FOR BUYERSTHE GUARANTEE

“Guaranteed” is a contract term, not an adjective

A quote is software; a ship date is a machine that has to be free on Tuesday. So on a Catalog-lane order the date is written as a term of the contract. On Tier A — catalog-scale orders up to $25,000 — the credit posts to your invoice automatically when we miss it: no claim form, no negotiation, no goodwill gesture. Above that band the instrument is written per order, and it is still capped.

The whole instrument is on this page: three tiers, the cap on each of them, and the complete list of the five things that can stop the clock. Publishing the caps and the exclusions is the point — a guarantee you have to request the terms for isn’t one.

Upload a PartRead the Terms of Service
The instrument at a glance
InstrumentTier A: automatic invoice credit
Claim processNone on Tier A
LaneCatalog · in-envelope
Underwritten fromDelivered history
TiersA · B · C
ExposureCapped, every tier

Note 1: scope of the instrument1The automatic-credit instrument is offered on the Catalog lane only — in-envelope work on a date underwritten from delivered history. Sourcing-lane orders get a committed date, vetted shops, and the same documentation package, without this instrument until the data exists to underwrite that class of work.

What you are actually buying

Three terms. Each one costs us money when we’re wrong, which is the only reason any of them is worth reading.

SHIP DATE = CONTRACT TERM

On time, or you're credited

Every Catalog-lane order carries a committed ship date, shown at booking and printed on the order confirmation. It is a ship date: the day the order leaves our network in the carrier's hands. Transit after that is the carrier's.

If the parts leave our network after that date, the credit posts to your invoice automatically. No form. No negotiation. No phone call where someone explains that it was a difficult month.

Removing the claim process is the part that makes the promise believable — a credit you have to chase is a discount someone hopes you forget. The schedule and the cap depend on order size; all three tiers are published further down this page.

YOUR DRAWING = THE STANDARD

To print, or we remake it

Parts are inspected against your drawing to the inspection plan written into the packet, before they ship. If a nonconforming part reaches you anyway, we remake it at Rush speed at our cost, or refund the line — your choice.

You never mediate between us and a shop. Praetore is the manufacturer of record: we authored the program, the fixture, the probe routine, and the inspection plan, so the shop is our problem and not yours.

QUOTE = INVOICE

The price is the price

The number you accept is the number you're invoiced. No engineering-review revision after booking, no surprise setup charge, no freight game.

If we misquoted, that's our tuition, not your bill.

A banded pallet of finished parts on a loading dock, strapped and labelled.
FIG. 01The ship date measures one event: parts leaving the network in the carrier’s hands. Not “in progress,” not “on the truck next week” — banded, labelled, and gone.
A machined part on a granite surface plate with a height gauge and indicators set up for dimensional inspection.
FIG. 02Dimensional inspection against the packet’s plan. Every guarantee-critical dimension is verified by at least one of three layers — in-machine probing, shop inspection, or central metrology. No exceptions, and no “the operator checked it.”

Anyone can promise a date. We can reroute one.

A date from a single shop is hostage to that shop’s week. When trouble hits, the job waits — the fixture is theirs, the program is theirs, and how the part actually runs is in one head in one building.

Every shop here runs the same workholding and receives the same Job Packet, which is what makes a job portable. Hit trouble and it re-posts to a shop with open capacity, and the committed date holds.

The drawing runs wide — scroll it →

Rerouting a job to hold a committed dateA released job packet runs at network shop A. Partway through, trouble is declared. The job re-posts to network shop B, where a delta first article covers the setup-sensitive features, and it finishes on the committed ship date. A second, dashed path shows the alternative: without a shared standard, the job waits in one shop’s queue and crosses the ship date late.COMMITTED SHIP DATETHE DATE DOES NOT MOVEPACKET RELEASEDWITHOUT A SHARED STANDARD, THE JOB WAITS IN ONE QUEUELATETROUBLE DECLAREDNETWORK SHOP ANETWORK SHOP B · OPEN CAPACITYRE-POSTDELTA FAI · SETUP-SENSITIVE FEATURES ONLY

A reroute is a procedure, not a scramble

Four events trigger one, and none of them require you to notice first:

  • 01the shop declares trouble
  • 02a machine-down report
  • 03a pattern of probe-gate failures
  • 04a declared calendar diverging from what the shop is actually accepting

What follows is bounded and rehearsed: the packet re-posts to the receiving shop’s machine, and a delta first article covers the setup-sensitive features only. The packet is already proven, so the receiving shop is not starting from zero — that is precisely what makes rerouting fast without making it reckless.

And you see it happen. If a job reroutes, it shows in your order status with the date beside it. Rerouting is a feature we show, not a failure we hide.

A touch probe in a machine spindle taking a measurement on a fixtured part inside a vertical machining center.
FIG. 03In-machine probing runs to routines written into the packet. Out-of-tolerance halts the job at that operation; every result returns to the Capacity Ledger, where the next quoted date is built.

Measured, not hoped

The other half is where the date comes from. It is constructed, term by term, and every delivered job writes back into the terms:

  1. 01Runtime estimateFrom the packet's verified toolpaths — a simulated cycle, not a guess at the machine.
  2. 02Packet-rev errorHow wrong that estimate has run on this revision of this packet, historically.
  3. 03Shop standingOn-time-in-full, first-pass yield, issue rate, and responsiveness for the shop it routes to.
  4. 04Calendar trustDeclared availability weighed against what that shop has actually accepted and thrown through.
  5. 05Variance bufferPriced from the lateness distribution for that feature class, not from how the week feels.

The committed ship date

Promised versus delivered, per shop, per packet revision, per feature class — that record is the Capacity Ledger, and it is the thing the guarantee is underwritten from.

Note 2: how the buffer behaves2Said plainly, because it matters: the variance buffer is the term that moves. The deeper the history behind a feature class, the smaller that buffer runs and the closer the committed date sits to the machine’s actual time. It only ever moves in that direction — which is why we would rather quote a date we beat than one we have to defend.
Published on the Ledger

Network on-time-in-full rate, and every reroute in full — trigger, mechanism, outcome, and whether the date held. Both are computed from delivered jobs and published with their methodology beside them.

A rate is only as good as the definition under it, so the definitions are already on The Ledger, written down in advance and not rounded up.

Where the cap is, and why there is one

Exposure is capped at every tier — a flat dollar figure on Tier A, and a hard ceiling above it, so every cap resolves to a dollar number before you sign. The caps are printed here rather than buried. A promise without a ceiling is a promise that dies at the first order large enough to end the company — and we intend to still be making this one at $400,000 as well as at $4,000.

Tier A

Up to $25,000

Catalog orders

Automatic invoice credit

Tier A — Catalog orders guarantee terms
1–3 business days late25% of order value
Beyond 3 business days50% of order value
Hard cap, any single order$10,000
RemakeRush speed, our cost
Claim processNone

The standard term on Tier A orders. It lives in the Terms of Service, not only on this page.

Tier B

Above $25,000 to $250,000

Large orders

Milestone-based liquidated damages

Tier B — Large orders guarantee terms
MilestonesMaterial · FAI · % complete · ship
Rate0.5–1.0% of order value per business day late
Hard cap10% of order value
RequiresA Ledger-underwritten date
ScopeSigned SOW carrying the tolling terms

Written per order. Credits attach to each missed milestone, not only to the final ship date.

Tier C

Above $250,000, or recurring

Programs & contracts

Negotiated LD schedule

Tier C — Programs & contracts guarantee terms
CeilingStated in your signed agreement
Open-ended exposureNever
Mutual obligationsYour approval and material dates too
Remedy ladderCure period → credits → cancellation
RequiresCounsel-reviewed terms before quote

Your side of the schedule becomes contractual as well. A program date is a joint obligation or it is fiction.

Tier B and Tier C instruments are written per order, on a Ledger-underwritten date and against a signed scope that carries the tolling definitions below. Tier A is the standard term and lives in §4 of the Terms of Service. Where those terms and this page differ, the terms govern — and we want to hear about it, because it means this page is wrong.

The complete list of what stops the clock

Five conditions can toll or restart the clock. Four of them are things you control, one is genuinely nobody’s, and there is no sixth — this is the whole list of what moves the date, not a summary of it. We publish it because a guarantee’s exclusions are the guarantee: an open-ended clause means the promise is whatever we decide it was on the day we miss.

  1. 01

    Print or spec changes after release

    A change after the packet is released means new toolpaths, often a new fixture, sometimes new material. The clock restarts from the revised release — and we tell you the new date before you approve the change, not after we miss the old one.

  2. 02

    Customer-supplied material late or out of cert

    If you're supplying the stock, we can't cut what hasn't arrived and we can't ship what we can't trace. The clock tolls from the day the material was due until it lands with an acceptable cert.

  3. 03

    Payment terms breached

    Orders on terms run against those terms. A balance past due pauses the clock. It does not cancel the guarantee, and the clock restarts when the account does.

  4. 04

    Source inspection beyond the stated window

    If your quality organization inspects at our shop before release, we hold the parts for the window stated on the order. Days beyond that window are yours, and the window is written down in advance so neither of us is estimating it later.

  5. 05

    Force majeure, defined narrowly

    A tornado, not a busy week. The order documents name the categories specifically rather than gesturing at circumstances beyond our control. A supplier who let us down is not force majeure. A machine that went down is not force majeure — it's a reroute.

Everything not on that list is our problem

A machine down. A tool crash. A shop that overcommitted its calendar. A program that needed a second proveout. A material buy we got wrong. A holiday we forgot to schedule around. Our own arithmetic. None of those toll anything, and all of them are exactly why the credit exists.

The list’s honesty is the promise’s credibility. The binding version is §5 of the Terms of Service. If you ever find us behaving as though something is on it that isn’t, that is a bug in this page and we want the report.

Questions you should ask anyone making this promise

Us included. If a supplier can’t answer these seven in writing, the word “guaranteed” on their site is an adjective.

  1. Q01

    How is the date generated?

    From delivered history, not optimism. The quoted date is constructed out of the five terms above, and the last of them — the variance buffer — is priced from how late that class of work has actually run, per shop and per packet revision.

    Sales cannot move an underwritten date earlier. They can sell a Rush tier, which reprices the risk against the same data, or escalate to engineering. Neither of those is the same as arguing, and that is deliberate: the number that goes on your order has to be the number the schedule can carry.

  2. Q02

    What happens when a machine goes down?

    The job re-posts to a qualified shop with open capacity, a delta first article covers the setup-sensitive features, and the committed date holds. That is the whole reason we can write the date into the contract instead of into the marketing copy.

    If a reroute can’t hold the date, you hear it the day we know, and the credit runs anyway. Reroute rates and dates-held-through-reroute publish on The Ledger once enough jobs have run to compute them — we are not going to quote you a rate we don’t have.

  3. Q03

    Where's the cap, and why is there one?

    $10,000 on a Tier A order. 10% of order value on Tier B. A stated ceiling in your signed agreement on Tier C — never open-ended. Those are printed above rather than buried, because a cap you discover during a dispute is worse than no promise at all.

    Why a cap exists: percentage-only credits that are survivable on a $4,000 order are existential on a $400,000 one. A promise without a ceiling is a promise that gets quietly withdrawn the first time it's expensive. We would rather publish a capped guarantee we can still be making at scale than an unlimited one with a shelf life.

  4. Q04

    What voids it?

    Five conditions toll or restart the clock, and nothing else does. Four of them are things you control and one is genuinely nobody's. They are listed in full above, and in §5 of the Terms of Service.

    Ask any vendor for their list. The length and the specificity of the answer tells you most of what you need to know — an open-ended exclusions clause means the promise is whatever they decide it was on the day they miss.

  5. Q05

    Is this in the contract, or just on this page?

    It's in the Terms of Service and referenced on every order confirmation. A promise that lives only on a marketing page isn't one.

    Where the Terms of Service and this page differ, the Terms of Service govern — and we want to hear about it, because a difference means this page is wrong.

  6. Q06

    What if my part is outside the Catalog envelope?

    Then you get a committed date without this instrument, and we say so at quote time rather than after you've ordered. The Sourcing lane takes anything: human review within two business days, a real date, vetted shops, and the same documentation package.

    We guarantee with money only where we have the delivery data to underwrite it. As the envelope grows, so does the guarantee — and that boundary moves on delivered evidence, never on a sales conversation.

  7. Q07

    Who pays when your engineering is wrong?

    We do. Root cause defaults to the packet: the first question on any nonconformance is what was missing or wrong in the packet we shipped, and the answer ships back to the whole network as a packet revision.

    The shop that ran our program is not liable for our program, and you are never standing between the two of us while it gets sorted out. One accountable party is the entire point of the model.

Book a date you can build a schedule on

Upload a model. If the part is inside the envelope you get a price and a date in minutes, on this instrument. If it isn’t, you get a human and a real timeline within two business days, and we say which one you’re getting before you order — not after.

Upload a PartSee what’s in the envelope

The instrument described on this page applies to Catalog-lane orders on a Ledger-underwritten date. The Terms of Service are the contract of record.