Choosing EUDR compliance software as a coffee company

From 30 December 2026 (large and medium companies; 30 June 2027 for micro and small), coffee can only be placed on the EU market with documented due diligence behind it. Most coffee companies will run that work in software, and the offers range from simple plot checkers to enterprise platforms. The regulation itself is the best shopping list: it decides what the system has to handle. Everything else is convenience.

What the system must handle, per the regulation

• Geolocation for every production plot, with coordinates at six-decimal precision and polygons for plots over four hectares.
• Deforestation screening of each plot against the 31 December 2020 cutoff, with the evidence retained.
• A legality record per producer covering the categories in Article 2(40), including the case where a document is not required under national law and the justification for saying so.
• An Article 10 risk assessment per shipment that ends in your conclusion, not the tool's.
• The due-diligence statement, filed in the EU Information System with the geolocation attached.
• Five years of records you can hand a competent authority on request.

Eight questions to ask any vendor, including us

• Does the screening read the underlying satellite data, or just relay a screening tool's verdict? Plot-level tools work with share-of-plot thresholds, and their decision trees can settle a verdict before every signal has been consulted, so a verdict alone can pass a plot it should not.
• When a plot is flagged, can you see where in the parcel the signal sits, and imagery reaching back past the cutoff, so a human can conclude something defensible?
• Does the system ever repair plot geometry silently? You carry legal responsibility for the accuracy of the geolocation regardless of who collected it, so every shape-changing fix needs your explicit approval and a record of the original.
• How do smallholder suppliers and cooperatives deliver plot data, and what does the quality check on arrival look like?
• Where does the compliance conclusion live? A system that announces compliance for you is a liability; the determination is yours, and the system's job is to document how you reached it.
• What does the authority package look like when a competent authority asks? Ask to see an export.
• Where is the data hosted, and can you take all of it with you if you leave?
• What does a full year cost, all in? Per-statement and per-plot meters punish you for re-screening, which is exactly what you should be doing as the datasets update.

The price landscape

Published prices in this category run from tens of euros per month for simple checkers covering a handful of products, to five-figure annual subscriptions for platforms aimed at larger organisations, with enterprise suites above that on custom quotes. The spread mostly reflects how much of the due-diligence chain the system actually carries: a checker answers one question per plot, a due-diligence system holds the register, the evidence, the risk assessment and the statement together.

Where Sylva EUDR sits: built specifically for green coffee, it carries the whole chain from supplier intake and plot screening to the legality record, the risk assessment and the statement, and it is priced by your size class under the regulation. We wrote the list because we built for every question on it. Take it to the other vendors too.

Worth doing this quarter, whichever vendor you pick

• Classify each legal entity: size class under the accounting directive and role per supply chain. Both decide your deadline and your duties.
• Ask your suppliers what plot data they can produce today. The gap between that answer and six-decimal polygons is usually the biggest part of the work.
• Run one origin end to end first: intake, screening, legality, statement. Most of the problems only show up when you actually run the chain, and they are cheaper to fix now than in November.