What to consider when selecting a quoting platform
How Breadboard compares with conventional EMS quoting platforms, and where it does not. Every capability below can be tested on your own BOM. The final section shows how.
3-5 minutes for a typical BOM.
Tens of minutes per pricing pass
Quote turnaround measured in hours rather than days. Time one BOM on your current platform and compare.
3-5 minutes for a typical BOM.
Tens of minutes per pricing pass
Quote turnaround measured in hours rather than days. Time one BOM on your current platform and compare.
Derived automatically from package code and unit price. You are never asked to state a component type at upload.
Typically requires classification per line item on entry before attrition will calculate.
Nobody hand-classifies a line to make the model work, and bad classification cannot quietly compound into long-term errors.
A per-account alias table. Teach it once that an abbreviation means a manufacturer and it holds on every later upload.
Commonly a single master table shared across all customers, so a local correction is re-entered each time.
One step removed from something your team does several times a day, and one less place to make a mistake.
A file-explorer style tree. Expand the branches and see the whole assembly in one view.
Multi-layer BOMs are supported, but typically one assembly or level is visible at a time.
You see how the whole assembly connects instead of paging through it level by level. Faster to orient on an unfamiliar BOM.
Identical orderable part numbers repeating across levels are added together to reach a higher quantity break, and the source lines are shown so you can check it. Same manufacturer and same orderable part number only; packaging variants stay separate.
Typically priced level by level, so each instance reaches its own break.
A lower total BOM cost from price breaks that were always available and never claimed. A sharper quote without cutting margin.
Algorithmic allocation across the supplier set, plus allocation on selected rows only and preferences beyond supplier, packaging, lead time, price and stock.
Most platforms in this category automate allocation in some form.
Allocation decided by arithmetic rather than by habit. Both approaches exist, so judge the control you get, not the feature itself.
Available from 15 September 2026. Requires a component data subscription.
Available in some platforms.
Earlier warning on lifecycle and change risk before it reaches a build. Ask us about the data subscription if this matters to you.
Everyone works the same quote at the same time. No separate logins to hand between, no waiting for another person's approval to proceed.
Commonly gated by role, so the quote moves between engineer, purchaser and estimator in sequence.
In a shop where the same few people do all three jobs, a handoff is a queue with nobody at the other end.
Column preferences save per company account, so the shop sets its screen once. Individuals can also adjust their own, which persists until the browser cache is cleared.
Varies by platform.
Everyone opens the layout your team agreed on, instead of rebuilding it.
Built around how your shop actually works, not an industry standard.
Commonly built on a generic benchmark rather than your own process.
A labor model your estimator does not have to argue with, and one that lives in the system rather than in one person's head.
A cable assembly labor calculator, costed in the same pass as the BOM.
Available in some platforms, typically as a separate and heavier workflow.
Cable and harness work gets costed alongside the board instead of in a side spreadsheet.
Yes. Try it on your own BOMs before committing budget.
Frequently not offered.
You can find out whether this works for your files without starting a procurement cycle.
14 to 30 days on average, with a named person running it.
Commonly quoted at 30 to 90 days.
A shorter window and one owner, so your team can plan quoting capacity around a real date
Live chat with a response in minutes, plus a named owner who knows your account
Live chat is common in this category, and some vendors publish response metrics
Answers from someone who already knows your setup, rather than a queue.
A meaningful, customer-requested feature roughly every two weeks. Cross-level part aggregation, the manufacturer alias table and saved column preferences all exist because a customer asked.
A vendor serving several hundred accounts has to rank requests across all of them.
When you ask for something, it can be in production in weeks rather than sitting on a list.
Breadboard is a quote-to-source platform for electronics contract manufacturers, built by EETech. Descriptions of conventional platforms reflect how these products commonly behave in this category; capabilities vary by vendor and by version, so confirm anything that matters with your own vendor.
How to check any of this yourself
None of these tests require us. Run them on the platform you already have.
Time to priced lines
Take the messiest real BOM your team handled last month. Upload it to the platform you use today and time it from upload to priced lines. Then send us the same file and we will price it live with a timer on screen.
What it tells you: You produce the comparison. We never tell you what your current number is.
Repeated parts across levels
Price a multi-layer BOM where you know a common passive repeats across levels. Check the quantity break each instance reached, then add the quantities by hand and check what break the total would have reached.
What it tells you: The gap between those two numbers is the saving currently going unclaimed.
Classification and mapping
Upload a real BOM and count the fields you had to fill before you saw a price. Then upload the same file again and count how many you had to fill a second time.
What it tells you: Those two counts describe your week better than any feature list.
Concurrent work
Ask two people to open the same quote at the same time and try to work on it.
What it tells you: A thirty-second test, and the answer is often different from the one on the feature list.
Labor model
Ask where the labor rates and times came from. If the answer is an industry standard, ask how your estimator adjusts it and who maintains those adjustments.
What it tells you: This is usually where the tribal knowledge is hiding.
Implementation
Ask any vendor which part of the migration takes longest and why. If they cannot answer specifically, they have not done many.
What it tells you: The honest answer is almost always the labor model, because part of it lives in someone's head.
Send us one real BOM. We price it live.
Send us one real BOM. We price it live, on a call, with the clock on screen. You keep the priced output and the recording. Then run the same file through the platform you use today and time it yourself.
About 20-60 minutes including questions. No pricing conversation attached and no contract.
About your file: we price it, we show you the result, and that is all. We do not share it, we do not use it to train anything, and we delete it on request at any point without needing a reason. An NDA is available before you send anything. If you would rather keep the part numbers to yourself, send it redacted, because quantities and package codes are enough to show what you need to see.We never touch your systems, your ERP or your current platform. We read only the file you choose to send us.
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Disclaimer
Performance figures, benchmarks, win-rate ranges, and ROI examples in these materials are illustrative. They reflect industry research, aggregated customer data, and modeled scenarios, and are provided to explain how quote speed can affect competitive outcomes. They are not a promise or guarantee of specific results. Actual results depend on your bill of materials, data quality, sourcing conditions, market pricing, and how your team uses the platform, and they will vary.
The 60-Minute Quote Challenge returns a complete, priced quote in 60 minutes or less for most submitted BOMs. Completion time depends on BOM size, complexity, file format, and data completeness. Some BOMs, including those with significant custom, proprietary, or engineering-dependent content, require additional time. Where that happens, Breadboard explains the exceptions and delivers the remaining quote.
Third-party company, product, and platform names are the property of their respective owners and are used for identification and comparison only. Comparisons rely on publicly available information believed accurate as of the campaign date and do not imply affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement. Breadboard is a mark of EETech.