WHMIS and SDS Management — the safety data sheet binder, sold as software
Entry signal — what decides who wins here
One thing must be trueEntry turns on a single condition that can be named and tested before much is spent. Clear it and this becomes an execution question; fail it and no amount of operating skill helps.
Prove the value in money the buyer already counts. The need is real; what is unproven is that this buyer moves budget for it. That is a priced test with real customers, not a product problem.
Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.
This is not a probability of success, and it is not a verdict on you. No survival probability is published per market, and inventing one would be worse than saying so. What the bar reads is how much of the outcome sits inside an operator's control: green means the hurdles are ones a better operator clears, red means the binding constraint is capital, an asset or a permission rather than execution. Someone arriving with an advantage this screen did not assume can win a market shown in red.
Companies named in this market · 14
The binding constraint — willingness to pay
The safety data sheet is a commodity document, and the software that files it is priced like one at the end of the market where most of the buyers are. SDS Manager offers free search of "17M+" safety data sheets with no account and a free plan of 200 SDSs [C]; Chemical Safety Software publishes US$699 a year for 1,000 SDSs [C]; CCOHS sells CHEMINFO from C$300 [C]. That is what a janitorial contractor, auto shop, hotel or school board compares against. The enterprise end was rolled up years ago by owners with deeper content teams than any entrant: VelocityEHS (formerly MSDSonline; CVC-owned since 2017) claims 12,000+ chemical-management customers and 8M+ SDSs [C]; 3E was sold by Verisk to New Mountain Capital for up to $950M in 2022 [B] and claims 20M+ SDSs [C]; Sphera (Blackstone, $1.4B, 2021) absorbed SiteHawk in 2019 [B]; UL Solutions' WERCS sits in a Software and Advisory segment that grew 4.0% to $393M in FY2025, and UL is selling its EHS software business to Peak Rock for $210M [A]. Demand is real but arrives as deadlines, not growth: Canada's amended Hazardous Products Regulations (GHS Rev 7, part of Rev 8) ended their transition on December 14, 2025; OSHA's 2024 HazCom update now phases in from May 19, 2026 to May 19, 2028 after a four-month extension; EU CLP label-format rules were pushed to January 1, 2028. Each deadline forces one relabel and SDS refresh; then the binder is a compliance cost again. Willingness to pay decides it: the employers who most need WHMIS help are the ones least willing to pay more than the free and near-free tiers. The 541620 anchor is navigational: the buyer is any employer with hazardous products on site — cleaning, hospitality, manufacturing, labs, schools, healthcare, auto repair. Unlike the EHS-suite record, this covers only the SDS library, inventory, workplace-label and WHMIS/HazCom training layer.
The incumbent
Who owns this market and who is coming for it. Fields a screen never reached say so rather than guessing.
Financials & market size — sourced
Figures that came from a filing, a results release or reputable reporting, each carrying its evidence tier.
The field
Every vendor named on this record, and what each one discloses. Most disclose nothing, which is why the market is not sized.
Competitor set · 12 named · 0 disclose revenue
| Name | Revenue | Share | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| VelocityEHS (formerly MSDSonline)C | not disclosed | — | Private (CVC Growth since 2017; Partners Group significant minority stake announced 2022-08-16). No revenue published. The chemical-management page claims "12,000+ Chemical Management Customers" and "8M+" searchable SDSs, "20K+" added each week; the 2022 release claimed over 18,000 customers across the whole platform [C, vendor] — The North American SMB-to-mid-market reference product; names OSHA, WHMIS and REACH on the SDS page. Also sold as a broad EHS suite, covered in the EHS record |
| 3EB | not disclosed | — | Private. Verisk agreed to sell 3E to New Mountain Capital for potential aggregate cash consideration of up to $950M (Davis Polk deal page, 2022-01-24) [B]; 3E dates its separation from Verisk to March 2022 [C]. No revenue published since. Claims to manage "more than 20M SDS" and author "more than 1.7 million" a year [C] — Enterprise SDS catalogue and authoring (3E Protect). Bought Quick-FDS (France, 600+ customers) from WEKA Group — announced 2023-11-08 — and now Yordas Group |
| SpheraB | not disclosed | — | Private. Blackstone funds completed the purchase from Genstar Capital on 2021-09-14 at a $1.4B valuation [B, company release]. Bought SiteHawk (Smyrna, Tennessee, founded 1993; SDS and chemical data management) on 2019-05-06, terms undisclosed [B]. Claims "over 8,400 customers" across all products [C] — SDS management sits under product stewardship inside a much larger risk and sustainability platform; SiteHawk's own domain no longer resolves |
| UL Solutions (WERCS Studio, ULTRUS)NYSE: ULSA | not disclosed | — | Not broken out — no SDS or WERCS revenue exists to cite. The parent's Software and Advisory segment revenue, FY2025 (year ended 2025-12-31), from the FY2025 10-K: $393M vs $378M in 2024, +4.0%. Not an SDS figure — the segment also holds product stewardship, supply chain, ESG and EHS software plus advisory. In February 2026 UL agreed to sell its Employee Health and Safety software business to an affiliate of Peak Rock Capital for $210M base price, expected to close Q2 2026 [A] — Owns the supplier side: WERCS Studio SDS authoring on the ChemADVISOR database (8,000+ regulatory lists, 600,000+ substances, per ul.com) |
| ChemwatchC | not disclosed | — | Private Australian company; no revenue published. Cornell EHS describes a database of over 250,000 Chemwatch-authored documents and 13 million vendor-supplied documents [B, customer page] — Strong in universities and labs — Cornell provides campus-wide access |
| RMT (ChemAlert)C | not disclosed | — | Private; West Perth, Western Australia office listed. Claims "over 400,000" manufacturer SDSs [C] — Australian enterprise chemical management; mining, defence and transport references on its page |
| KHA (Online-SDS)C | not disclosed | — | Private — Kelleher, Helmrich and Associates, Inc., Merrillville, Indiana, "since 1985"; claims "1000+" organizations [C]. No pricing published. Not Canadian, despite the WHMIS claim — Markets Online-SDS as "OSHA and WHMIS Compliant" |
| ChemscapeC | not disclosed | — | Private; "Proudly Canadian Owned and Operated", "20 Years of SDS Expertise" [C]. No pricing or customer count published — The clearest Canadian-owned WHMIS vendor: SDS management, CHAMP approvals and risk assessment, SDS authoring, WHMIS resources |
| SDS ManagerC | not disclosed | — | Private; SDS Manager Inc., Dover, Delaware address with Norwegian and Canadian locales; no funding disclosed. Published CAD prices: DirectSDS from C$40/month (100 SDS) to C$794/month (4,000 SDS, Pro); ExactSDS authoring C$269 per SDS pay-as-you-go; free management plan capped at 200 SDSs [C] — The price-setter at the bottom: a free 17M-SDS search and a free plan. Launched ExactSDS AI authoring in October 2025 |
| Chemical Safety SoftwareC | not disclosed | — | Private; claims "more than 37 years of experience". Published: SDS Basic US$699/yr (1,000 SDS), Standard $999/yr (2,500), Plus $1,499/yr (5,000), Complete by quote [C] — US lab and research-institution focus (Stanford, AstraZeneca, EPA logos) |
| EcoOnlineC | not disclosed | — | Private; no revenue published. Sells SDS Management and ALMEGO SDS authoring [C]. Ownership is covered in the EHS record and was not re-opened here — European chemical-management heritage now inside a broader EHS platform |
| CCOHS (CHEMINFO, CANManage)C | not disclosed | — | Federal Crown agency, not a company. CHEMINFO covers 1,700+ workplace chemicals, "Priced from" C$300; CANManage gives a customized workplace SDS collection, price not published [C] — The public floor in Canada, alongside the free WHMIS.org guidance it co-runs with Health Canada |
Nobody here publishes revenue. The market is not sized for that reason — an estimate built on nothing would only look like knowledge.
Startups & challengers
Newer and smaller vendors going at the incumbent — funded challengers first. Named, not researched to the depth of the field above; a company with a page here links to it.
| Company | Stage | What it does | Raised |
|---|---|---|---|
| DGXprt | Startup | Melbourne; AI-powered risk and compliance software for dangerous goods and hazardous chemicals | — |
| NextSDS | Startup | Ghent, Belgium (Franz BV); AI chemical software for HSE teams with a free tier; KBC StartIT and imec istart logos | — |
| CloudSDS | Scrappy competitor | CLOUDSDS Inc.; SDS management with monthly updates, e-binders and translation; no pricing or HQ published | — |
Vendor landscape
Market leaders, the full paid field, and every open-source alternative. Where a free tier exists it is what sets the price floor, so it is analysis rather than an appendix.
12,000+ chemical-management customers, 8M+ SDSs, per its own page [C]
Sold by Verisk for up to $950M (2022) [B]; claims 20M+ SDSs [C]
$1.4B Blackstone deal (2021) for the whole company [B]; SiteHawk folded in since 2019
Software and Advisory segment $393M FY2025, +4.0% [A]; WERCS is not broken out
Paid field · 9 vendors
Private; price not published
Private; price not published
Private; inside product stewardship
Listed parent, NYSE: ULS
Private, Australian
Private, Indiana
Private, Canadian-owned
Published CAD and USD price lists
US$699–1,499/yr published
Open source · none — there is no price floor
No open-source SDS library of consequence was found, and it does not matter. The free floor here is public and freemium rather than open source: Health Canada and CCOHS publish the WHMIS guidance free at WHMIS.org, manufacturers must supply the SDS with the product, and SDS Manager gives away search across 17M+ documents with a 200-SDS free plan. An entrant prices against free documents it does not own.
Every enterprise SDS library of scale is owned by private equity or a listed testing company, and all of them sell it as a module. VelocityEHS (CVC, Partners Group), 3E (New Mountain), Sphera (Blackstone) and UL Solutions each attach SDS management to a broader EHS, product-stewardship or supply-chain platform; below them a long tail of small private vendors sells the same document library to employers at tens of dollars a month.
Evidence
Evidence. Sourced by direct retrieval 2026-10-13, robots.txt read first on each host. Tier A: UL Solutions' FY2025 10-K from EDGAR — Software and Advisory revenue $393M vs $378M (+4.0%), and the February 2026 agreement to sell its Employee Health and Safety software business to a Peak Rock Capital affiliate for $210M; the US Federal Register final rule of 2026-01-15 (govinfo.gov) extending the HazCom 2024 compliance dates by four months (substances: May 19 and November 20, 2026; mixtures: November 19, 2027 and May 19, 2028), citing the original rule at 89 FR 44144 of May 20, 2024. Tier B: Davis Polk's deal page (Verisk's sale of 3E to New Mountain Capital, up to $950M, 2022-01-24); Sphera's own releases on the Blackstone completion (2021-09-14, $1.4B, from Genstar) and the SiteHawk acquisition (2019-05-06, founded 1993, Smyrna TN, terms undisclosed); VelocityEHS's release on Partners Group's minority stake (2022-08-16; CVC Growth owner since 2017); 3E's own release on Quick-FDS (2023-11-08; separation from Verisk March 2022); WHMIS.org (Health Canada with CCOHS) for the HPR amendments — published in Canada Gazette Part II on January 4, 2023, in force December 15, 2022, aligned with GHS Rev 7 and parts of Rev 8, three-year transition ending December 14, 2025; CCOHS for employer duties (train workers, label hazardous products and prepare workplace labels, provide access to up-to-date SDSs, review the training programme annually). Tier C: every vendor's customer and SDS-count claim, and the published price lists of SDS Manager and Chemical Safety Software. The EU CLP revision (Regulation (EU) 2024/2865) and the stop-the-clock postponement of label-format rules to January 1, 2028 come from a consultancy summary (h2compliance), not EUR-Lex, and the stop-the-clock regulation number is not confirmed. NOT verified: market size (UNVERIFIED, none asserted); any vendor's SDS revenue; Chemwatch's HQ and founding date; who now owns UL's divested EHS software and whether it carried any SDS products; Quantum Compliance — quantumcompliance.com is a parked domain and quantumsds.com now belongs to an unrelated procurement company, so it is not listed as a competitor; "ChemTrack" could not be matched to a live SDS vendor. The "Workplace Hazardous Materials Bureau" is a Health Canada regulatory unit, not a vendor, and was not separately confirmed. No funding round was found for any SDS startup; NextSDS, DGXprt and CloudSDS are listed from their own sites only.
Where the industry talks
The associations, forums and events where people in this trade actually talk shop — where to listen before entering, and where the first customers are found. Each link was opened on the date shown.
The SDS and label authors' society; Annual Meeting 2027, Sept 28-30, Washington DC, per the site. No member count stated
More than 35,000 members per the site; SafetyFOCUS 2027, March 1-5, Las Vegas
Cleaning-industry trade association, 11,000+ members per the site, with a Canada region; ISSA Show North America Nov 16-19, 2026
Official WHMIS information site made possible by Health Canada with CCOHS; the HPR amendment and transition pages
OSH Answers WHMIS pages on employer duties; sells CHEMINFO and CANManage
No subreddit or forum dedicated to SDS management could be confirmed from this network; r/EHS was not checked and is not listed.