Compare · Mercura
Staffbox vs Mercura: two ways to quote for distributors
Short answer: Mercura lists four product areas, including ERP entry and voice, and 60+ customers (as reported, 13 Oct 2026). Staffbox: one area, no customers yet.
Distributors comparing AI quoting tools will meet Mercura, a funded platform for HVAC, electrical and plumbing distributors. It does more than Staffbox, and a comparison that hides that is not worth reading. So the facts about Mercura below are dated, sourced and labelled as reported. Send up to three requests below; drafts come back within 2 business days.
Updated 14 October 2026
Mercura covers four product areas; Staffbox covers one of them
Mercura is a startup in the Y Combinator Winter 2025 batch that automates quotes and orders for distributors and manufacturers in the construction supply chain. Its YC profile says it serves HVAC, electrical and plumbing distributors and manufacturers, and describes extracting data from incoming requests, matching products to the catalog and entering quotes into the ERP. as reported, 13 Oct 2026 Its own home page shows four product areas: Specifications (reading specs and tender text), AI Voice Agents, E-mail Requests, and Integrations and Security (SAP, Oracle and other ERP systems). as reported, 13 Oct 2026
Staffbox covers one of those jobs: reading a quote request by email and drafting a reply from a price list. This page sets the two side by side.
Side by side, they differ most on where the quote goes and where the model runs
| Topic | Mercura (as reported, 13 Oct 2026) | Staffbox |
|---|---|---|
| Who it is for | HVAC, electrical and plumbing distributors and manufacturers | Firms that send at least 8 quotes a week from a price list: distributors, fabricators, cabinet shops, IT providers. No distributor has tested it. |
| What it reads | Email requests, specifications and tender texts | Forwarded quote requests and one price-list file. No specification or drawing reading. |
| Where the quote goes | "Entered into the ERP"; SAP and Oracle named on its site | A draft reply in a drafts folder; a person sends. No ERP integration. |
| Voice | AI voice agents listed as a product | None. A person answers 404 493 6248. |
| Where it runs | Servers described as ISO/IEC 27001 and 27018 certified, hosted in Europe; GDPR compliant | On a Mac mini in your building, models on 127.0.0.1. No cloud provider unless you add your own key in writing. |
| Customers | 60+ distributors and manufacturers, per its site; named stories on its site | None yet. Tested on two fictional companies. |
| Funding | Y Combinator W25. A seed round of more than €1.8 million (about $2.1 million), led by TQ Ventures, SignalFire and Y Combinator, reported by Munich Startup on 7 Jan 2026. | No investor is named on this site. |
| Speed claims | "Up to 60% faster response times"; "minutes, not hours" (its site) | Average 1.1 to 3.2 seconds per answer on fictional test requests, one at a time with the model warm (6 Oct 2026). Not comparable. |
| Price | Not published; its site points to a demo and an ROI calculator | Free 30-day pilot, then $595 a month at founding sites (first 100) for as long as the box is live (draft pricing), no onboarding fee; $695 plus $1,800 onboarding from unit 101 |
| Certifications | ISO/IEC 27001 and 27018 server certification stated; SOC 2 not mentioned on its site | None. No SOC 2. See the Trust Center. |
Mercura is stronger on customers, ERP, specifications, voice, funding and certification
- It has customers. Staffbox has none. Mercura says 60+ and names stories.
- ERP entry. If the job is to put a quote into SAP or Oracle, Staffbox does not do it.
- Specifications and tenders. Reading a long spec and linking it to products is a product of its own. Staffbox makes no such claim.
- Voice. Mercura lists AI voice agents; Staffbox works from email only.
- Funding and team size. Munich Startup reported a seed round (7 Jan 2026), and its Y Combinator page lists a team size of 20 (read 13 Oct 2026). Staffbox is six people, staff and contractors, across product, sales, engineering, design, marketing and research.
- Certification. Server certification is a stated strength.
Staffbox suits a price-list shop that wants the data on site and a score first
Our read. If your quotes are rows from a price list, you want the data on a box in your office, and you want a score on your own 30 past quotes before you pay, Staffbox is built for that. The score is free, your team grades 10 answers blind, and the files are deleted within 14 days of sending your results (per our draft data policy). The price is a plain draft figure on our site; Mercura's is not published. A person approves every draft, and the unit cannot send or delete anything.
The honest limit: no customer has run Staffbox yet, and our scores are on fictional companies (Qwen3 8B on a 16 GB Mac mini: 15 of 15 on a messy set it had never seen, 2 Oct and again 6 Oct 2026). If you need a vendor with references from distributors today, Mercura has them and we do not. See what we would test on a distributor list. On a new trade it had never seen, an electrical distributor (14 Oct, Dell test box), the default Qwen3 8B setup scored 30 of 40 and 2 of 15 on messy requests, with 8 wrong prices in 55, because per-foot units, price levels and trade shorthand are not handled yet; that is why we score your own list first (the electrical result).
Questions
Is Mercura cheaper than Staffbox?
Unknown. Mercura does not publish a price on the pages we read on 13 Oct 2026. Staffbox pricing is $595 a month at founding sites (first 100) for as long as the box is live after a free 30-day pilot.
Does Staffbox integrate with SAP or Oracle?
No. It reads a price-list file and forwarded requests and writes draft replies into a folder.
Can I use both?
Possibly, for different jobs, but we have not tested that. Mercura targets ERP-connected distributor workflows; Staffbox drafts replies from a price list.
Sources
- Mercura on Y Combinator, seen 13 Oct 2026: ycombinator.com/companies/mercura
- Mercura product and security claims, customer count, speed claims, seen 13 Oct 2026: mercura.ai
- Seed round, amount and lead investors: "Mercura secures €1.8 million", Munich Startup, published 7 Jan 2026, read 13 Oct 2026
- Scores, test sets and every graded answer: Staffbox scorecard on Hugging Face and github.com/Staffbox-ai/staffbox (evals/results). Staffbox claims on this page come from our public scorecards (huggingface.co/spaces/staffbox/scorecard) and the open repo (github.com/Staffbox-ai/staffbox).
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