Manufy vs NovaSupplier: Which European Sourcing Platform Fits Your Brand
Matias Santos, Founder·
You've been researching European sourcing platforms for a few weeks now, and two names keep coming up: Manufy and NovaSupplier. Both promise vetted European manufacturers. Both talk about sustainability and direct relationships. From the outside, in a five-minute scan of two homepages, they can look like the same idea wearing different branding.
They are not the same model, and the difference matters more than the marketing copy on either site. One charges a monthly subscription whether or not you ever place an order. The other charges a commission only when a relationship actually transacts. That single structural difference changes who has an incentive to do what, and for how long.
Here's the comparison without the pitch.
What Manufy actually is
Manufy launched in the Netherlands in 2019 and built itself into one of the larger sustainability-focused sourcing marketplaces in Europe, with a self-reported network spanning more than two dozen countries and several thousand manufacturers who've submitted sustainability documentation. The model is breadth: a wide net across many countries and production categories, filtered for sustainability credentials, with software for chat, translation, and request management layered on top.
Manufy's pricing for brands runs on monthly subscription tiers, currently a starter plan around €24 a month for one user and a small number of active projects, a mid tier around €249 a month for a few users and more project slots, and an enterprise tier around €999 a month with unlimited projects and dedicated support. , on their own subscription tiers running roughly €49 to €99 a month depending on how many RFQs they want to respond to and how visible they want their profile to be.
Manufy vs NovaSupplier: European Sourcing Platform Compared | NovaSupplier
Manufacturers pay too
This means both sides of a Manufy relationship pay a recurring fee for access to the platform, independent of whether any production actually happens that month.
What NovaSupplier actually is
NovaSupplier is narrower by design: verified Portuguese manufacturers only, not a multi-country directory. The trade-off for that narrowness is depth, every factory on the platform has been personally researched and vetted, not just asked to upload a sustainability certificate.
Brands pay nothing to use NovaSupplier, no subscription, no seat fee, no fee per project. Manufacturers pay a 3.5% commission, and only on completed transactions for relationships discovered through the platform. A manufacturer who brings their own existing brand relationship onto NovaSupplier to manage communication, quotes, and payments pays 0% on that relationship, forever. There is no monthly fee on either side, and no charge at all unless an actual order ships.
The structural difference that actually matters
A subscription model gets paid whether or not you transact. That's not a criticism, it's how the business has to work if the core product is access and software rather than a cut of outcomes, and Manufy's tools, translated chat, request management, a guarantee on protected transactions, are real and used by real brands. But it does mean the platform's revenue isn't directly tied to whether your sourcing project actually succeeds. You can pay €249 a month for three months while a project stalls, and the subscription still renews.
A transaction-only model only gets paid when a relationship actually produces an order. That changes the incentive on the platform's side toward making sure introductions actually lead somewhere, because there's no recurring fee to fall back on if they don't. It also means a brand evaluating whether to try NovaSupplier isn't choosing between "free" and "paid," there's no monthly cost to test the waters with a real project before any money changes hands beyond the production order itself.
Breadth versus depth
Manufy's pitch is coverage, a large, multi-country network filtered by sustainability documentation, which makes sense if you're sourcing categories or geographies outside Portugal, or if you want one platform across several different product lines and countries at once.
NovaSupplier's pitch is the opposite bet: that for a brand specifically targeting Portuguese manufacturing, knitwear and cut-and-sew in the Ave Valley, footwear in the northwest triangle, a smaller number of factories that have actually been visited, vetted, and can be named and verified is worth more than a large directory filtered mostly by self-submitted paperwork. A sustainability certificate tells you a factory passed an audit. It doesn't tell you whether they respond to messages, whether their bulk matches their samples, or whether the person running your account today will still be there next season.
Who Manufy fits better
If you're sourcing across multiple European countries at once, want one piece of software managing requests across all of them, and you're comfortable with a recurring subscription regardless of how many projects close in a given month, Manufy's breadth and existing toolset are a reasonable fit. Their translated chat and guarantee-backed transactions address real friction points for brands without language overlap with their factories.
Who NovaSupplier fits better
If your sourcing target is specifically Portugal, whether for quality, lead times, EU-aligned values, or because your customers care where things are made, and you'd rather pay a commission tied to an actual completed order than a software seat fee that runs whether or not anything ships, NovaSupplier is built around that specific bet. The same logic applies on the manufacturer side: a Portuguese factory paying €49-99 a month to Manufy for the chance to respond to RFQs is paying that fee in months where nothing closes. A factory on NovaSupplier pays nothing until an order actually transacts.
The honest answer
Neither model is a scam and neither is automatically the right choice. A subscription model makes sense when the value is software and breadth. A transaction model makes sense when the value is depth, vetting, and aligned incentives on a specific geography. If you already know you want Portugal specifically, and you want a platform whose revenue depends on your sourcing actually working rather than your account staying active, that's the more specific bet to take.
NovaSupplier connects independent clothing brands directly with verified Portuguese manufacturers, no subscription, no seat fees, a 3.5% commission paid by the manufacturer only when an order actually transacts. Start at novasupplier.com**.