Executive Summary

About 4 million small and midsize businesses import goods globally and most lack the continuous monitoring and integration capabilities that larger enterprises use; as a result they face frequent, often-unexpected tariff rulings and landed-cost swings that can erode already-thin margins and create compliance exposure. Regulatory volatility and manual broker workflows mean SMBs often discover tariff changes too late — after purchase commitments, shipments clear, or penalties accrue. A SaaS product that combines AI-driven HTS classification and impact modeling with direct customs-broker API integrations could recalculate landed cost and push real-time alerts to procurement, pricing, and accounting teams whenever a ruling, duty change, or classification update alters landed cost. Core features would include continuous tariff-watch rules, per-SKU landed-cost delta calculations, two-way amendments via broker APIs, scenario modeling for sourcing decisions, and an auditable change-log; at a $1,200 annual contract value the unit economics can work with a focused SMB go-to-market. The platform's value is reducing surprise costs and enabling rapid decision-making around purchase orders, inventory valuations, and pricing. This is an attractive moment: broker software is migrating to APIs, SMBs are increasingly importing directly, and the TAM implied by 4M SMB importers at $1,200 ACV is roughly $4.8 billion — a large, under-digitized opportunity with medium competition. To win you'll need to prioritize broker partnerships and invest heavily in data quality and model accuracy, since misclassification or missed rulings undermine trust; overcoming integration friction and proving ROI quickly are the real execution risks. If the team can secure a few anchor broker integrations and demonstrate reliable landed-cost savings of even a few percentage points for early customers, this idea is worth pursuing; otherwise the market's size is attractive but the effort to build trust and integration breadth is non-trivial.

Market Opportunity

Real-time tariff & landed-cost alerts for SMB importers (AI + broker integrations) targets a $4.8B = 4M global SMB importers x $1,200 ACV total addressable market with medium saturation and a year-over-year growth rate of 12% CAGR in trade-compliance and supply-chain SaaS demand.

Key trends driving demand: Regulatory volatility -- frequent tariff rulings and policy shifts force continuous monitoring.; SMB globalization -- more small businesses import directly, increasing demand for compliance tools.; Digital broker adoption -- customs brokers are moving to APIs, enabling automated workflows.; AI for regulations -- NLP models can convert legal text into actionable rules and alerts..

Key competitors include Flexport, Zonos (Duties & Taxes / Landed Cost), Avalara (AvaTax / Cross-border services), ImportGenius.

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Real-time tariff & landed-cost alerts for SMB importers (AI + broker integrations)

Executive Summary

Market Validation

Market Opportunity

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