Features — MAP & Compliance
MAP violations end careers.
Not yours.
One wrong price on Amazon. One spreadsheet formula that did not account for the MAP floor. One notification from Harken or Lewmar that your pricing is non-compliant. Losing authorized dealer status is not a theoretical risk — it is the consequence of manual pricing in a MAP-enforced industry. PriceTool makes it impossible for a price to go below MAP.
Request a DemoYou are one spreadsheet error away from losing your authorized dealer status.
Marine equipment manufacturers enforce MAP — minimum advertised price — aggressively. Harken, Lewmar, Ronstan, and others monitor dealer pricing across channels. A single product advertised below MAP on Amazon can trigger a compliance notice.
When you manage pricing manually, MAP compliance depends on:
- Getting the MAP price correct for every product (some suppliers include it in the file; some send a separate MAP list)
- Applying the MAP floor correctly in every pricing formula across every spreadsheet
- Remembering to update the MAP floor when the supplier changes it
- Checking that every channel's prices respect MAP after rounding is applied
- Catching MAP violations before the supplier does
Across 2,000 Harken products, all your suppliers, and 3 channels — that is thousands of individual prices, each of which must be checked against a floor that could have changed in the last file. Manually. Every time.
One missed cell. One outdated MAP value. One rounding rule that pushed a price below the floor by a penny. That is all it takes to trigger a compliance notice and put your authorized dealer status at risk.
Prices physically cannot go below MAP.
PriceTool enforces MAP as a hard floor in the pricing calculation pipeline. This is not a warning or an alert that asks you to fix it. It is an automatic enforcement that raises any sub-MAP price to the MAP floor before the output file is generated.
Here is how it works:
You upload a supplier file. PriceTool extracts the MAP price for each product.
Your pricing rules are applied — wholesale markup, percent-off-MSRP, whatever model you use.
Rounding is applied per your selected rounding rule.
After rounding, the final price is compared to MAP. If it falls below, it is raised to MAP.
The same check happens independently for every channel — because different markups and rounding rules can produce different final prices.
The result: Every product, on every channel, is guaranteed to be at or above MAP. Not because you checked. Because the system enforced it.
MSRP Ceiling
The same logic applies in reverse for MSRP. If a calculated price exceeds the manufacturer's suggested retail price, PriceTool caps it at MSRP. This prevents overpricing that can damage customer trust and supplier relationships.
MAP floor + MSRP ceiling = a pricing corridor. Every product's final price is guaranteed to fall within the acceptable range, regardless of what the raw markup calculation produces.
Every supplier has different MAP rules. PriceTool handles them all.
Harken enforces MAP at roughly 20% off MSRP. Other suppliers have different thresholds. Some suppliers enforce MAP on all products; others only on specific categories. Some publish MAP as a separate column in their price file; others publish a separate MAP document.
PriceTool's pricing policies are set per supplier:
- MAP price source: Extracted directly from the supplier file or set manually in your pricing policy
- MAP enforcement: Automatic — applied to every product for that supplier, on every channel
- MAP updates: When a supplier changes their MAP in a new price file, the new MAP is extracted and enforcement updates immediately
You do not need to track which suppliers enforce MAP, what the current MAP prices are, or whether your formulas respect them. That is PriceTool's job.
31% of one retailer's products showed a "SALE" badge with zero actual discount.
This is not an exaggeration. In our research, one marine retailer had 31% of their products displaying a compare-at price equal to the selling price — triggering a "SALE" badge on every one of those listings with no actual discount.
Customers see a "SALE" label, check the prices, see they are identical, and lose trust. It is also an FTC concern. This happens because manual import processes set the compare-at price incorrectly — a column gets mapped wrong, or a formula produces the same value for both fields.
PriceTool prevents this with rule-based pricing
- MSRP is handled correctly. If you want to display a compare-at price, PriceTool uses the actual MSRP from the supplier file — not a copy of the selling price.
- Three pricing models ensure the relationship between cost, selling price, and MSRP is always mathematically correct.
- Six rounding rules are applied consistently. You choose: standard rounding, .99 endings, .95 endings, round-up, round-down, or .00 endings. Every product follows the same rule.
The result is pricing that looks professional, is mathematically consistent, and does not trigger false sale badges or FTC scrutiny.
Pricing Models & Rounding Rules
| Pricing Model | Rounding Options |
|---|---|
| Wholesale markup | Standard rounding |
| Percent off MSRP | .99 endings |
| Fixed margin | .95 endings |
| Round-up | |
| Round-down | |
| .00 endings |
MAP applies to Amazon too. And eBay. And everywhere else.
MAP enforcement is not channel-specific — manufacturers monitor pricing across all channels. But when you manage channel pricing in separate spreadsheets, MAP compliance is checked separately for each one (if it is checked at all).
PriceTool enforces MAP identically across every channel. A Harken block is guaranteed to be at or above MAP on your website, on Amazon, and on eBay — even though each channel has a different markup and rounding rule.
If any calculation had produced a sub-MAP price, PriceTool would have raised it to $44.00 automatically.
Every price has a history.
When a MAP violation notice arrives — even from a competitor's false report — you need to prove your pricing was compliant.
Complete File History
Every supplier file uploaded is stored with its date, source, and a SHA-256 hash for identification. Every import is on record — no gaps.
Calculation Records
Every price calculation is recorded with the inputs and rules that produced it — wholesale cost, markup percentage, rounding rule, and MAP value used.
MAP Enforcement Log
Every MAP enforcement event is recorded — when a price was raised to MAP, from what value, for which product, on which channel.
Full Version History
Review any previous pricing state. If a supplier questions your pricing, show exactly when the file was processed, what MAP value was used, and how the final price was calculated.
No digging through old spreadsheets. No guessing. PriceTool maintains the audit trail automatically. Every price, every channel, every change — documented and retrievable.