Backbone 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

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Overview
Pricing and Plans
Features
User Reviews

Overview

Backbone

4.2

(68)

Pricing

Starting at $199.00 per month

About Backbone

Backbone is a product development platform designed to empower brands to make products faster, smarter, and at scale. Backbone’s cloud-based system of interconnected libraries puts dynamic data at designers’ fingertips to allow them to focus on design rather than searching for information. Users can design faster, reduce sampling with fewer errors, and improve quality control.

Backbone also gives users greater visibility into product data, to improve decision making on material costs, design changes, and timelines with the aim of safeguarding revenue and cutting down on waste. The centralized system of record helps users to manage information across teams and move at digital speed.

Backbone Screenshots

Backbone Pricing and Plans

Starting price: $199.00 per month

Free Trial

Free Version

Basic

$199.00

per user, per month

No plan information available

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Backbone Features

Popular features found in Apparel Management
Billing & Invoicing
Catalog Management
Materials Management
Production Management
Product Management
Purchasing & Receiving
Reporting & Statistics
Returns Management
Shipping Management
Supplier Management
Supply Chain Management
More features of Backbone
Accounting Integration
Activity Tracking
API
Bills of Material
Collaboration Tools
Commenting/Notes
Communication Management
Cost Tracking
Customizable Fields
Data Import/Export
Design Management
Document Management
Document Storage
Drag & Drop
EDI
Fashion Illustrations
File Management
Inventory Management
Inventory Tracking
Multi-Channel Management
Pattern, Color & Art Storage
Pattern Grading
Pattern Layout/Print/Cut
Portfolio Management
Presentation Tools
Price/Margin Management
Product Catalog
Product Data Management
Production Tracking
Product Lifecycle Management
Progress Tracking
Quality Assurance
Requirements Management
Status Tracking
Textile Pattern Design
Third-Party Integrations
Version Control

Backbone User Reviews

Overall Rating

4.2

Ratings Breakdown

40%

43%

13%

Secondary Ratings

Ease of Use

4.1

Value for money

4.2

Customer support

4.7

Functionality

3.9

Verified

Reviewer

Apparel & Fashion

11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Reviewed October 2022

My Tech Packing Go To

It's mostly positive. There's great support and customer service.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

This program makes building tech packs easier than spreadsheet programs or other web PDM programs I've used. I enjoy how easily the BOM populates and grading with ease.

Cons:

Creating the tech pack PDF is tedious. And if something needs to be changed you have to go through the entire process again... not fun if it's only one small change that needed to be made. That's the biggest downside to this program. The other is that sometimes updated specs in the sample page do not copy over to the main spec and grading pages.

Lynn M.

Verified reviewer

Apparel & Fashion

Self-Employed

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed October 2021

Good for housing TechPacks

V1 was simple and easy even though it had missing functionality, it was workable. Housing complete TP in one place. Having a Trims and Materials library to ensure BOMs are standardized, Specs and Grading are more consistent, all comments and images are in one place. This is how and why I use BB. I am not overly excited about V2. The change to the user experience was so drastic and seemingly not an improvement.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

V1 was more intuitive, simple for TechPack build. Housing sketches, BOM, spec and comments. Easy to use. V2 color palette is nice. Set up is easy, but still not efficient to pull into styles and BOMs V2 Line Sheet is a nice concept but still need to build a lot in AI to pull in

Cons:

V2 is glitchy and cumbersome. It is trying to do more than V1, but not doing it to the level of it being more efficient and useful. No secure log ins to share only specific information with brands or factory. Still missing a lot of functionality. For example: complete costing with Margin and landed cost views, Forecasting materials, Forecasting production, inventory management, Lab dip status and review, Product Lifecycle planning, etc

Reasons for choosing Backbone

Centric does not offer a package for a single user. Their product is very nice

Reasons for switching to Backbone

To have more consistent and standardized information, have one source of truth, to better communicate with my factories and brands to have consistent ways of viewing data.

Sara C.

Verified reviewer

Apparel & Fashion

2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed September 2021

Good Value PLM

It's been pretty easy to work with Backbone. The customer service is prompt and cordial and we love our rep. The price for the system is also unbeatable, but you do get what you pay for. If you are looking for a first time PLM system, this is a great place to start. It UX is very straightforward and most anyone with some tech savvy can quickly pick up on the functionality and adopt it in as little as a month.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Creating products is very simple and the interface is very intuitive. It does not take long to train a new hire on how to use this system. The cost for the program is very affordable, and I would recommend it for any startup or company seeking to launch their first PLM integration.

Cons:

There are several features that we were told were in the roadmap 2 years ago that have not been rolled out. Vendor integration is not something that currently exists. The "supplier login" feature does not seem to be as simple as we were told it would be. Additionally, there seem to be consistent glitches within the system that prevents things from running as smoothly as it should. We would love to see an easier ERP integration for costing, style and color assignment, but the only option currently available in that regard would require a complete backend buildout by a 3rd party IT company or if you had someone on staff to easily write code for that feature.

Reasons for choosing Backbone

Price and a very rapid implementation timeline. We were up and running within a month of signing the contract!

Vendor Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to leave us a review and provide our team feedback on your experience with Backbone! We greatly appreciate it. As much of our team comes from design and development backgrounds, we're so glad you've found Backbone easy and intuitive to use--it's a huge part of our core mission! We're sorry to hear some parts of the platform have not met your expectations. Like many companies, we experienced setbacks in 2020 related to the pandemic. In 2021 our engineering team has made significant progress in releasing over 300 performance improvements. We have a number of exciting updates planned for the rest of this year and into 2022 based on client requests that will enhance the functionality of our platform in ways that should address your frustrations. Please continue to contact your CSM to review any specific workflow stops or bugs, we greatly appreciate your patience with us as we continue to grow the company and platform!

Replied October 2021

Evi R.

Verified reviewer

Apparel & Fashion

2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed September 2021

Backbone - The Future of PLM Management

My experience is nothing but amazing! I am a core user and believe Backbone is the future of PLM!

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I like how easy it is to manage my projects. I have worked in other platforms and i have found that Backbone is the easiest most efficient program. I have saved so much more time!

Cons:

I wish some of the features from 1.0 were moved forward for 2.0: 1. Utilization tool that you could download as a pdf based on your program and filters was super helpful. 2. Selecting color in summary and then in each component is a nightmare! Sometimes I working with 4-5 different colorways and not being able to select multiple colors at once can be frusrating. 3. Managing Labdips on a component level would be nice. Right now I just have a google doc. Keeping in one place would save time. 4. Comments tool box size in Feedback and revisions - way too small for me to type all the information in. Also having an auto save would be amazing!

Reasons for switching to Backbone

As a design firm - we felt it was important to manage our brands on a better level and help the efficiency of my product management. Centric - I still work in it for another brand and i want to cry sometimes. So thank you!

Vendor Response

Thank you for taking the time to leave Backbone a review! We're so pleased to hear as a long-time client, that you've had such a positive experience on our platform. We very much value the feedback you've provided as it helps us further enhance the platform to meet your and other client needs. We will pass on your specific comments regarding Backbone functionality to our product and engineering teams as they continue to work on new features and release enhancements.

Replied October 2021

Eden S.

Verified reviewer

Apparel & Fashion

11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed September 2021

Great for small teams.

This has been huge for our business to get us out of spreadsheets and old PDF's, and into an organized system for our products. It's made tech pack creation and updates super efficient, and enabled accurate COGS tracking. The program is intuitive to use and dynamic, unlike many larger, more archaic PLMs. We feel able to scale for some time with Backbone, even as we expand into new product categories.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

We did implementation in record time and it's very intuitive to use, which makes onboarding interns and new hires super simple and low touch (very valuable for a small rapidly growing team). We've also felt very heard on development/new feature requests, and that the platform continues to grow in value as it develops.

Cons:

We initially sourced it for inventory/purchase order integration and two years later, this feature still hasn't been implemented. We were also interested in Shopify integration with inventory. The software is also often glitchy when searching products, uploading files, and making changes to BOM's.

Reasons for choosing Backbone

Backbone was the only design-focused PLM we encountered, with a size and ease of use that works for a company of our smaller size (but with a large SKU offering and repeat-heavy business).

Vendor Response

Thanks so much for your feedback on Backbone! We appreciate you taking the time to leave us a review. We're delighted to hear Backbone is such an essential part of your company's design and development workflow. Being an intuitive, easy to learn and use platform is extremely important to us, and we're so glad that's been your experience so far. We look forward to growing with you! We have a number of exciting updates planned for the rest of this year and into 2022 based on client requests that will enhance the functionality of our platform in ways that should address your frustrations.

Replied October 2021

John W.

Verified reviewer

Sporting Goods

11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed October 2021

A great solution for teams working on garment product management

Simply put, Backbone allows our product team that is located on different sides of the country to work collaboratively on garments in a really meaningful way, and ultimately produce a tech pack that looks really tight. Its one of those pieces of software that make the cut to become an essential tool to running your business.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Backbone seems to be unique in that it really focuses on tech packs, and all of the parts of the tech pack (materials, suppliers, colors, etc). Other garment PLM solutions tend to include much bigger and in my opinion, sprawling solutions that include purchasing, inventory management, inter-factory communications and a bunch of other services that we already take care quite well on our own. As a result, Backbone delivers on exactly what we need, at a more reasonable price.

Cons:

There are some parts of Backbone that still feel like they are in development. But to their credit, the product is regularly updating with solid improvements, and they are very, very receptive to input. I think also it's important for a new user to understand that Backbone has to work for a bunch of different kinds of products and companies, so some flexibility is required.

Reasons for choosing Backbone

I didn't need all of the services or the very lengthy onboarding and training required by these other products.

athena G.

Verified reviewer

Apparel & Fashion

11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed September 2021

Elope review

I’ve had a very good experience with backbone everyone helps when you have an issue and I feel like it fits well for my organization

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I like the custom ability with a custom field. Anytime you have a problem you can generally solve it by adding a custom Field.

Cons:

It can go a little bit slow especially when you have large files you’re trying to upload or you were trying to get a lot of information on a product in an item master. I also wish that it had notifications and actual project management so that every thing could be managed right with her backbone

Reasons for choosing Backbone

It integrated with NetSuite and was also the best value for the price

Reasons for switching to Backbone

We were constantly having issues with errors it was also incredibly hard to use it would take 17 clicks just to drop a product

Vendor Response

Thanks so much for your feedback on Backbone! We appreciate you taking the time to leave us a review. We're so happy to hear your experience has been positive so far, and we hope to enhance the parts of the system you love to make them even more beneficial to you and all of our clients. We're also excited to hear how much value custom field creation and management has given you and your team! Being a customizable solution that's easy to use is at the core of our mission as a company. We have a number of exciting updates planned for the rest of this year and into 2022 based on client requests that will enhance the functionality of our platform in ways that should address your frustrations. We appreciate your patience with us as we continue to grow the company and platform!

Replied October 2021

Jennifer M.

Verified reviewer

Apparel & Fashion

11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed September 2021

Apparel PLM System

The Backbone team is great to work with and super quick to respond.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Ease of use / navigation. Easy to learn the system.

Cons:

Sometimes the system can be a little glitchy. Tech packs cold be laid out a little better so they are easier to read.

Reasons for switching to Backbone

Wanted a better system that more easily/clearly stored information

Rebecca W.

Verified reviewer

Apparel & Fashion

51-200 employees

Used daily for less than 6 months

Review source

Reviewed September 2021

Backbone review

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Searching for a product is fairly easy. Customer support is quick, even though I don't always get the answers I'm looking for. They are very courteous and try very hard to support their users. I appreciate that. I do like in the spec sheet being able to see the grade rule along with actual measurement. Makes setting up a graded spec easy.

Cons:

- There is no log. There is no way to see a previous spec sheet or previous BOM if someone else makes updates or if someone makes a mistake. - There is no notes section. Backbone only gives a bad workaround asking us to use the fit and revision section for TP notes. - Compare samples section is non-functional and difficult to view/comprehend. Vendors do not find it useful. - Many bugs that we are often asking Backbone to fix. - Work flow is very, very slow. Uploading pictures seams easy, but deleting out old pictures is time consuming. - File section is very unorganized and difficult to view all saved files.

Reasons for choosing Backbone

I was not involved in the choice to purchase Backbone.

Vendor Response

Thank you for taking the time to leave Backbone a review! We very much value the feedback you've provided as it helps us further enhance the platform to meet your and other client needs. We're happy to hear you've had such a positive experience with our Client Success Team, and we hope we can continue to provide exceptional support to both you and your team. Like many companies, we experienced setbacks in 2020 related to the pandemic. In 2021, our engineering team has made significant progress in releasing over 300 performance improvements. We have a number of exciting updates planned for the rest of this year and into 2022 based on client requests that will enhance the functionality of our platform in ways that should address your frustrations. Please continue to contact your CSM to review any specific workflow stops or bugs, we greatly appreciate your patience with us as we continue to grow the company and platform!

Replied October 2021

Verified

Reviewer

Apparel & Fashion

201-500 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed September 2021

Backbone doesn't disappoint!

Exceptional!

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The product is very user friendly and Backbone's customer service is extremely responsive.

Cons:

There are still bugs that pop up but the team at Backbone is quick to work through them. There were also some features that were discussed as we were implementing this system that have still not come to fruition (app, images in component level)

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