SPEKD vs. DesignerInc
DesignerInc is a long-standing trade portal focused on vendor catalogs and the procurement workflow. SPEKD rebuilds the sourcing layer around AI-powered cross-vendor search. Different approaches to the same underlying problem — finding products faster.
About DesignerInc
DesignerInc operates as a trade-only hub connecting designers to vendor catalogs with an emphasis on procurement workflow and vendor relationships. It's more comprehensive on vendor breadth in some categories but uses traditional catalog browsing as the primary UX.
About SPEKD
SPEKD focuses on one thing: making sourcing faster through AI search that understands natural language and cross-references structural attributes across a unified catalog. The interface prioritizes speed to first result over exhaustive catalog coverage.
Feature comparison
| Feature | SPEKD | DesignerInc |
|---|---|---|
| Natural-language search | Yes — Haiku-backed AI | Keyword + filter |
| Cross-vendor grid results | Yes — unified results | Per-vendor catalogs |
| Structural filters (arm style, back style, etc.) | Yes — AI-tagged | Category-level only |
| Visual similarity | Yes | No |
| Vendor count | 20+ | Varies |
| Speed to first relevant result | Seconds | Minutes |
Use SPEKD when
- Your bottleneck is search speed, not catalog breadth
- You want to describe what you need in plain language
- You regularly search for structural attributes (track arms, tight backs, etc.)
Use DesignerInc when
- You need a vendor that isn't in SPEKD's 20
- You prefer traditional filter-based browsing
- Your workflow is already built around vendor portals