific material. The general toggle (Settings > Procurement) is what controls the feature account-wide.
What happens if I remove a supplier that's currently marked as the preferred supplier on a material?
The material loses that preferred supplier designation. Make sure to set a new one (or re-enable Smart Suppliers for that item) so your next PO for that material doesn't default unexpectedly.