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Producing and buying on one account

How an organisation that both supplies and buys product data is set up, which plan covers which side, and what the supplier allowance is.

Some organisations are on both sides of the exchange. A bakery publishes its own products and also buys flour, and the flour mill's data is what the bakery's labels are built from. PIE calls that an organisation of type both: one organisation, one team, one subscription, with the producer tools and the buyer tools side by side.

Why you would do it

  • Take a supplier's product over as an ingredient. A supplier grants you a product; you use it as an ingredient of your own. The supplier's data is copied at that moment, the label is derived from it, and a later change by the supplier waits for your review. This is the main reason a small food business becomes both.
  • Receive supplier data and onboarding. You can connect to suppliers, invite a supplier that is not on PIE yet and review what they submit, exactly as a buyer does. See the Onboarding guide.
  • One login, one team, one bill. There is no second organisation to administer.

How to switch it on

  • From the producer app: open Settings → Finding partners and choose Also buy on PIE.
  • From the buyer portal: open Settings → Finding partners and choose Also sell on PIE.
  • At sign-up: the registration form asks whether you also buy products from suppliers.

This cannot be undone. An organisation that has become both stays both; it can never be narrowed back to one side. If you only want to try the other side, ask us first (see Contact) rather than switching on a trial.

Which plan covers which side

An organisation has one plan, and what you pay depends on where you started:

  • Starting as a producer. You are on the producer ladder: Free, Starter, Growth, Business, Enterprise. Switching on the buyer side costs nothing extra. Your producer plan also sets the buyer side's supplier allowance: how many suppliers you can be connected to and how many onboarding requests you can have open at once. Both rise with the tier. They are listed, per plan, in the Plans & limits reference.
  • Starting as a buyer. You are on the buyer ladder: Buyer, Buyer Team, Buyer Business, Buyer Plus. When you switch on the producer side you keep your buyer plan. The buyer side behaves as you booked it; the producer side behaves like the Free producer plan (the producer limits that the buyer plan carries are the Free ones).
  • Moving a buyer-plan organisation's producer side up. You do that by moving to a producer plan, from Settings → Billing. From then on the buyer meters follow that producer plan's allowance, which can be lower than what the buyer plan gave you, so compare the two allowances in the reference before you move. If you have an agreement with us that should be kept, tell us and we can hold it as an exception.

Cancelling moves you to the Free plan of your own side: a producer to Free, a buyer to Buyer. Nothing is deleted.

What is shared

  • Seats. One team: a seat is a seat, whichever side the person works on.
  • API rate. One limit per organisation, the one of your plan.
  • AI credits. One monthly pool. Producer-side ingestion and enrichment draw from it and are refused once it is used up. The buyer-side field-mapping path only warns. Your own AI key works on every plan and is not counted against the pool. See the AI guide.

The supplier allowance

Two limits apply to the buyer side:

LimitWhat it counts
Connected suppliersDistinct suppliers you currently have access to (active, not expired).
Active onboarding requestsOnboarding requests you have open at the same time.

Both are shown in Settings → Billing as usage against the limit; the number can stand above the limit (see below). What happens at the limit:

  • A new direct connection is refused with ENTITLEMENT_EXCEEDED. That means a supplier granting you access, you accepting a supplier's offer, or you approving an access request. The message says that the buyer side has reached its limit and that moving up a plan lifts it. A supplier is told only that you are at your limit, never your plan or your count. A supplier you are already connected to is never blocked, and a second grant from the same supplier is not a new slot.
  • Existing connections stay. Nothing is disconnected when you move down a plan or when a limit is reached.
  • Supplier onboarding and GDSN connections count but are never refused. A supplier you onboarded or received through a data pool is part of your supplier base. It counts towards the number and can take it above the limit, but it will not stop a supplier from finishing the data you asked them for.

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