How we work
How Last Mile may be paid, where vendor relationships are disclosed, what information drives comparisons, and where vendor responsibility remains with the vendor.
Technology buyers should not have to guess who may be paid, who has a relationship, or who remains involved after the contract is signed. Consistent with our Terms, you should assume vendors featured in the Portal have a commercial relationship with Last Mile, and Last Mile may be paid when customer work moves through those relationships. We say that plainly because the relationship should be visible before anyone relies on a recommendation or authorizes an introduction. This page explains how the money works, what we use when comparing options, how customer information is shared only for authorized work, and how partner relationships may support pricing context, escalation paths, and implementation follow-through without making Last Mile responsible for vendor products, services, terms, security, or performance.
Partner programs are a normal part of B2B technology distribution. Quote marketplaces, referral networks, and advisory channels often involve commercial relationships too. The important question is not simply whether a relationship exists. It is whether the customer can see that it exists, understand the role it plays, and understand what information we use when comparing options. Our control is simple: disclose the relationship, evaluate the customer's situation, and do not use partner compensation as a customer-specific rating input or tie-breaker.
Customers may pay us for portal access, advisory work, sourcing, implementation support, vendor management, savings work, or related technology services.
Vendors or supplier programs may compensate us when we introduce, source, refer, support, or help manage a customer relationship. The structure can vary by supplier, product, program, and engagement, including referral, channel, marketplace, support, or management arrangements. We do not publish supplier-specific rate cards or internal commercial terms, and the customer's vendor contract remains between the customer and the vendor.
We keep these relationships deliberately. They may help with pricing context, escalation contacts, handoffs, and clearer vendor contact paths when those are part of the engagement. They do not make Last Mile responsible for a vendor's products, services, terms, security, conduct, support, or performance. When a commercial relationship is relevant to a specific recommendation or introduction, we aim to make that relationship understandable in plain English before the customer moves forward.
The goal is not only to complete a vendor introduction. Our work is oriented around practical execution: helping customers compare options, understand tradeoffs, move through contracting and implementation steps, and reduce avoidable handoff surprises where our role gives us useful context.
That is why we care about what happens after the quote. If pricing needs context, implementation stalls, support gets noisy, or a handoff breaks down, an active Last Mile-supported relationship may help identify the appropriate vendor contacts or next steps. The vendor remains responsible for its own products, services, terms, support, security, and performance.
These are the main inputs we use when comparing options for a customer.
Actual invoice spend, line by line. Not list prices, not estimates.
What businesses like yours pay for the same service. We suppress any benchmark with fewer than five contributing companies.
How the vendor delivers, supports, and fixes problems for trades businesses like yours.
Your trades, headcount, region, and the tools you already run.
How the specific deal in front of you rates against the market, on a Bad-to-Best scale.
Not on the list: compensation. Partner compensation is not used as a customer-specific rating input or tie-breaker. A commercial relationship does not guarantee recommendation, ranking, or selection. A smaller partner, a different commercial relationship, an incumbent, or a non-partner option can still be included when it is relevant to the customer's needs.
A vendor does not become the right answer because they compensate us, and a vendor is not automatically disqualified because they do not. If a customer has an incumbent, preferred supplier, direct quote, or non-partner option worth comparing, we can evaluate it against the same practical questions: price, fit, execution risk, contract terms, security needs, and operational impact. Partner economics may explain how Last Mile is paid, but they do not decide which option fits the customer's stated needs. The same practical questions apply whether an option is a partner, an incumbent, a customer-preferred supplier, or a vendor with no commercial relationship to Last Mile.
A partner relationship does not give a vendor control over our recommendations, ratings, or customer-specific analysis. Vendors do not receive customer-specific spend, benchmark, workflow, invoice, or evaluation information from the Portal unless the customer authorizes sharing for an introduction, sourcing process, implementation, support matter, or other requested work. Customer-authorized sharing is limited to information we reasonably believe is relevant to that requested workflow, and authorization to share information is separate from any partner compensation arrangement.
Some buying paths are built around introductions, quotes, or referrals. Our disclosure standard is direct: make any relevant Last Mile relationship visible, do not use compensation as a customer-specific rating input or tie-breaker, and, when support is part of the engagement, remain available for the customer's requested workflow. The point is not to stop at a paid introduction; it is to support the customer before the decision, during the contract process, and during implementation or support follow-up when that is part of the engagement.
We do not sell personal information, invoice data, spend data, or computed metrics. The Privacy Policy has the full detail.
No vendor can buy a rating, a badge, or a spot in your recommendations.
A commercial relationship does not automatically make a vendor the recommended option, and non-partner options can still be evaluated.
The compensation disclosure lives on this page, in the Portal where recommendations or introductions appear, and in our Terms of Service.
This page is the plain-language explanation. The legal commitments live in the documents below; section 7 of the Terms covers vendor recommendations and referral compensation.
Questions about any of this: info@lastmilestrategies.com