# AI tools for CPG operations: what's actually out there

ShelfKit guide · compiled August 25, 2026 · every claim below is sourced — see the vendor-verified badges

Updated August 2026

An honest map of the field, organized by the job that's hurting, not by vendor category. Full
disclosure: we make one of these tools. We'll tell you where the others are the better pick, because
a guide that always concludes "buy ours" is not a guide.

## How to read this page

Two labels appear throughout:

- **ours** — ShelfKit's own tools — the ones we build and sell.
- **vendor-verified** — read directly from the vendor's own site, fetched August 25, 2026. Where a
  third party's review commentary is used instead — because a vendor's own site doesn't say it, or
  because two companies share a name — the page says so in the sentence itself, not just in the
  badge.

## Pick by the job, not the demo

Five jobs, five honest picks — plus us, where we actually are the better answer. Not every job has a
ShelfKit entry; where it doesn't, we say so instead of stretching to fit.

1. Job 1 — Deductions are eating your checks
2. Job 2 — You keep stocking out (or over-ordering)
3. Job 3 — Trade spend is chaos
4. Job 4 — Your retail data lives in ten portals
5. Job 5 — You just want an assistant that knows CPG

### Job 1 — Deductions are eating your checks

**SPS Commerce Revenue Recovery (formerly SupplyPike)** — *vendor-verified.* SupplyPike was acquired
by SPS Commerce in a deal that closed around August 1, 2024; the deduction-recovery product now runs
under the SPS Commerce brand. It identifies, validates, and disputes deductions, chargebacks,
shortages, and compliance fines, with named retailer connections including Walmart, Target, Amazon,
Kroger, UNFI, and CVS. No published pricing — SPS offers a free audit instead of a price list.

_Watch out:_ third-party reviews describe uneven retailer coverage for disputes, limited reporting
flexibility, and friction specifically around Walmart's cooperation and recovery time limits.

_Honest call:_ if you're running enterprise deduction volume at Walmart-scale retailers with an ops
team in place, this is probably the pick — not us.

**Glimpse** — *vendor-verified.* Automates deductions recovery, cash application, and deduction
itemization for CPG brands, with named retailer/distributor connections including Walmart, Sam's
Club, Kroger, Walgreens, Amazon, UNFI, and KeHE. Backed by Andreessen Horowitz ($35M Series A, $52M
total raised); pivoted into deductions in 2024. Positioned for mid-to-large brands — cites 200+
consumer brands as customers. No published pricing; the site runs a lead-gen "calculate your
recovery" estimator instead.

_Watch out:_ we found no independent, product-specific reviews for Glimpse under this name —
searches surface an unrelated, differently branded company. Its self-reported results (a 2.5%
topline revenue lift, 4.3x more disputes filed, an 80% cut in labor hours) are vendor marketing
claims with no independent audit we could find.

**OverDeduct** — *vendor-verified.* Analyzes remittances from KeHE, UNFI, or any retailer to flag
disputable charges across six categories: shortages, pricing discrepancies, compliance chargebacks,
promotional billbacks, freight penalties, and spoilage/returns. Explicitly built for founders and
lean ops teams in the natural/specialty channel, not enterprise. A free, no-signup analyzer gives a
categorized recoverable-dollar estimate; uploads are deleted after 30 days. Self-serve pricing is
public, with no minimum commitment: Starter $49/mo ($490/yr) for one distributor, Pro $99/mo
($990/yr) for multiple. A done-for-you tier takes 25% of dollars recovered, nothing if nothing is
recovered.

_Watch out:_ OverDeduct says outright it is not built for enterprise or large-retailer volume — by
its own words, it's positioned against "heavy, sales-led" tools priced for large brands.

_Honest call:_ if you're a founder or a lean ops team working the KeHE/UNFI channel, this is the
only vendor here with real published prices to compare against.

**ShelfKit deduction decoder** — *ours.* Free: paste a remittance on the web and get every line
named, the gross-to-net waterfall rebuilt, the disputable total, and a ready-to-send dispute email.
Also ships as a free Claude Code skill that runs on your own files. See our own
[UNFI deductions guide](https://shelfkit.ai/guides/unfi-deduction-codes) for what the codes actually
mean.

### Job 2 — You keep stocking out (or over-ordering)

**Tether** — *vendor-verified.* Positions itself as "the operations system for consumer brands,"
with demand forecasting built around a consensus-forecast workflow — versioned forecasts with a
change log showing why a number moved. Tether's own words describe it as built for "brands of all
sizes," from "just starting" to "enterprise," across apparel, food & beverage, beauty, home goods,
and more. No public pricing; the FAQ describes pricing as "modular and predictable" with no dollar
figures, and the buying motion is demo-led ("talk to our founders").

_Watch out:_ we found no independent, product-specific reviews for Tether under this name —
searches surface unrelated companies (a cryptocurrency issuer, a bug-reporting tool). Nothing about
cost is visible before a sales conversation.

_Honest call:_ if forecasting is your whole problem, a dedicated forecasting product can go deeper
on that one job than we do.

**ShelfKit production planner + planning engine** — *ours.* Free skill: production schedule, BOMs,
and lead times in; shortfall math and drafted supplier PO emails out. The paid planning engine plans
launches and watches inventory against your real data in the background.

Already on Shopify? See our
[Shopify sales-export guide](https://shelfkit.ai/guides/shopify-sales-export) for the exact admin
path to a sales-by-variant-by-month export, and the column names our own free Runway tool reads.

### Job 3 — Trade spend is chaos

**Vividly** — *vendor-verified.* Cloud-based trade promotion management: trade planning,
forecasting, promotion optimization, and deduction management in one product. Vividly claims 98%
forecasting accuracy and positions itself for growing CPG brands through established category
leaders, citing customers including Health-Ade, Waterloo, and Quinn Snacks. No public pricing; the
site is demo-led ("request demo").

_Watch out:_ third-party reviews describe a real learning curve moving off spreadsheets during
onboarding, though reviewers call it temporary.

**Promomash** — *vendor-verified.* Trade management sold as "CPGenius Trade" — one system for trade
promotion management and account planning — plus deduction management (CPGenius Deductions) and
field marketing (CPGenius Demos & Events). States an explicit target of $1M to $500M in brand
revenue. Pricing tiers are named (Essentials/Full Service by revenue; deduction pricing by monthly
invoice volume; Demos & Events as Seed/Growth/Scale) but no dollar figures are published — every
tier is gated behind a "get pricing" form.

_Watch out:_ third-party reviews describe integration friction — deduction backup sometimes
arrives by forwarded email and gets lost — and describe pricing as expensive for small brands
relative to competitors.

We don't build a trade promotion management product. If trade spend is your whole problem, Vividly
and Promomash are both real, currently operating vendors for CPG brands — start your own evaluation
with them directly.

### Job 4 — Your retail data lives in ten portals

**Crisp** — *vendor-verified.* Pipes distributor and retailer data into dashboards and your own
warehouse, plus an agent layer on top for tasks like replenishment, promotions, and assortment. UNFI
integration is confirmed on both sides — UNFI's own investor-relations announcement names "UNFI
Insights, powered by Crisp" — and KeHE integration has a dedicated page and named case studies.
Crisp states it serves 7,000+ CPGs, retailers, and distributors, including "90 of the top 100 CPGs."
No public pricing; the site is demo-led ("talk to an expert").

_Watch out:_ Crisp markets itself as more than plumbing — it explicitly sells an agent layer that
acts on data, not only a pipe that moves it. Weigh that against how much decisioning you actually
want a vendor making for you.

### Job 5 — You just want an assistant that knows CPG

**Claude / ChatGPT, raw** — *vendor-verified.* Genuinely useful, and where most operators should
start. Claude: Free at $0/mo, Pro at roughly $17/mo billed annually (or $20/mo monthly), Max plans
from $100/mo. ChatGPT: Free at $0/mo, Go at $8/mo, Plus at $20/mo, Pro at $100 or $200/mo — those
ChatGPT figures are corroborated by multiple independent pricing trackers, not a direct read of
OpenAI's own pricing page, which blocked our automated fetch. The honest limits of either, raw: no
working procedures for CPG paperwork, and it forgets your business between chats.

**ShelfKit skills** — *ours.* Free skills that give your Claude working procedures — vendor vetting,
deduction disputes, production planning — plus a Business Profile: dated files you own, so you never
explain your business twice. Free for your business, including commercially, under the PolyForm
Shield 1.0.0 license. The license reserves one thing: using them to build a competing product.

## The comparison table

| Tool | The job | Built for | Pricing | Watch out |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPS Commerce Revenue Recovery (formerly SupplyPike) | Deduction recovery | Brands at large retailers (Walmart, Target, Amazon, Kroger, UNFI, CVS), ops team in place | Pricing not published — ask them | Uneven retailer coverage for disputes; Walmart friction, per third-party reviews |
| Glimpse | Deduction automation + cash application | Mid-to-large CPG brands (200+ cited) | Pricing not published — ask them | No independent reviews found under this name; outcome metrics are vendor-stated only |
| OverDeduct | Deduction management, KeHE/UNFI-focused | Founders and lean ops teams, natural/specialty channel | Starter $49/mo, Pro $99/mo (published) | Not built for enterprise/large-retailer volume, by its own words |
| Tether | Demand forecasting / operations system | Brands of all sizes, per Tether's own words | Pricing not published — ask them | No independent reviews found under this name; nothing shown before a sales call |
| Vividly | Trade promotion management | Growing CPG brands through category leaders | Pricing not published — ask them | Real onboarding learning curve, per reviewers |
| Promomash | Trade promotion management + deductions | $1M–$500M revenue brands | Tiers named, no dollar figures published | Integration friction and "expensive for small brands," per reviewers |
| Crisp | Retail data integration + agent layer | Brands drowning in portals | Pricing not published — ask them | Markets an agentic/decisioning layer, not just pipes — heavier than pure plumbing |
| Claude / ChatGPT, raw | General assistant | Everyone, day one | $0–20/mo standard tiers; $100–200+/mo high-usage tiers | No CPG procedures, no memory of your business |
| ShelfKit skills | CPG procedures + memory | Solo founders through small ops teams | Free (skills) · paid engines | Runs in Claude Code — a terminal, not an app |

## Where ShelfKit is not the pick

- You're running enterprise deduction volume at big-box retailers with a dedicated recovery team —
  buy SPS Commerce Revenue Recovery or a comparable enterprise tool.
- Trade spend management is your whole problem — we don't build a trade promotion management
  product; Vividly and Promomash both do.
- You want an ERP. We're not one and don't want to be.
- You need licensed retail data feeds across many portals — that's plumbing work Crisp is built for;
  buy plumbing.

## How this page was verified

Every vendor claim on this page traces to a source fetched directly from the vendor's own site,
dated August 25, 2026, or is explicitly flagged as a third party's corroboration (reviewer
commentary, funding coverage) rather than the vendor's own words. Pricing is stated in dollars where
a vendor publishes it, and as "pricing not published — ask them" everywhere it doesn't. Two vendors —
Glimpse and Tether — have no independent, product-specific reviews we could find under their own
names; we say so rather than borrow sentiment from an unrelated, similarly named company. Same
discipline as our [UNFI deductions guide](https://shelfkit.ai/guides/unfi-deduction-codes): nothing
here is asserted beyond what a source supports.

## Try the free lane in the next ten minutes

Paste a remittance into the deduction decoder — every line named, the disputable dollars, a dispute
email ready to send. Or give your Claude the whole toolkit:

- Web: https://shelfkit.ai/tools/deduction-decoder
- Plain-text / agent-readable version of this guide: https://shelfkit.ai/guides/ai-tools-for-cpg-operations.md

Install commands:

```
/plugin marketplace add BorisGearKit/cpg-skills
/plugin install shelfkit-start@cpg-skills
```

Free to use for your business, including commercially, under the PolyForm Shield 1.0.0 license.

## Questions people ask

**Is SupplyPike still a company?**
No. SPS Commerce acquired SupplyPike in a deal that closed around August 1, 2024. The product is
sold today as SPS Commerce Revenue Recovery — supplypike.com now redirects into spscommerce.com. If
you've bookmarked SupplyPike, that's where you land.

**What does OverDeduct actually cost?**
OverDeduct is the only vendor in the deductions lane with real published self-serve pricing: Starter
at $49/mo (or $490/yr) for one distributor, Pro at $99/mo (or $990/yr) for multiple distributors and
retailers. A done-for-you option takes 25% of dollars recovered and nothing if nothing is recovered.
No minimum commitment on the self-serve tiers.

**Where is ShelfKit not the pick?**
Three places: enterprise deduction volume at big-box retailers with a dedicated recovery team (buy
SPS Commerce Revenue Recovery or similar), trade promotion management at any real scale (buy Vividly
or Promomash — we don't have a TPM product), and licensed retail data feeds across many portals (buy
Crisp — that's plumbing work). See "Where ShelfKit is not the pick" below.

**How much do Claude and ChatGPT cost?**
Claude: Free at $0/mo, Pro around $17/mo billed annually or $20/mo monthly, Max plans starting from
$100/mo. ChatGPT: Free at $0/mo, Go at $8/mo, Plus at $20/mo, Pro at $100 or $200/mo. The Claude
figures come directly from claude.com/pricing; the ChatGPT figures are corroborated by multiple
third-party pricing trackers, not a direct read of OpenAI's own pricing page, which blocked
automated access.

**What's the difference between Vividly and Promomash?**
Both are real, currently operating trade promotion management platforms for CPG brands, and neither
publishes dollar pricing. Vividly positions itself around forecasting accuracy and named customers
like Health-Ade, Waterloo, and Quinn Snacks. Promomash states an explicit target revenue range of
$1M to $500M and bundles trade management with deduction management and event/demo management under
one CPGenius product line. Neither is a tool we make or have deployed ourselves — this lane is
sourced entirely from their own sites.

---

This guide reflects publicly available vendor and third-party sources as of August 25, 2026, cited
inline. It is not sponsored by any vendor named here. Pricing, positioning, and product scope
change — verify anything purchase-critical directly with the vendor.

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