“Weaklink”: How Leaflink Fumbled The Wholesale Market

There are tons of ways to run wholesale. For the last few years, one of the most popular options was Leaflink—a centralized platform promising order management, CRM, and live menus. It was the no brainer solution until last year they made a huge mistake, they raised prices.

That single move cracked the veneer. Volume-based pricing landed in a market that is bleeding margin; it wasnt just a way for Leaflink to capitalize on high volume sellers, it was a tax on operators already in survival mode, so many jumped ship, and LeafLink found itself in full damage-control mode.

The pricing was rolled back. The CEO was replaced. And now Ashwin Raj, the new man at the helm, is doing the media circuit trying to steady the ship and explain what went wrong.

The real problem isn’t that LeafLink raised prices. It’s that when they did, operators finally stopped and asked a dangerous question: what am I actually paying for?

In a recent interview on High Spirits, a business podcast focused on regulated markets and hemp space, Ashwin is candid about the fallout. He acknowledges the bad taste the pricing shift left behind and leans hard into a familiar refrain: that success in any industry comes from listening to customers and solving their problems. It’s a reasonable position. It’s also incomplete.

Ash points to gaps in consumer education and product standardization as the major bottlenecks holding the industry back—arguing that without common standards, broader adoption and policy progress stall out. That’s true in theory. But the hosts, Ben Larson and AnnaRae, surface something that doesnt stall out, innovation.

In the wake of their fumble, others in moved fast. Existing players like Distru and Flourish stepped in with cheaper, leaner options that covered many of the same bases. Newer companies like Cloudbox skipped the middle and went straight to producers, building tools around how operators actually work and eliminating data entry.

I found myself swept into that same current. After companies like Pharmers Quality started asking for LeafLink alternatives, I built a working solution on top of Google Sheets—free—and I don’t even code. That’s not a flex. That’s the point. When the core functions of a platform can be recreated by operators out of necessity, it exposes a hard truth: the value proposition was less than advertised.

LeafLink’s real value was never inventory management, CRM, or sales tracking. It was lead generation. It was a centralized marketplace—a czar-like bazaar where retailers could browse products the way they browse Chinese restaurant menus. But once that initial connection is made, reality sets in. Ninety-nine percent of repeat orders come through text or email. At that point, LeafLink becomes less of a service provider and more of a burden.

The operator still does everything that matters. Entering the order. Producing. Packing. Labeling. Manifesting. Shipping. Collecting payment. And despite LeafLink’s acquisition of Dama, cash is still king. Plenty of operators are paying invoices straight out of the register, because that’s how the game is still played.

Because operators spend their days doing physical work. they don’t have the time or patience for data entry. And the way they sell is different every time. You might have bulk flower physically but get asked for pre-packs. Or oil that gets converted into any number of SKUs. Basically, all those operational inconsistencies Ash mentioned earlier.

During the interview, Ashwin also says “You have to make your customers successful first—then you can charge them more.” And i couldnt agree less.

You don’t charge more because your customer became successful.
You charge more because you made yourself more valuable.

There’s a difference, and operators know it instinctively. Asking for more money once someone scales feels less like partnership and more like punishment for competence. It implies that growing with your platform will always come with a potential tax—and that’s not a future anyone’s ever excited to invest in.

LeafLink has ground to regain. The brand still carries weight. The infrastructure is there. And Ashwin Raj does seem like the right person to lead the recovery—measured, articulate, and willing to admit where things went sideways.

But if LeafLink wants its place back, it needs a hard reality check.
Not about pricing models. About how replaceable they really are.

Watch the full episode and more on the High Spirits Podcast here