Two Things Users Often Confuse
Catalayer is the product line. It's a multi-product workspace: News, Monitor, Source Finder, Sourcing Agent, Claim Pilot, and Island. One account, six products, shared identity. Catalayer AI is the analysis engine behind those products. It's not a separate product you subscribe to — it's the underlying intelligence layer that powers relevance scoring, news summaries, impact predictions, and workflow automation inside every Catalayer product.These are different things. Understanding the distinction helps you evaluate what you're actually getting when you sign up.
What Catalayer the Platform Is
A workspace for professionals who need to act on real-time information. The six products solve distinct problems:
News
Real-time global market news feed across 13 language regions and 50+ sources. Reuters, BBC, CNBC, Nikkei, 财联社, Handelsblatt, and dozens more. Deduplicated, ranked, and paired with AI analysis when Market Intelligence is enabled.
Monitor
Custom keyword-based monitors with boolean logic. You define what matters (specific tickers, topics, events), and Monitor runs continuously scanning against the full news + signal firehose. Matches fire as alerts.
Source Finder
Chrome extension + web workspace. Match any product page (Amazon, retail site, social media image) to suppliers on 1688 and Alibaba. Filter by verified status, MOQ, and lead time.
Sourcing Agent
AI-guided sourcing workflow — takes a product brief, generates supplier shortlists, drafts bilingual RFQs, compares quotes, estimates landed cost. Still in early access preview as we refine the workflow.
Claim Pilot
Amazon FBA reimbursement audit engine. Finds missing inventory, incorrect returns, and dimension overcharges. Drafts claim letters you submit via Seller Central. Early access.
Island
Desktop delivery layer for macOS. Native notifications for Monitor alerts, keeps you informed without tab-switching.
How the Products Are Organized
One account. Product-based access. Free tier includes basic usage of most products. Paid subscriptions unlock specific products: Finder Plus ($9.99/mo), Monitor Plus ($19.99/mo), Market Intelligence ($19.99/mo), or All Access ($39.99/mo) for everything.
This is deliberately different from bundling. If you only need Source Finder, you don't pay for News analysis you won't use.
What Catalayer AI Is (and Isn't)
Catalayer AI is the intelligence layer shared across products. It powers:
- News relevance scoring — why a given story matters for your positions
- Summary generation — 2-sentence essence of long articles
- Impact prediction — expected market reaction magnitude and direction
- Follow-up intelligence — what to watch next based on the current story
- Monitor match scoring — which matches are truly material vs. noise
- Sourcing brief synthesis — turning user requests into structured supplier criteria
- Claim letter drafting — generating Amazon case messages with policy citations
What Catalayer AI Isn't
- Not a chatbot you talk to (no ChatGPT-style interface)
- Not a general-purpose LLM you prompt yourself
- Not sold separately as a standalone API (not yet; API access is planned)
- Not a wrapper over GPT-4 or Claude (see below)
The Self-Learning Angle
Most "AI-powered" products in finance/sourcing are thin wrappers over GPT or Claude. Text goes in, LLM processes, text comes out. The "AI" provider does the heavy lifting.
Catalayer AI is different in one specific way: it learns from the feedback loop. When users mark a news story as "not relevant" or "already knew this", when Monitor users flag alerts as noise, when Source Finder users reject suppliers, when Claim Pilot users accept or reject a drafted claim — all of that feedback trains the relevance and prediction models over time.
This matters because:
- Relevance is subjective. What matters to a semiconductor trader differs from what matters to a sourcing consultant.
- Markets shift. What was material news last year doesn't always move the same way now.
- Suppliers' reputation changes. A gold-tier factory in 2023 might be cutting corners in 2026.
A static LLM doesn't capture this. A system that continuously folds user feedback into its scoring does.
What You Experience as a User
On a practical level:
Day 1
AI analysis feels general. "Apple earnings beat" alerts look similar regardless of whether you hold AAPL or follow it loosely.
Week 2-4
Your monitor rules fire more precisely. Relevance scoring starts to align with what you personally care about.
Month 2-3
The system knows your patterns. Alerts that match your historical clickthrough history are elevated; alerts you consistently dismiss are downranked.
Month 6+
Hard to quantify but real: Catalayer AI surfaces things you would have missed manually. Cross-region news you don't usually check. Supplier changes that materialize as problems later. Amazon refund patterns you'd never have spotted alone.
This is the value that shows up only after the system has observed your behavior.
Why We're Building This Way
The multi-product architecture matters because:
- Single source of truth for identity, billing, and notifications
- Cross-product signal — a Monitor alert about a supplier's bankruptcy can automatically flag Source Finder results involving that supplier
- Shared AI layer — improving Catalayer AI improves every product simultaneously
- No context switching — sourcing, news, claims, alerts all live in one tab
The alternative (separate tools from different vendors) means 6 accounts, 6 subscriptions, 6 interfaces, 6 contexts to switch. Catalayer trades some product depth for workflow consolidation.
The Trade-offs We've Made
Honest about where Catalayer doesn't win:
Compared to dedicated tools in each category
- News speed: Bloomberg Terminal is faster (sub-30s). Catalayer is 30-180s depending on source.
- Source Finder depth: Dedicated sourcing agents (human-staffed) handle complex tooling/IP questions Source Finder can't.
- Claim Pilot scope: FBA-only today. Walmart, Shopify, eBay reimbursements not yet covered.
- Monitor depth: Pro-grade event-driven trading platforms (Eze Castle, Bloomberg Terminal) have deeper derivatives/FX integration.
Where Catalayer is genuinely better
- Cross-border news across 13 language regions in one feed (no terminal matches this)
- Sourcing + news + Amazon workflow integration in one workspace
- Price point — total stack cost $0-39/mo vs. $2000+/mo for dedicated tools combined
- Freelancer monitoring — tracking Upwork/Guru for sourcing consulting jobs is a Catalayer-specific capability
Getting Started
Sign up at [/login?tab=signup](/login?tab=signup). New accounts include a 7-day All Access Trial with full product access. After trial, you decide which specific products (if any) to keep.
The best way to evaluate Catalayer is to use it during the trial on your actual workflow — your real tickers, your real sourcing needs, your real Amazon account — and see what it surfaces that you would have missed.
FAQ
Q: Is Catalayer AI powered by OpenAI or Anthropic?A: For some workloads, we use external LLM providers as one input into our analysis pipeline. The final scoring and feedback loop is ours. This is an important distinction — you can't get the Catalayer behavior by prompting a raw LLM.
Q: Is there a mobile app?A: Responsive web works on mobile. Native apps for iOS and Android are planned but not yet released.
Q: Can I use Catalayer for stocks outside the US?A: Yes. We cover global markets — European, Asian, Latin American exchanges. News coverage is strongest in North America and Asia; coverage for emerging markets depends on which regions you enable.
Q: What happens to my data if I cancel?A: Active account data retained 30 days after cancellation to allow reactivation. After 30 days, data deleted permanently. Export your data anytime via Account settings before cancelling.
Q: Do you have an API?A: Not publicly available yet. Selected power users have limited API access for monitor rule management. Full public API is planned.