Head to head
Two well-regarded cloud MRP systems, aimed at slightly different factories. The honest short answer: Katana bills flat and MRPeasy bills per seat, and for most small manufacturers that single structural difference decides it before you reach the feature list.
Pricing and feature figures checked 28 August 2026 against both vendors' own pricing pages, and linked throughout so you can verify them.
Katana Cloud Inventory (still widely searched as Katana MRP) is a visual inventory and production-planning platform. Its signature feature is a drag-and-drop production scheduler, and it prices flat per plan with unlimited users. Modules like traceability and warehouse management are sold as add-ons.
MRPeasy is a full cloud MRP that reaches past production into procurement, CRM, quality control and reporting. It bills per user per month, and gates its deeper functions behind higher tiers rather than selling them as separate modules.
Both list a headline number that moves once you add real-world requirements. The direction it moves is different, and that's the useful part.
| Katana | MRPeasy | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Flat per plan, unlimited users | Per user, per month |
| Entry tier | Free — $0, capped at 30 SKUs, Shopify-only ecommerce | Starter — $49 per user |
| Main paid tier | Core — from $299, sales orders billed by usage | Professional $69, Enterprise $99, Unlimited $149 — all per user |
| Top tier | Advantage — custom, annual contract | Unlimited — minimum 2 users |
| Bulk seats | Not applicable — users don't cost extra | $79 per 10 users from the 11th onward |
| Add-on modules | Traceability, warehouse, manufacturing management, shop floor — published examples $149–$249 each | None — capability is gated by tier instead |
| Implementation fee | $2,000 package, optional (included on Advantage) | No mandatory fee; optional paid training |
| Inventory locations | 1 on Core; extra billed separately | Multiple supported |
| Try before you buy | Free plan, not time-limited | 15 days, extendable to 30, no card |
Figures per katanamrp.com/pricing and mrpeasy.com/pricing, checked 28 August 2026. Katana revised its pricing model in early 2026; verify both before deciding.
The two cost curves cross, and where they cross is about team size. A single operator will almost always pay less on MRPeasy — one Starter seat against Katana's $299 floor isn't a close contest. A team of six or eight will usually pay less on Katana, because those seats are free there and cost several hundred a month on MRPeasy.
Then two things bend the curve back. Katana's add-ons are the bigger trap for small manufacturers: if you need batch traceability because you make food or cosmetics, you're adding a module to a $299 plan, not choosing a tier. And Katana's usage-based order billing means a strong season costs more than a quiet one, which is the line you can't forecast.
Both cover the MRP core. They diverge on what surrounds it — Katana pushes deeper into the production floor, MRPeasy pushes wider into the back office.
| Katana | MRPeasy | |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-level bills of materials | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Manufacturing orders | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Visual production scheduler | ✔️ The signature feature | Planning via routing & work centres, less visual |
| Work centres & operation routing | ✔️ | ✔️ Deeper, with capacity planning |
| Batch & lot traceability | Paid add-on module | ✔️ Included, tier-dependent |
| Quality control & serial numbers | Via add-on modules | ✔️ On higher tiers |
| Procurement & supplier management | ✔️ Purchase orders | ✔️ Full procurement module |
| CRM | Integrations only | ✔️ Built in |
| Ecommerce integrations | ✔️ Native, broad on Core | Mostly via API or middleware |
| Shop-floor app | ✔️ Add-on | ✔️ Internet-based shop floor control |
| API access | ✔️ All plans, including free | Top Unlimited tier |
Feature availability shifts between tiers on both platforms — check the vendor pages linked above for what a specific plan includes today.
Four clear cases where the answer isn't close.
The visual scheduler is genuinely the best thing either product does, and unlimited users means a six-person operation isn't penalised for having six people. If sequencing work is your daily problem, this is the buy.
Per-seat pricing is a bargain when you have one seat. For a solo or two-person operation that needs routing, capacity planning, QC and procurement in one system, MRPeasy delivers far more capability per dollar than Katana's $299 floor.
On Katana, batch and lot traceability is a paid module on top of Core. On MRPeasy it's part of the tier. For regulated batch production — food, cosmetics, supplements — that difference is structural rather than a line item.
This is the case worth saying out loud, because it's common and both products will happily sell to you anyway. If you make things in batches from recipes, sell across several channels, and the question keeping you up is what does a unit actually cost me — you're looking at MRP systems to solve a costing and inventory problem. Both will do it, and you'll pay for a scheduling engine and a routing model you never configure.
Full disclosure
Stocksmith isn't an MRP and we're not going to pretend otherwise on a page you came to for a neutral comparison. There's no production scheduler, no work centres, no capacity planning and no demand forecasting. If you need any of those, one of the two products above is your answer and you should stop reading here.
What Stocksmith does is the other half: multi-level bills of materials, batch production with automatic material deduction, material-level inventory, batch and lot traceability including expiry dates, automatic tax-ready COGS, and native sync with Shopify, Etsy, Amazon, Faire, WooCommerce and Square — flat per plan, unlimited users on Studio and above, traceability in the plan rather than as an add-on.
The reason we've put this at the bottom rather than the top: for a manufacturer with a shop floor, it's the wrong tool. For a small-batch manufacturer who came here because both MRPs looked oversized and overpriced, it's usually the thing they were actually looking for.
Three differences decide most comparisons. Pricing structure: Katana is flat per plan with unlimited users; MRPeasy charges per user per month. Where the depth is: Katana goes deeper into visual production scheduling and native ecommerce; MRPeasy goes wider into procurement, CRM and quality control. How extras are sold: Katana sells traceability and warehouse management as paid add-on modules, while MRPeasy gates the equivalent behind higher tiers.
It depends on headcount, and the curves cross. MRPeasy's Starter tier is $49 per user per month, so one or two people costs well under Katana's Core plan, which starts at $299 per month. Past roughly five or six users, Katana's unlimited-user model usually wins. Two things push Katana's real cost up: add-on modules for traceability and warehouse management (published examples $149–$249 each) and usage-based sales-order billing. Figures checked 28 August 2026 on both vendors' pricing pages.
On price-for-capability, MRPeasy — traceability is part of its tiers, while on Katana it's a separate paid add-on on top of Core. MRPeasy also goes further into serial-number tracking and formal quality control, which matters for discrete manufacturing. If you're comparing because you make a regulated batch product, note that this is one of the few places where the cheaper-looking option is also the more complete one.
No. A lot of comparison content says it does, and that's not accurate. Katana offers an optional $2,000 implementation package on its Free and Core plans, bundled into the top Advantage tier — you can subscribe to Core without it. MRPeasy has no mandatory setup fee either, and offers optional paid training. Neither product gates you behind a compulsory implementation charge.
Yes, and they let you do it differently. MRPeasy gives 15 days free, extendable by a further 15, with no credit card — a sensible length for a system you have to configure. Katana has no time-limited trial of Core but does offer a permanently free plan, capped at 30 SKUs with Shopify-only ecommerce, so you can live in the product indefinitely at small scale. Test with your own materials and a real bill of materials in both, not with sample data.
Katana is the stronger of the two here — native ecommerce integrations, with a broad range available on Core. Its free plan is limited to Shopify, so multi-channel means paying for Core. MRPeasy is built around a manufacturer shipping to trade customers, so consumer marketplace sync typically runs through its API or third-party middleware. If multi-channel consumer selling is central to your business rather than incidental, weigh that heavily — it's the area where a purpose-built inventory system may serve you better than either MRP.
More on either product, or on the alternatives to both.
Katana is a trademark of Katana Technologies OÜ. MRPeasy is a trademark of MRPeasy OÜ. Stocksmith is not affiliated with or endorsed by either.