If you supply into MSP/VMS programs, you are playing in someone else’s savings model every day.

Supplier-funded fees. Rate cards. Negotiations at submission. Negotiations at offer. None of that is new.

What is new is how often those levers get used together, and how directly they now impact your margin and your candidate experience.

Most suppliers feel that as “more pressure.”

Very few turn it into a deliberate strategy for how they win.

That's the gap we wanted to address with our new e-book, A practical guide to VMS client savings strategies. This post is the headline version. The guide goes into the specific patterns, examples, and tools you can put in front of your teams.

From “we’ll see what they say” to “we know how this client buys”

Ask your account teams how a big client manages savings and you may hear answers like:

• “They are tough on rate.”

• “They always push at the end.”

• “They care a lot about cost savings in QBRs.”

All true. Not very actionable.

The suppliers who win more consistently tend to have sharper answers:

• Where the client usually looks for savings in the process

• Which roles and locations they push hardest on

• How they balance cost vs speed vs quality when they make tradeoffs

That level of clarity changes how you price, how you submit, and how you steer conversations.

Instead of waiting to see what procurement says, you are already:

• Building realistic flexibility into your rate

• Flagging likely pressure points for your team

• Positioning your value in the language the program uses internally

The e-book walks through the main savings models we see and the signals that tell you which one you are in, so your strategy can match the game that is actually being played.

The real pattern behind “can you sharpen your pencil?”

Every supplier has heard some version of:

“If you can come down a bit, we can move this forward.”

What matters is when that shows up.

• If it is happening at submission, you are in a competitive pricing moment. You win by being prepared with a smart range and a clear story about why your rate lands where it does.

• If it is happening at offer, you are in a trust moment. You win by protecting the worker relationship while still finding ways to help the client hit their target.

Treat both scenarios the same and you end up either:

• Dropping your rate more than you need to up front, or

• Scrambling to rework pay and margin at the exact moment you need the candidate to feel confident.

The opportunity is to make these moments predictable.

In the guide, we unpack the common negotiation points suppliers face and outline ways to prepare for them so they become chances to demonstrate control and partnership, not fire drills.

Why “market rate” is only half the story in MSP/VMS programs

Most firms put serious effort into pay calibration.

You look at compensation tools, you track local trends, you listen to your recruiters about what it takes to close the right talent.

All of that matters. It is just not enough on its own.

In an MSP/VMS environment, bill rates are shaped by more than external market pay. They are shaped by:

• The client’s internal savings goals

• How the program funds its own operations

• The history of what has been accepted or rejected in that category

• The way other suppliers have behaved over time

So the real question is not only “what does this skill earn in this city,” but also “how does this program usually buy this skill in this city.”

When you can see that pattern, you are not guessing. You are:

• Setting rates that land closer to the true acceptance zone

• Reducing how often you need to revise submissions

• Protecting your margin because your starting point is smarter

In the e-book, we share how tools like Beeline’s Market Rate Analysis for suppliers can help give you that program-level view, and how to use it without slowing your team down.

Winning inside your client’s savings strategy

You're not going to rewrite your clients’ savings models. You can decide how you win inside them.

That looks less like “holding the line no matter what” and more like:

• Knowing where the client is flexible and where they are not

• Coming to the table with options that support their savings targets without defaulting to margin cuts

• Equipping your teams with a shared playbook so responses are consistent, confident, and aligned with your business goals

When you do that well, three things tend to happen:

1. You convert more of the right roles at sustainable margins.

2. Your workers have fewer last-minute surprises on pay.

3. Your client starts to see you as a partner who understands how they are measured.

That is a much stronger position than “the supplier who always seems a bit expensive” or “the one who only pushes back when it is already too late.”

Shape

Want the practical version of this?

This post is the point of view.

If you want the details, the new e-book, A practical guide to VMS client savings strategies, digs into:

• The main savings levers we see in enterprise programs

• How they show up day to day for suppliers

• Ways to align your pricing and conversations so you can win more business and protect your margins

• Where Beeline’s Market Rate Analysis for suppliers fits into that picture

It also includes practical tools you can put in front of your teams right away.

👉 [Download the guide: A practical guide to VMS client savings strategies]

Use it for leadership offsites, account reviews, or as the backbone for your next internal training on pricing and negotiations. The savings strategy is already there on the client side. This is about making sure you have one on yours.