Circulor traces critical raw materials through the supply chain back to their source and is built for automotive groups. If you manufacture or import batteries and simply need the passport that becomes mandatory on 18 February 2027, Batteriepasswerk is the shorter route: start today at zero cost, see the price before you talk to anyone, and hold your first serialised QR code the same day.
Circulor is a traceability platform for critical raw materials such as cobalt, lithium, nickel and graphite. It became widely known through the battery passport in the Volvo EX90, the first passport in a production vehicle. Access runs through sales; the website publishes neither prices nor a self-service signup.
Batteriepasswerk is a do-it-yourself battery passport product. You create a battery model with its mandatory fields, import serial numbers from CSV or Excel and get a resolvable GS1 Digital Link QR code plus a public passport page for every single unit. No integration project, no minimum volume, prices on the website.
you are setting up a group-wide raw-material programme with primary data from mines and refineries, can put several supply-chain tiers under contract, and tracing the material itself is the actual job.
you are a manufacturer, importer or distributor who needs an audit-proof passport per unit by the deadline, wants to start without an IT project, and would like to know the price before speaking to anyone.
We only compare what the vendors publish themselves. These three points are real strengths, and in the cases described we would point you there ourselves.
Circulor describes its platform as proving every claim from material origin through production, and names due diligence for cobalt, lithium, nickel and natural graphite as an explicit use case. If you have to collect primary supply-chain data yourself, this is a system built for it.
The battery passport in the Volvo EX90 went live in 2024, accessible through a QR code on the vehicle and the Volvo app. That is a deployment at industrial scale, and references like it are rare in this market.
The website names ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 as well as partnerships with inspection bodies such as Bureau Veritas and TÜV Rheinland. In tenders with formal certification requirements that carries weight.
The passport is a product obligation, not a supply-chain programme. Batteriepasswerk is cut to exactly that: meet the obligation properly, with data you can realistically obtain.
Pilot €0, Starter €149, Pro €449 per month, Enterprise from €1,290, all net. You do not have to walk through a sales process to learn whether your budget covers it. Exceed your quota and a volume add-on of €0.05 per passport applies instead of a forced upgrade.
Sign up, create a model, import serial numbers as CSV or Excel, print QR codes. No onboarding workshop, no supplier mandate as a precondition. The Pilot plan covers 25 passports a year and costs nothing.
The completeness score per model is calculated against the European Commission's official data-point list, differentiated by battery category, cut-off date, second-life exemption and declared non-applicability. When the legal position changes, the rule changes, not your process.
The hard part is other people's data. Suppliers deliver through a token link without an account of their own, values from uploaded evidence are proposed and released individually, and every value carries its provenance. Nothing is adopted silently.
Every version of a model and passport is hashed with SHA-256, and every hash includes its predecessor. The audit trail is append-only at database level. Auditors validate the chain publicly, without an account and without joining a network.
The public sees base data, recyclers and auditors with legitimate interest receive disassembly and material data once approved, market surveillance gets the full passport. Every professional access request is granted individually and logged.
Both routes end in a compliant passport. The difference is how much organisation comes first, and whether you can realistically set that organisation up in house.
All Circulor entries come from circulor.com, retrieved 9 September 2026. "Not stated" means the public website does not disclose it. It explicitly does not mean the capability is missing.
| Criterion | Batteriepasswerk | Circulor |
|---|---|---|
| Primary purpose | Create, maintain and serve battery passports under EU 2023/1542 | Trace critical raw materials through the supply chain, passport on top |
| Typical customer | Manufacturers and importers, mid-sized companies, suppliers | Automotive OEMs, cell manufacturers, inspection bodies |
| Prices published | Yes: €0 / €149 / €449 per month, Enterprise from €1,290 | No, no pricing on the website |
| Getting started | Self-service, sign up online in minutes | Contact through sales |
| Free entry point | Yes, Pilot with 1 model and 25 passports a year | Not stated |
| Raw-material tracing to the mine | No, deliberately out of scope | Yes, the platform's core functionCompetitor strength |
| QR code per unit | GS1 Digital Link, listed in the GS1 PINE directory | QR code on the product, format not stated on the website |
| Mass serialisation | CSV and Excel import, one passport per serial number | Not stated |
| Supplier data without an account | Yes, token link with reminders after 7 and 14 days | Not stated |
| Tamper protection | SHA-256 hash chain, publicly verifiable, append-only audit trail | Implementation not stated |
| Interface for ERP and MES | REST API v1 to OpenAPI 3.1, keys scoped per permission, add-on to Enterprise | Not stated |
| Hosting | Germany, data processing agreement issued automatically at signup | Not stated |
| Interface languages | German, English, Chinese | Not stated |
| Headquarters | Hamburg, Germany | London, United Kingdom |
All statements without warranty, as of 9 September 2026. Batteriepasswerk is itself a vendor in this comparison. Corrections to info@batteriepasswerk.com are verified and added with a date.
Whether you start fresh or move off a spreadsheet or another system, the path is the same and it ends with a QR code you can print.
Category and cut-off date decide which of the 71 EU data points apply to you. The completeness score shows what is still missing and jumps straight to the field.
Suppliers fill in their own fields through a link, evidence documents are read and proposed for release. Every value keeps its source and timestamp.
Import serial numbers, generate a QR code per unit, publish the passport page. Export as JSON and CSV stays available so the data remains yours.
From 18 February 2027 no traction battery, no light-means-of-transport battery and no industrial battery above 2 kWh may be placed on the market without a registered passport. The passport belongs to the product, and responsibility sits with whoever places it on the market.
Supply-chain due diligence and passport content are two different chapters of the same regulation. If you fall under the due-diligence obligations you need a procedure for them. If you need the passport you need complete, evidenced and retrievable data per unit.
Verifiable credentials versus a finished passport with a hash chain
Published annual flat fee versus plans from €0, with a cost chart
The overview of SaaS, enterprise platform and building it yourself
Deliver the passport under your own brand
All Circulor statements come from publicly accessible sources retrieved on 9 September 2026. They reflect that day and may change.
Disclosure: Batteriepasswerk is itself a battery passport software vendor and therefore an interested party in this comparison. That is why we compare only verifiable, published criteria and name the competitor's strengths explicitly.
Create a model, import ten serial numbers and scan the QR code with your phone. It takes fifteen minutes, costs nothing on the Pilot plan and answers the question better than any proposal.
