Once I understood that it takes time and effort to start using (and then keep using) Craftybase, it became much easier to run my business. I actually let Craftybase run ME. The customer service is top-notch (although I do wish they didn't run on UK time) and I'd be lost without it.

I love this software because the developers understand how a small manufacturing business works. They don't load you down with confusing features - just what you need when you need it. It has helped me get completely organized with raw materials, track all production, determine pricing and just basically keep everything straight. If you're a maker and you're not using it, you need to be.

I sometimes feel the software tries to be all things to all people. I really don't see why the accounting aspects are necessary and feel they are sometimes lacking.

Helps me organize my hundreds and hundreds of styles/types/colors of materials. Integrates nicely with multiple sales platforms.

The power in this is amazing! I can search through all my materials by color or fiber content or size or date purchased, etc. It's a lifesaver for me to be able to see my materials with photos and all the data I need. The recipes/manufactures and the way it calculates COGS is super powerful. I can start typing the name of the material and enter the amount — and it calculates the actual cost of materials used based on date of manufacture. Very helpful for makers who have some supply left of an old lower price and new supply purchased at a higher price. Craftybase will average the cost to figure out what your current COGS is.

Being a cloud software, it requires a subscription, which is a bit pricey. And there have been periods of downtime (though they communicate well about outages in the Facebook group). It takes a while to set everything up, and there is a bit of a learning curve.

None, I was hoping to use it as an essential took to keeping out business in check. I don't know how but if you look at programs like Shopify - they offer such great support and for the same price. I believe you could offer better support if you could grow your business but how fast is the business growing if you have people like me just giving up.

I loved the fact that it had all the categories I needed to keep up with production and material use.

What I didn't like is the 24 to 48 hours to get a response and the fact that the data base goes down. I have a small team. Having to wait 24 to 48 hours to sort something out isn't feasible. We kept just going manual and I finally decided the time required to keep it up to date just wasn't worth it if we kept having stumbling blocks.

Overall it has been great, just some technical difficulties that aren't intuitive to fix.

Craftybase allows me to track manufactures, material inventory, and product inventory, and finding the true value of each. It also makes pricing suggestions for products and see how much I make each order.

The components and auto-manufacturing feature is a bit tricky to setup. I also have some products that I sell individually AND as a set where it must be a component, but the inventory is always off since I manufacture them as one and sell them the same way. It's a major hassle trying to correct.