Comparison
Circuit Sherpa vs Findchips — a Findchips alternative for part search and BOM costing
Findchips is a free part-availability search that shows you who has a part in stock across many distributors. Circuit Sherpa covers fewer distributors, live Digi-Key and Mouser plus Nexar network offers when available, and spends its effort on what happens after the lookup: pricing a whole BOM at your quantity, watching parts for a target price, and giving you an API. Use Findchips for breadth on a single part. Use Circuit Sherpa if you re-price BOMs and want alerts.
What Findchips is
Findchips is one of the oldest electronic component search sites. It is operated by Supplyframe, which is part of Siemens, and it is free to use. You type a manufacturer part number and get a table of distributors, their stock and their pricing, with links out to buy. It also offers a BOM tool for looking up many parts at once. Engineers use it the way they use Octopart: as a first stop for “who has this, and roughly what does it cost”.
Where Circuit Sherpa differs
Circuit Sherpa is not trying to be a bigger directory. It queries Digi-Key and Mouser directly on each search, merges the offers into one list ranked by price and stock, caches the result for 24 hours, and then builds a workflow on top of that data:
- Exact-match awareness. Results whose part number normalises to exactly what you typed are marked, so a search for a specific suffix does not silently price a sibling part.
- BOM costing at quantity. Each CSV line is priced at the price break for its quantity; a quantity below the distributor's MOQ is flagged rather than priced as if it were orderable.
- Daily price alerts. Target price per part, checked once a day, delivered by email.
- Saved searches and 90 days of BOM history on Pro, and a REST API key on Team.
- Public part pages with the price history Circuit Sherpa has recorded for that part since it was first searched here.
Side by side
| Feature | Circuit Sherpa | Findchips |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (10 searches/day); Pro $29/mo; Team $99/mo | Free |
| Distributor coverage | Digi-Key + Mouser direct; Nexar network offers when available | Many distributors (the larger list) |
| Live pricing | Fetched from distributor APIs, cached 24 hours | Distributor data, refresh cadence per Findchips |
| BOM pricing at quantity | CSV up to 500 lines; price-break tier per line; MOQ warnings | BOM tool available; see Findchips for current details |
| Price alerts | Yes: daily, email and iOS push, 20 active on Pro | Check Findchips for current features |
| Saved searches / history | Yes on Pro (90-day BOM history) | Check Findchips for current features |
| API | REST API key on Team | Supplyframe offers commercial data products separately |
| Ads | None | Ad supported |
| Account required | Yes (magic link, no password) | No, for search |
The Findchips column describes the product as publicly documented on 2026-09-16. Verify anything you depend on against their site; we do not monitor their feature list.
Choosing between them
Pick Findchips when the question is “does anyone have this part” and you want the longest list of answers, or when you search occasionally and do not want an account.
Pick Circuit Sherpa when the question is “what does this build cost at 250 units, and tell me when the expensive line gets cheaper”. That is the loop the product is designed around, and it is why it charges a subscription instead of showing ads.
It is reasonable to use both: Findchips or Octopart to discover where a part exists, Circuit Sherpa to price and watch it. See also our comparison with Octopart, the BOM pricing guide and the price alerts guide.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between Findchips and Circuit Sherpa?
- Findchips is a free part-search aggregator run by Supplyframe that lists stock and pricing from many distributors for a part number you type in. Circuit Sherpa is a subscription tool that queries Digi-Key and Mouser live for a part, prices an uploaded CSV BOM at your build quantity with MOQ warnings, and runs daily price alerts. Findchips is wider; Circuit Sherpa is built around repeated pricing and alerting.
- Is Circuit Sherpa free like Findchips?
- The free plan is free: 10 searches a day with live Digi-Key and Mouser prices, no credit card. BOM upload, price alerts, saved searches and BOM history require Pro at $29 a month; a REST API key and 5 seats require Team at $99 a month. Findchips does not cap searches and does not charge for search.
- Which distributors does Circuit Sherpa search compared with Findchips?
- Circuit Sherpa always queries Digi-Key and Mouser through their official APIs, and asks the Nexar API for additional offers when it is configured, which can include Arrow, Avnet and TTI. It does not query LCSC or other distributors directly. Findchips lists a larger set of distributors; if you need the widest coverage for a single lookup, use Findchips.
- Can Circuit Sherpa price a BOM like Findchips' BOM tool?
- Yes, with a specific emphasis: each line is priced at the price break that matches the quantity in your CSV, and lines whose quantity is below a distributor's minimum order quantity are flagged with the tier that was actually used. Uploads are CSV only, up to 500 lines and 2 MB, and Pro keeps 90 days of upload history so you can compare a build's cost over time.
- Does Circuit Sherpa have price alerts?
- Yes. You set a target price on a part number. Once a day a scheduled job re-searches that part, records the lowest single-unit price it finds across all offers, and emails you (and sends a push notification if you use the iOS app) when that price is at or below your target. Alerts fire once and then stay marked as triggered; create a new one to keep watching. Pro and Team allow up to 20 active alerts.
Try it on your own part numbers
The free plan gives you 10 searches a day with live Digi-Key and Mouser pricing, no credit card. BOM upload and price alerts are on Pro ($29/month) and Team ($99/month).
Last reviewed for accuracy on 2026-09-16. Statements about other products describe them as publicly documented on that date; if something here is out of date, email [email protected] and we will fix it.