Katana MRP pricing: what Core, the add-ons and order fees really cost a manufacturer

The word to notice on Core is "from". The 299 USD is the platform fee. What you pay on top depends on the add-ons you switch on, how many inventory locations you run, and how many sales orders you deliver. These are Katana's published figures as this was written; check its pricing page before you budget, because the model has changed more than once.

Manufacturing Management is the one that matters for a manufacturer. Without it you can still build products from bills of materials, but routings and operation steps (the sequence of work a job follows across your machines) sit behind the add-on. Most plants shopping for production software end up paying for it.

Katana bills sales orders on Core by delivered volume, with the rate per order falling as volume rises. It does not publish the rate table, so you only see your number in a quote. Two things follow from that.

First, you cannot work out your annual bill from the pricing page alone. You need your own order count, and for a seasonal business, your order count by month. Second, the bill rises in exactly the months you are busiest. Ask for the per order rate at your current volume and at double it, so you know what a good year costs.

Extra inventory locations are billed the same way, per location with volume discounts, and also are not listed. A plant with a second warehouse or a 3PL should include that in the quote request.

Annual billing is the other surprise. Katana's own FAQ says an annual contract locks the price for the year and "includes a small premium" because Katana absorbs the risk of usage swings. Most SaaS gives a discount for paying yearly. Here yearly buys predictability, not savings.

The platform fee and add-ons are fixed, so they can be added up exactly. Usage fees cannot, so the totals below are the floor before sales order and extra location charges.

Add 2,000 USD in year one if you take Katana's optional onboarding program, which it pitches as a six week implementation with a dedicated manager. For a mid size plant that is a first year of well over 12,000 USD before a single order fee.

Is that expensive? For a product brand selling through Shopify and Amazon, where Katana replaces a spreadsheet, a separate inventory app and manual order entry, 500 to 900 USD a month is a reasonable price. It gets harder to justify when the thing you actually needed was a machine schedule.

Search for Katana pricing and you will find tiers called Starter, Standard, Professional and Professional Plus, quoted at figures like 179 USD a month for Starter. That was Katana's earlier price list, sold as fixed tiers. Katana has since moved to the Free, Core and Advantage structure with add-ons and usage billing, and many review and directory sites have not updated.

If a quote or an internal budget was built on the old tiers, redo it. The old Starter included a set bundle of features for a flat fee. The current Core is a lower entry point for pure inventory users and a higher one for manufacturers who need routings, because Manufacturing Management is now a separate line.

Yes. Katana's Free plan has no time limit but caps you at 30 SKUs, with unlimited SKUs for the first 15 days so you can load a full catalog. All add-ons can be tried on it. It is a genuine way to test Katana on your own products. Very few manufacturers can run on 30 SKUs once raw materials count toward the limit, so plan on Core for production use.

Katana and ProductionPlanning.ai share one thing: neither charges per user, so the operators, shift leads and office can all log in. The difference is what moves the bill.

We are not an inventory system, so this is only a fair comparison if the schedule is what you are buying. If it is, our Plant plan at 429 USD a month covers unlimited work centers, shop floor status and changeovers, and the number does not move with your order book. The full side by side, including where Katana is the better pick, is on our Katana MRP alternative page.

Katana is also rarely the only subscription a growing manufacturer is paying for. If software spend has crept across a dozen tools, it helps to track every SaaS subscription in one place before adding the next one.

Katana's Core plan starts at 299 USD a month. A manufacturer that needs routings adds Manufacturing Management at 199 USD, bringing the floor to 498 USD a month before usage fees. Adding Traceability takes it to 747 USD. Sales order fees and extra inventory locations are billed by usage on top.

No. Every Katana plan includes unlimited users, which is one of its real strengths against per seat systems such as MRPeasy, where a six person plant pays 294 to 594 USD a month on seats alone. See our MRPeasy pricing breakdown for that arithmetic.

For an online product brand that needs stock synced across Shopify, Amazon and QuickBooks Online, usually yes: it replaces several tools and manual work. For a job shop or contract manufacturer whose late orders come from overloaded machines rather than missing stock, much of the spend goes on inventory features that do not fix the schedule.

No. Katana's FAQ states that annual billing includes a small premium over monthly, because Katana takes on the risk of usage changing during the year. You pay a little more in exchange for a fixed, predictable price for twelve months.

Onboarding is an optional 2,000 USD on the Core plan and is included on Advantage. It covers a dedicated onboarding manager, workflow mapping and integration setup, with Katana targeting implementation within six weeks.