6 Top-Rated Affordable Manufacturing Software
As the owner of a manufacturing business, managing inventory, production schedules, and quality control while keeping costs in check is important for your business’s success. A dedicated manufacturing tool can be a game-changer, helping you automate operations, optimize production schedules, manage resources, and manage relationships with suppliers. If you’re new to the software, think about trying an affordable tool first that will not only simplify operations but also help you gain a competitive edge without a hefty price tag.
This article lists six top-rated affordable manufacturing software solutions based on verified user reviews and pricing found on vendor websites. Per our research, we’ve considered products with base plans priced less than $228.67 per month as affordable software and arranged them in ascending order of their prices.
The products listed in the article are grouped into two categories—dedicated manufacturing systems and other solutions (enterprise resource planning, business management, and inventory management software) with manufacturing capabilities. Nonetheless, common features across all products include inventory and order management.
What is a base software plan?
A base plan is the most affordable pricing tier offered by a software provider. Besides having the lowest price, base plans provide access to all core software features. However, they may have limitations compared to higher-tier plans in terms of the available functionality, storage capacity, number of user seats, support options, etc.
We selected products for this article based on their average ratings between August 2022 - August 2024, which may differ from their current overall average ratings.
1. Odoo
Odoo is an online enterprise resource planning (ERP) system with a manufacturing module that facilitates real-time capacity planning, inventory management, and quality control. The software allows you to assign barcodes to individual products and components, and track inventory movement using those barcodes. You can leverage the barcode capabilities of the tool to apply inventory adjustments, process receipts/deliveries, and process internal transfers for all types of products.
Odoo’s base plan offers all online apps, such as manufacturing, inventory, and accounting for a single fee. Upgrading to the premium plan gives you access to on-premise tools and Odoo Studio, which allows you to customize the platform without any coding knowledge.
Base plan features:*
Multi-level bills of material (BoM): Define the hierarchical structure of components and sub-assemblies required to produce a finished product using multi-level BoM in Odoo. This feature helps you accurately represent how a product is built—from raw materials to finished goods.
Quality alerts: Notify quality teams of product defects and other issues by creating quality alerts in the app. These alerts are by default displayed in a Kanban board view, which organizes them into different stages based on where they are in the review process.
Cost analysis: Understand the amount of each manufacturing order based on the components and operational costs, including labor and overhead charges. This feature helps you track the overall cost of production and make informed pricing decisions.
Starting price: $24.90 per user, per month
Cost to upgrade: $37.40 per user, per month
Billing cycle: Annual
Customer support options: Chat, helpdesk, and phone
Who should consider Odoo?
Odoo can be a viable choice for manufacturing businesses with frequent stock movements and complex product structures. The software offers barcode scanning capabilities that helps businesses with real-time inventory visibility and tracking. Additionally, it comes with a multi-level BoM feature that helps industries, such as electronics and automotives, that have intricate product assemblies, make multi-level BoMs for accurate planning and tracking. Businesses can use this to break down the product into components to determine the cost of each part and the overall product cost.
2. Striven
Striven is a business management platform with online web portals that allow vendors and customers to manage their own information, including contact details, order history, and payment methods. Your customers can use the online customer portal to submit work order tasks, check their order history, and pay for invoices online. On the other hand, the vendor portal allows you to send purchase order requests to multiple vendors, submit bills, assign tasks to vendors, and communicate with vendors.
In its base plan, Striven allows you to track up to 100,000 inventory items and manage up to 1,000 inventory locations. Upgrading to a premium version helps you track up to 500,000 inventory items and manage unlimited locations.
Base plan features:*
Invoicing: Generate detailed invoices based on real-time sales data and use customizable templates to add logo, brand colors, and more based on your requirements. You can also set the invoice as recurring for daily, weekly, or monthly payments.
Customizable dashboards: Obtain a real-time overview of critical production metrics, including production schedules, inventory levels, and quality control data. The dashboard can be customized with widgets that display the information most important to you.
Production reports: Get detailed insights into manufacturing operations, covering various aspects such as production output, machine utilization, and material consumption. These reports help you make data-driven decisions to improve operational efficiency and profitability.
Starting price: $35 per user, per month
Cost to upgrade: $70 per user, per month
Billing cycle: Monthly
Customer support options: Chat, phone, and online inquiry form
Who should consider Striven?
Manufacturers dealing with a large number of vendors and customers can benefit from Striven. The software, with online web portals in place, simplifies communication, order management, and collaboration between parties. These portals offer a centralized platform where vendors can access purchase orders, submit invoices, and track payments, while customers can place orders, view order statuses, and communicate with manufacturers online. This improves transparency, reduces administrative overhead, and accelerates transaction processes.
Pro tip
Consider a manufacturing platform that offers maintenance management features, such as preventive maintenance scheduling, work order management, and maintenance logs. These features help track equipment maintenance, manage spare parts inventory, and predict equipment failures.
3. ERPAG
ERPAG is an online manufacturing system with a contracting management feature that allows you to handle the outsourcing of specific manufacturing processes. You can leverage the feature to create work orders for external contractors, track material flow, and monitor the progress of the outsourced work. It also comes with a label printing option that allows you to create and print custom labels for your products.
The base plan of ERPAG supports up to five users and offers customer support in the form of tickets, email, and video. However, if you wish to have live support or access to the customization capabilities of the tool, you need to invest in the high-end plan.
Base plan features:*
Bills of material (BoM): Define, organize, and manage the components, assemblies, and sub-assemblies required to produce a finished product. The feature allows you to create detailed BoMs that include quantities, descriptions, and specifications of each part.
Expiry date management: Allows you to track the shelf life of products, ensuring that only fresh and safe items are sold or used. You can assign an expiry date for each product when creating or editing its details. The system sends notifications for products nearing expiration.
Material planning: Optimize your inventory management and production scheduling processes. The feature involves determining the exact quantity and timing of material requirements to meet production demands.
Starting price: $49 per month
Cost to upgrade: $99 per month
Billing cycle: Monthly
Customer support options: Chat, email, and online ticket
Who should consider ERPAG?
ERPAG can be a viable option for manufacturers who rely on external partners for their production process. The software offers contracting management in its base plan, allowing manufacturers to manage contracts with vendors and suppliers. Additionally, it offers bills of material and shop floor reporting features that can help manufacturers manage outsourced components, identify potential bottlenecks that might impact the work of external partners, and measure the performance of external partners.
4. inFlow Inventory
inFlow Inventory is an online inventory management system that automatically converts currencies, making it easier for businesses to transact with global clients. If your team uses multiple currencies when selling, the software will pull the latest exchange rates on your sales orders automatically. It can also help you track the impact of exchange rates on costs and profits.
The base plan of inFlow Inventory supports up to two team members and allows you to track up to 1,200 sales orders. Upgrading to their premium versions allows you to accommodate more team members and track up to 12,000 sales orders per year.
Base plan features:*
Multi-level categories: Organize products into different categories, making it easier to manage and locate your inventory. You can create categories and sub-categories to group similar items together.
Barcoding: Simplify inventory management by assigning unique barcodes to each product, allowing for quick and accurate identification and tracking. You can leverage the feature to scan products for receiving, picking, packing, and shipping, reducing the time spent on manual data entry.
Assembly cost tracking: Calculate the total expense incurred in producing a finished product from its individual components. You can define the components required for a product and their quantities, assign costs to each component, and generate reports to analyze product profitability and identify cost-saving opportunities.
Starting price: $89 per month
Cost to upgrade: $219 per month
Billing cycle: Annual
Customer support options: Chat, email, and phone
Who should consider inFlow Inventory?
Global manufacturers operating in multiple countries with different currencies can opt for inFlow Inventory. The software offers multi-currency support that helps users charge their customers in another currency, pay vendors in a different currency, update the exchange rate on an open sales order, and add custom exchange rates for currencies that will be available across inFlow. This feature helps manufacturers accurately manage their finances, track inventory values, and make informed financial decisions.
Pro tip
Select a manufacturing system that integrates with your existing platforms and tools, such as customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), accounting, finance management, supply chain management, project management, and inventory management software. These integrations simplify business operations and enhance the software’s functionality.
5. Megaventory
Megaventory is another inventory management and manufacturing platform with order fulfillment capabilities that help you manage incoming sales orders, allocate inventory based on order quantities, create shipping labels within the system, and more. The software also supports dropshipping operations that allow you to manage sales and purchase orders related to products that are not in stock. You can designate specific sales orders as dropship orders, generate purchase orders to suppliers for dropship products, and monitor the status of both sales and purchase orders related to dropshipping.
The base plan of the software supports up to five users and offers five different integrations. However, it offers all the features for your inventory management and manufacturing needs. You can also create a custom plan in case you have specific needs for your business.
Base plan features:*
Landed cost calculations: Calculate and track landed costs for your products, which is the total cost of a product once it arrives at your warehouse. This may include the purchase price, shipping fees, custom duties, and other related expenses.
Sales quotes: Create detailed proposals for potential customers, outlining products, pricing, as well as terms and conditions. A sales quote can be created by selecting the client and the product. It can then be saved either as a pending draft or as approved.
Reporting: Create custom reports on purchases, sales, production, availability, and inventory. You can save these reports and filter data based on different criteria, such as product category, inventory location, suppliers, and/or the date.
Starting price: $135 per month
Cost to upgrade: Available upon request from the vendor
Billing cycle: Annual
Customer support options: Chat, email, and knowledge base
Who should consider Megaventory?
Manufacturing businesses handling high order volumes can benefit from order fulfillment capabilities in Megaventory. These capabilities can help businesses automate tasks, such as order allocation, picking, and packing to speed up the fulfillment process. Businesses can also leverage the landed cost calculation feature to calculate the total cost of the products, including shipping and taxes, which can help them understand the actual cost of the imported goods and set competitive prices.
6. Katana Cloud Inventory
Katana Cloud Inventory is an inventory management tool with a real-time inventory planner that provides a dynamic view of your inventory levels, allowing you to make informed decisions about production, purchases, and sales. You can leverage the feature to access up-to-date information on product and material availability, including raw materials and goods that are works in progress. Additionally, you can set reorder points to prevent stockouts, manage product variants, and receive restock notifications to maintain optimal stock levels.
In its base plan, Katana Cloud Inventory offers basic manufacturing capabilities. However, as you upgrade to the high-end plan, you get access to the advanced manufacturing capabilities of the tool, along with features such as barcode scanning, multi-currency support, and advanced insights.
Base plan features:*
Sales and purchase order management: Centralize all your sales and issue purchase orders directly from the platform. You can create sales orders, manage their status, monitor purchase order status, and record incoming shipments.
Items management: Manage item information, such as categories, variants, variant codes, and more. You can use this feature to track stock quantities and reorder points that can further help you optimize inventory levels and improve production planning.
Contact management: Manage customer and supplier data, including their contact information, shipping and billing addresses, payment information, and more. This feature helps you centralize all customer and supplier information in one place, saving time and reducing errors in accessing contacts.
Starting price: $179 per month
Cost to upgrade: $359 per month
Billing cycle: Annual
Customer support options: Email, knowledge base, and online inquiry form
Who should consider Katana Cloud Inventory?
Manufacturers seeking better control over their inventory levels can opt for Katana for its inventory management capabilities. With a real-time inventory planner, the software helps manufacturers create production plans tailored to demand and resource availability. Additionally, it offers live inventory management that helps users track inventory in real time, including raw materials, works in progress, and finished goods, and effortlessly manages products with multiple variants.
Pro tip
Shortlist a manufacturing system that offers necessary alerts, including machine malfunction, production delay, quality control, low stock, scheduled maintenance, and supply chain alerts to help manufacturing managers manage their operations efficiently.
Top 4 manufacturing software features users rate as highly critical
All the products listed in this article include the features mentioned below. To identify these, we asked users to rate, on a scale of “low importance” to “critical,” how important different features are for manufacturing software. The features showcased are those that the highest percentage of reviewers rated as “highly important” or “critical” over the past two years (as of August 2, 2024).
Feature name | Criticality rating (%) | Description |
|---|---|---|
Inventory management | 86% | Simplifies the process of tracking and optimizing inventory levels. The feature enables real-time monitoring of stock, automates reordering processes, and provides insights into inventory utilization and future needs. |
Order management | 81% | Helps businesses manage the entire order process—from initial receipt to final delivery. It typically includes functionalities for tracking order status, scheduling production, and coordinating logistics. |
Bills of material | 76% | Provides a comprehensive list of all raw materials, components, and sub-assemblies required to produce a finished product. It details the quantities and specifications of each item, helping businesses maintain accurate cost estimates. |
Reporting and analytics | 75% | Generates detailed reports to monitor product efficiency, analyze cost trends, and assess quality metrics. This feature helps manufacturers identify areas of improvement, optimize overall performance, and make informed manufacturing decisions. |
How much does manufacturing software cost?
Manufacturing software solutions can cost as low as $9.99 per month or up to $1,500+ per month, depending on various factors—features, deployment models, number of users, integrations, and customization options. Most manufacturing solutions typically include the following pricing plans:
Free trials: Ranges from seven to 15 days and gives users access to either all or limited features of the software. These no-cost trial plans are ideal for small manufacturers who wish to try out a tool before purchasing it.
Free versions: Offers perpetual access to limited software features. These free plans are ideal for small manufacturing business owners or small manufacturers on a budget.
Entry-level plans: Starts at $9.99 per month and offers access to standard features. These are suitable for individuals and small businesses with basic feature requirements, such as production scheduling, inventory management, and work order generation.
Mid-tier plans: Ranges from $70 to $999 per month and offers advanced features, such as customer relationship management, supply chain optimization, capacity planning, supplier management, and warehouse management. These are suitable for businesses that have outgrown entry-level solutions but don’t require the full range of functionality offered by enterprise-level tools.
High-end plans: Costs up to $1,500+ per month and offers a range of advanced features, including customizable dashboards, block chain integration, and predictive analytics. These are suitable for a large manufacturing business with extensive manufacturing needs.
Hidden costs associated with manufacturing software
Besides the software license, additional costs can include:
Training and support: Employee training and ongoing support can be costly, especially for complex software solutions, which can add to the original cost of the software.
Data migration: Moving data from your existing system to the new manufacturing tool may require expert assistance and can be expensive, adding to the software implementation cost.
Software updates: Additional costs may be incurred for software updates, bug fixes, or new feature releases, which might add up to the initial cost.
Frequently asked questions when selecting affordable manufacturing software
Here are some questions to ask manufacturing software providers before finalizing a software solution for your manufacturing business:
What are the data security features offered by the tool?
Before finalizing the best software for your business, consider data security features, such as access control, encryption, multi-factor authentication (MFA), audit trails, data masking, and backup and recovery to safeguard data. Several tools also offer data segmentation, endpoint protection, and compliance management capabilities to protect sensitive information and ensure compliance with industry regulations.
Does the software offer a mobile application?
Manufacturing tools with a mobile app allows small-business owners and manufacturing managers to monitor production processes, equipment status, and inventory levels from anywhere, providing greater flexibility and control over operations. Users can receive instant notifications on critical issues, collaborate among team members, and perform tasks, such as quality checks and maintenance management, directly from their mobile devices.
What are the types of reports generated by the software?
While evaluating potential manufacturing tools for a small business, consider the types of reports generated by the software. Typically, the tool offers production, inventory, quality control, maintenance, supply chain, labor, sales, demand, cost, and financial reports. This will all help manufacturers monitor their operations, identify bottlenecks in processes, and make informed decisions to enhance productivity and efficiency.
Methodology
To be considered for this list, products had to:
Feature in Software Advice’s FrontRunners report for manufacturing software.
Include bills of material, inventory management, order management, and production scheduling as core features.
Meet our market definition for manufacturing software: “Manufacturing software helps manufacturers across various industries streamline operations to meet customer demand and improve efficiency. Its common features are production scheduling, order management, and quality control. This type of software often includes inventory tracking tools for stock, parts, equipment, etc.”
For all the 17 products included in the FrontRunners report, we assessed the monthly subscription price of the base plans and found the average price to be $228.67—we considered only products with publicly available pricing information. We then shortlisted products with a monthly base price lower than $228.67 for this article.
*Our research team identified these features from vendor websites (as of August 2, 2024) based on their analysis of what users find valuable in or expect from manufacturing software. This list is not exhaustive. For additional features, refer to the vendor’s website.
Editorial independence: We select and rank products based on an objective methodology developed by our research team. While some vendors may pay us when they receive web traffic or leads, this has no influence on our methodology.
Note: Products evaluated for the pricing calculation were taken from Software Advice’s manufacturing software directory. The pricing ranges exclude freemium versions of the products. The features highlighted were identified based on their relevance and the percentage of products in the Software Advice directory that offer them. Only products with publicly available pricing information, as of August 2, 2024, were considered for the pricing calculation.