The traditional corrugated RFQ takes 4 to 48 hours per plant, and procurement calls three plants to get comparable bids. BoardBid collapses that to a single submission and competitive quotes from every qualified plant in your region — priced, structured, and awardable in one view.
Most corrugated quote requests still travel by email and phone. A buyer sends the same spec to three sheet plants, waits for each to open the file, enter the dimensions into their estimator, route it past their manager, and email back a PDF quote. The buyer copies the numbers into a spreadsheet, compares, and awards.
It works. It's also been the workflow for thirty years. Every component of it is now solvable.
Paste a spec into the buyer portal. Forward an email from your vendor. Upload a cut sheet PDF. The AI parser normalizes everything into a structured request: style, dimensions, ECT, quantity, delivery, deadline.
If anything is ambiguous, you confirm before dispatch. No guessing on a spec worth five figures.
Buyer inbox: "Hey Mike — need 10k RSC 12x12x12 44 ECT shippers, need them in Cleveland by the 15th. Best price?" Parsed & structured: { "type": "RSC", "dims": [12, 12, 12], "ect": 44, "quantity": 10000, "deliver_to": "Cleveland, OH", "need_by": "2026-04-30" }
BoardBid routes your request to every sheet plant that can fulfill it — based on capability, capacity, and freight zone. Plants receive structured data, not an email they have to re-enter. They quote in their own system and return a structured offer to the marketplace.
Finite sheet plants. Infinite buyers. The marketplace matches them.
Dispatched to 7 qualified plants: → Plant A (OH) ⟳ quoting... → Plant B (MI) ✓ $0.41/pc, 5 day → Plant C (OH) ✓ $0.43/pc, 3 day → Plant D (IN) ✓ $0.39/pc, 7 day → Plant E (OH) ⟳ quoting... → Plant F (PA) ✗ declined → Plant G (OH) ✓ $0.44/pc, 2 day 5 quotes received · avg 6 min
All quotes return to one view: price per piece, total, lead time, freight zone, plant reliability score. Filter, sort, annotate. Award in one click — the winning plant gets a structured PO, losing plants get clean feedback.
Every transaction is logged. Your full procurement history for corrugated packaging becomes queryable data: price trends by plant, lead time reliability, win/loss patterns.
Award decision Plant D — $0.39/pc · 7 day ETA Plant B — $0.41/pc · 5 day ETA [winner] Plant C — $0.43/pc · 3 day ETA Plant G — $0.44/pc · 2 day ETA Rationale: best price within target lead time. [ Award to Plant B ]
Corporate buyers managing corrugated spend across multiple locations. You run quarterly RFQs, maintain approved-vendor lists, and need documented pricing histories.
Design the box, source the box. You need specs translated into quotes fast so you can iterate on structural design without waiting two days per version.
You're shipping 500k+ boxes a year across three warehouses. You need regional sourcing, rate cards, and a single source of truth for every SKU's pricing history.
Pricing corrugated is not your core business. You need a fast, reliable quote pipeline for client programs without becoming a packaging expert.
Traditional RFQ for corrugated packaging takes 4–48 hours per plant, and buyers typically contact 3 plants for comparable bids. BoardBid automates this: paste your spec (or forward an email request), and the system dispatches it to every qualified sheet plant in your region. Quotes return in minutes with price, lead time, and reliability data. Compare in one view, award in one click.
At minimum: box style (RSC, HSC, FOL, die-cut), inside dimensions (L × W × D), board grade (ECT or pound-weight), wall construction, quantity, and delivery location. Nice-to-have: joint type, print requirements, tooling info. BoardBid parses all of these from natural language — you don't have to fill out a 20-field form.
Yes. The BoardBid marketplace routes a single structured request to every qualified sheet plant that can fulfill it. Competitive quotes return in parallel rather than sequentially. Compare price, lead time, freight zone, and plant reliability score in one view.
BoardBid onboards sheet plants continuously. The marketplace launches with regional coverage first, then expands nationally. If a specific plant you want to quote isn't on the platform yet, email hello@boardbid.io — we'll help onboard them for your RFQ, typically within 48 hours.
Every tenant's quote data is isolated via row-level security. Plants cannot see other plants' quotes on your request. Buyers cannot see pricing from jobs they didn't submit. See /security for the full data isolation model.
Yes. BoardBid is additive. You can continue quoting with your existing vendors — they benefit from the faster workflow. The marketplace is for discovering new capacity and comparing bids, not replacing trusted plant relationships.
The buyer marketplace is in private beta through Q2 2026. Early-access partners help us shape the product and get preferential onboarding.
Email us for access →