Service
Regulatory Retainer
Getting registered is a project with an end. Staying registered is not. Once your product is on shelf the work that protects it never stops, and none of it announces itself: certificates run out, a country replaces its rules, a tariff rate moves to the next step. Most exporters find out because a shipment stops.
What’s included
- Your registrations stay valid: we own the renewal calendar and act on it, so nothing lapses while everyone assumes someone else is watching
- You hear about a regulatory change from us before you hear about it from your importer
- A written brief every month, including the quiet ones, showing exactly what was watched and what moved
- A named person who answers the same day when a shipment is held or a label is queried
- Your paperwork keeps up with your product: reformulations, new suppliers and pack changes reflected in the filing rather than discovered at the border
- Your preferential duty position re-read against the schedule each year, so you are neither overpaying nor filing a claim you cannot support
- Your access stays portable: if you change distributor, the registration question is already mapped rather than opened in a crisis
Levels of cover
Each level builds on the one before it. Move up when the number of markets or products you carry makes it worth doing, and not before. We will tell you when that is.
Watch
CAD 750–1,200 per month
You are live in one or two markets and want to stop carrying the calendar yourself. The value here is that nothing expires quietly and nothing changes without you knowing.
What you get
- Regulatory monitoring across every market you are registered in
- Your renewal calendar owned and managed, with alerts at 120, 90, 60 and 30 days: enough warning to act, not just to worry
- A quarterly written brief in plain language, with the "so what" for your products spelled out
- An annual review of your duty and preferential position, so a rate that has moved is caught before you file against the old one
- Two advisory hours a month, rolling up to six, for the questions that do not justify a project
Manage
CAD 2,000–3,500 per month
Most clients start here
You carry three or more markets, or five or more products, and the admin has outgrown the calendar. This is where cover turns into work done for you rather than flagged to you.
Everything in Watch, plus
- Renewals executed, not just tracked: you approve, we file
- Up to four label and artwork compliance reviews a quarter, so changes are caught before the print run rather than after a detention
- Registration amendments handled when you reformulate, change an ingredient supplier or redesign a pack
- One new product registration a quarter included, so launching does not trigger a fresh quote every time
- Incident response (a held shipment, a customs query, a rejected label) acknowledged the same day, with a response window agreed in writing
- A written brief every month and a call every quarter
Represent
CAD 4,000–7,000 per month
ASEAN is a region in your plan rather than a market on your list, and you want your distributors dealing with someone who answers for the regulatory position.
Everything in Manage, plus
- A named in-market regulatory contact your distributors can go to directly, which takes the translation work off your desk
- Distributor and registration-holder liaison, including managing a transfer if you change partner: the point at which access is most often lost
- Your registration ownership position reviewed every year, so control of the filing does not drift to whoever files it
- Unlimited product registrations within your retained markets, so the commercial decision to launch is never slowed by a regulatory quote
- An annual market review with recommendations you can put in front of a board
- First call on in-market representation if you decide you want it
Ways to shape the fee
- Add a market for CAD 400–600 a month. Start where you already sell, and add the next market when the commercial case is there: you are never paying for cover you are not using.
- Fees band by product count (1–5, 6–15, 16–40, and above) so a small range is not priced like a large one.
- Pay annually and take 10% off.
- Come off a registration project with us and your first quarter of cover is included. You see what it is worth before you pay for it.
- Annual term, billed monthly, 90 days’ notice.
Quoted separately
These sit outside the retainer. We price them in writing before starting, every time, including the small ones: a boundary you can see is worth more to you than one you discover on an invoice.
- Entering a market you are not yet registered in, and registration in any market outside your retainer
- Finding and qualifying new distributors or buyers
- Product formulation and reformulation work itself
- Translation, third-party certification fees, government and regulator fees, and laboratory testing: these are charged at cost, with no margin added
Commercial terms
- Fee range
- CAD 750–7,000 per month, by level
- Typical timeline
- Annual term, billed monthly, 90 days’ notice
Questions
- What do I actually get in a month when nothing happens?
- A written brief that says so, in a form you can forward. It lists every registration and its status, anything that changed and what it means for you, the authorities and schedules we monitored where nothing changed, everything due in the next 180 days with who acts on it, and any recommendations. The quiet months are the point: the brief is the evidence that the watching happened, and it is the document that tells you a renewal is coming while there is still time to do something about it.
- Why not just handle renewals as they come up?
- You can, and for a single product in a single market that may be the right call: we will say so rather than sell you cover you do not need. It stops being the right call once you carry several markets, because the failure mode is not cost, it is a missed date. A lapsed registration means the product is delisted rather than delayed, and getting back on shelf is a new filing, a new queue and a gap your distributor fills with somebody else. Handled reactively, one renewal scramble tends to cost more than a year of the Watch level.
- Is this cheaper than hiring someone?
- Materially, and for a reason that is not only about salary. A regulatory affairs hire in Canada is a full-time cost carried whether or not there is a full-time load, and the load in this work is lumpy: quiet for a quarter, then three things at once. You also get depth across six destination regulators rather than one person learning them in sequence. Where a company grows to the point of needing that capability in-house, we would rather help you build it than pretend otherwise.
- What happens if a shipment is held?
- At the Manage level and above, you get a same-day acknowledgement and a response window written into the agreement, not an aspiration. In practice the first hours matter: what the authority has actually said, which document it turns on, and what the importer needs to file. Because we already hold your registrations, specifications and certificate history, that work starts immediately instead of beginning with you assembling a file under pressure.
- Can I move up or down a level?
- Yes, at any renewal, and we will tell you when we think you should. Moving up is worth it when the number of markets or products you carry makes the included work exceed what you are paying for separately. Moving down is worth it when a market goes quiet. We would rather hold a smaller retainer for years than a large one you resent.
- How do I know the regulatory information is current?
- The same way you can check everything else on this site: every regulatory value we publish carries the primary source it came from and the date we last read it, and where something is not verified we say so rather than estimate it. Your brief is built on the same discipline. A value that has not been re-read is not treated as current just because it has not changed.
Markets this covers
Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore