Katana pricing: budgeting a manufacturing workflow

Your month ends above the order allowance in an existing software agreement, and the spreadsheet you used to budget the subscription no longer matches the bill. When reviewing Katana pricing, first check which contract that spreadsheet describes. An old Core estimate and a new purchase need different evidence.

As checked October 20, 2026, Katana’s pricing page presents Free and a custom-priced annual Advantage contract. It does not publish a current per-user paid rate. Use Free to evaluate a small catalog, request a scoped quote for a larger manufacturing operation, and keep a working existing setup while you compare its renewal terms. This assessment uses official documentation, not a hands-on product trial.

Separate the current offer from an older Core budget

Katana’s current page includes unlimited users in Advantage and says the agreed scope sits under one annual contract. It directs existing Standard, Professional, Professional Plus, and Core customers to their customer success manager about changes. Therefore, do not multiply an older starting price by twelve and present it as a new customer’s annual cost.

Keep the signed agreement beside your usage report if you already subscribe. Ask which order event is billable, which period it belongs to, and whether a renewal changes the calculation. For a new quote, ask what triggers a price review when volume or scope changes. These are contract questions; the absence of a published overage table does not establish that every future change is included.

The buying criteria are the manufacturing workflow, catalog size, required integrations, implementation work, and support responsibility. Decide those before comparing proposals. Five logins tell a vendor little about whether you need a basic assembly record or a production process with materials, operations, and partial completions.

Specify five users, twelve months, and the actual workload

Use this hypothetical scope for every proposal: five users, 500 product and material variants, one warehouse, 300 delivered sales orders per month, and production batches that can finish in parts. That is 3,600 delivered sales orders across twelve months at steady volume. Include a month with 450 deliveries in the discussion so the seller must explain seasonal treatment.

The paid twelve-month total remains unknown until quoted. Request the currency, taxes, payment schedule, renewal terms, and any third-party charges as separate fields. If the proposal includes setup in the annual amount, do not add it again. If a required integration depends on another subscription, record that separate cost beside the named supplier.

For an alternative proposal, reuse the same catalog and order assumptions. The Cin7 pricing assessment covers another inventory software budget, but a comparison is useful only after both vendors price the workflow you need. A cheaper starting tier that omits production requirements is not a complete competing quote.

Count materials when preparing a free evaluation

Katana’s Free plan documentation says SKU counting includes product and material variants, including archived items. A small finished-goods list can therefore exceed the limit once ingredients enter the catalog. Pick a sample that includes the materials and variants needed for a complete production test instead of importing finished goods alone.

Use the sample to decide whether the workflow fits, then price the full deployment. Avoid deleting records from a live operation just to make an evaluation catalog smaller. A sample should preserve the relationships that matter: which materials feed a product, which order needs the finished units, and who records completion.

Test a partial completion before accepting the proposal

Suppose a hypothetical batch calls for 100 finished units. Each unit uses two pieces of a component, and 40 units are ready before the remaining 60. Set up that bill of materials, a manufacturing order, and a customer order in the demonstration. Ask the seller to show the stock position after the first completion and before anything ships.

Katana’s partial manufacturing order documentation says partial completion adds the finished quantity to inventory and reduces expected production. Ingredient consumption at that stage uses planned quantities; actual ingredient quantities apply when the order is fully completed. For this example, the planned component use associated with 40 units is 80 pieces. That arithmetic is a test expectation, not an observed result.

Then finish the batch and enter the actual material use for the whole order. Inspect the final costs and the earlier production entries. Katana documents that total production cost is calculated after full completion. If your manager needs an interim cost report, ask the demonstrator to identify which values are provisional and how the final report replaces them.

If operators will report from the floor, repeat the input there. The Shop Floor App instructions describe recording a partial quantity from the last operation’s task and assigning serial numbers when required. Confirm that the quoted setup includes the operator workflow you demonstrated, including the devices and access your team will use.

Record the expected output before the demo: finished stock available after the partial completion, remaining work visible, and a final materials total traceable to the batch. For requirements that extend into detailed production execution, the MES system assessment helps separate those needs from an inventory purchase.

Agree what an order count means

Production and delivery are separate events. Katana’s Sell screen documentation distinguishes production progress from delivery status and says sales orders remain open until marked Delivered. A production batch count should not become a sales order count in your budget without a declared mapping.

Create an example with one sales order, several lines, and a split shipment. Ask which event your agreement counts, and show the IDs and dates used to calculate it. Include a canceled order and a return in the review. Do not infer their billing treatment from the way they appear in an operational dashboard.

Reconcile the opening stock and unfinished work

Agree which item identifiers, material relationships, opening quantities, and open orders will move. Import one partially completed batch before the full catalog, then reconcile finished stock, remaining production, and component consumption. Keep source references for historical records that remain in an archive, reconnect integrations under their owners, and repeat the warehouse and operator permission checks before cutover.

Where Permute fits: reusable inventory definitions

Permute is the connected business data and custom application software we sell. When your inventory export, order spreadsheet, and management report use different meanings of “completed,” we can help encode a declared definition and preserve the source records behind it. We also help reconcile item and order identifiers so a renamed component does not become a second record in a report.

Your operations team owns the definition, including which date and exceptions apply. We can build a repeatable view that shows its inputs, freshness, and unresolved differences to permitted users. The manager can investigate a changed count without reconstructing the spreadsheet formulas each month.

Production decisions remain in the operating workflow

We do not replace the operator’s completion record or choose your inventory accounting policy. Access to Katana data requires verification of the supported export or connection; this article promises no native Katana integration or write-back. The ERP inventory management assessment addresses the wider system-of-record decision.

Buy against a demonstrated scope

A useful Katana budget names the catalog, workload, and production behavior being purchased. Request the annual amount after the partial-completion test and integration scope are agreed. Keep any existing agreement’s usage rules separate from a new proposal. That gives you a defensible cost comparison when order volume changes.

Questions about budgeting for Katana