Price List Diff (Old vs New File)

Compare price lists side by side. Upload an old and new supplier file to see every price change, addition, and discontinued SKU — free, in-browser.

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When a supplier sends an updated price file, the changes are rarely flagged for you. This tool lets you compare price lists — an old file against a new one — and instantly see every price increase, decrease, new item, and discontinued SKU before you load anything into your ERP.

Price List Diff (Old vs New File)

The interactive version of this tool is coming soon. It will run entirely in your browser — no login, no upload limits.

Planned tool: compare price lists

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What it checks

Match two versions of a price file on a shared key (SKU, MPN, or supplier part number) and the tool computes a line-by-line diff:

  • Price changes — items present in both files with a different price, shown with absolute and percentage delta.
  • Increases vs decreases — changes split by direction so a 40% jump on a fast-moving SKU is not buried among rounding-level moves.
  • New items — SKUs in the new file that did not exist in the old one, ready to be enriched and onboarded.
  • Discontinued items — SKUs in the old file that are missing from the new one, so you can flag them as end-of-life instead of selling phantom stock.
  • Unchanged items — a count of rows that matched on key and price, to confirm the file isn’t silently dropping records.
  • Key collisions and blanks — duplicate keys or rows with no usable identifier, which would otherwise corrupt the comparison.

How it works

There is no formal standard for a “price file,” so the tool relies on a simple, transparent join. You pick the column that holds the unique key and the column that holds the price in each file. Every row is keyed, the two sets are matched, and the result falls into one of four buckets: changed, added, removed, or unchanged.

  1. 1
    Load both files
    Upload or paste the old and new price lists as CSV or pasted columns.
  2. 2
    Map key and price
    Choose the join key (SKU/MPN) and the price field for each file. Currency and thousands separators are normalized before comparison.
  3. 3
    Review the diff
    Sort changes by percentage or absolute swing, then export the flagged rows.

Two details matter for accuracy. First, normalization: a part number like ABC-100 in one file and abc 100 in the other should be treated as the same item, so keys are trimmed and case-folded before matching — the same logic behind any reliable MPN normalizer. Second, duplicate keys: if the same SKU appears twice in a single file, the comparison is ambiguous, so those rows are surfaced separately rather than guessed at.

The tool answers the question of what changed. Deciding what to do about it — repricing, protecting margin, or re-syndicating to channels — is the workflow it feeds into.

FAQ

How do I compare two price lists in Excel?

You can use a VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP from the new file’s SKU into the old file, then subtract the prices to get a delta. That works for a few hundred rows but breaks down with messy keys, duplicate SKUs, or files with tens of thousands of lines. This tool does the same join automatically, normalizes the keys, and separates added, removed, and changed items for you.

What is the best way to find price changes between two supplier files?

Match the two files on a stable identifier — ideally the manufacturer part number or your internal SKU rather than the description, which often varies. Then look at percentage change, not just absolute dollars, so a small unit price with a large percentage swing isn’t overlooked. Always check for newly added and discontinued SKUs at the same time, since those are easy to miss when you only scan for price differences.

Why do prices not match even when the SKUs look the same?

Usually it is formatting. One file stores the key as 00123, the other as 123; one price reads $1,299.00, the other 1299. Leading zeros, currency symbols, and thousands separators all cause false mismatches. The tool trims and normalizes both keys and prices before comparing, which removes most of these phantom differences.

Is it safe to upload supplier price files to an online tool?

With this tool, yes — because nothing is actually uploaded. The comparison runs entirely in your browser, so the file contents never reach a server. That keeps confidential supplier cost and margin data on your own machine.

What should I do after I find the price changes?

Triage by impact: large percentage increases and high-volume items first. Run those through a margin or landed-cost check to see whether your sell price still holds, flag discontinued SKUs as end-of-life, and queue new items for enrichment before they reach your storefront. A canonical product-data layer can then write the validated changes back to every channel with provenance intact.