Katana Pricing Explained: What $299/mo Actually Covers (2026)

Katana publishes its pricing, which is more than most manufacturing software does. It is also a usage-based structure, so the published number and the number on your invoice are different questions. This is a read of what is actually on the page as of July 2026, with the arithmetic done.

Fair warning about the source: we sell inventory software, and Katana is a competitor. So everything below is what Katana states on its own pricing page, and where the news is good for them, it says so.

What $299 genuinely includes#

The Core plan starts at $299/month and Katana's own description of it is unusually generous on the things software companies normally charge for:

• Unlimited users. No seats, no per-user fee, no minimum. Katana's page says it plainly: "From a free start to Core Plan with no per-user fees," and the comparison table lists Users as Unlimited across every tier. Their pricing calculator has no user input at all.
• Unlimited SKUs and unlimited integrations.
• Demand planning and forecasting. This one matters, because it is commonly reported as a paid extra. It is not. It sits in the Core column with no price attached, described as "advanced demand planning and forecasting, replenishment planning and inventory control."
• One inventory location.

If you are a single-location shop with modest order volume and no need for the add-ons, $299/mo flat with unlimited users is a straightforwardly good deal, and it is cheaper than a lot of what it competes with. Say that part out loud before the rest.

Where the total moves#

The $299 is a floor. Three things stack on top.

Sales-order volume. Katana bills "based on the number of sales orders delivered, with a lower per-unit cost as you deliver more." No included allowance is stated. Running their own calculator: 300 delivered orders lands around $345/mo, 1,000 orders around $424, 5,000 around $670, and 15,000 around $936. Above roughly 15,000 orders it moves to custom pricing.

Locations past the first. "You are charged for each additional location required beyond the 1 included in Core." The second location runs about $49/mo, three extra about $111/mo, ten extra about $230/mo. A two-site shop is therefore closer to $348 than $299 before anything else.

Add-ons. Four, priced separately:

Two notes on that table. The Shop Floor App requires Manufacturing Management, so shop-floor control is $398/mo, not $199. And all four together add $796/mo, which puts a fully loaded Core plan near $1,095/mo before a single order or extra location is counted.

The two details worth knowing before you sign#

Annual billing costs more, not less. This inverts the usual rule and it is stated openly: "Annual billing allows you to lock in a predictable price for the year. This includes a small premium because Katana absorbs the risk of usage fluctuations." Their calculator applies roughly a 15% uplift to the usage component. You are buying predictability, not a discount. That is a defensible thing to sell, but it is the opposite of what most buyers assume when they click the annual toggle.

Growth triggers a renegotiation. "If your usage exceeds your estimate by more than 20%, we'll work with you to renegotiate your plan." If you are budgeting a year out and expecting to grow, the annual lock is softer than it looks.

Also worth flagging: onboarding is listed at $2,000 (optional) on Core, and it is genuinely marked optional, which is better than vendors who require it and refuse to price it. And there is no self-serve checkout on Core. The buttons say "Talk to sales" and "Get a demo," so the published $299 is a floor you negotiate up from, not a price you pay at a checkout page.

The free plan is real but small: 30 SKUs, with a 15-day unlimited grace period, and for ecommerce "only Shopify is available at the moment."

Working out your actual number#

Do this in four steps rather than reading the headline:

1. Start at $299.
2. Add your delivered sales orders per month through their calculator.
3. Add roughly $49 for a second location, more for each beyond.
4. Add the add-ons your workflow actually requires, remembering shop floor drags manufacturing management with it.

A single-location shop doing 100 orders a month with no add-ons is close to the sticker. A three-location shop doing 1,500 orders that needs barcode scanning and routings is in four figures.

Who Katana is genuinely right for#

Katana is a real manufacturing platform. If you need multi-level nested BOM, production scheduling, routings, or shop-floor control, it is built for that and we are not. A shop running repeatable production at volume, with operators reporting progress against routings, is a Katana shop. Buy it.

Where the structure works against you is when your order volume is high but your manufacturing is simple. You end up paying volume-based pricing on a manufacturing platform for what is essentially purchasing and stock control.

Where InventoryQuick sits#

We are the flat-rate option for job-shop and custom-build work. InventoryQuick Enterprise is $349/mo with unlimited users, locations, and items, and no usage fees, no per-location charges, and no add-ons to unlock. It covers work orders, cutlist import, committed demand against parts, and single-level BOM through the parts catalog.

Being straight about the comparison, since the whole point of this post is the arithmetic:

• At base, Katana is cheaper. $299 against our $349. If you are one location, low volume, and need nothing else, they win on price and we would rather you knew that from us.
• We get cheaper as you stack. A second location, a few hundred orders a month, or any one add-on puts Katana past $349, and the gap widens from there because our number does not move.
• We do less. No multi-level nested BOM, no production scheduling, no routings, no shop-floor terminals, no batch or serial traceability. If those are requirements, Katana is the correct purchase and this comparison is not close.

The honest summary is that these are different shapes of product at a similar starting price. Katana is a manufacturing platform that bills by how much you run through it. We are a flat-priced inventory and light-MRP tool for shops whose jobs are custom, whose BOMs are single-level, and who want the bill to be the same every month.

*Pricing verified against katanamrp.com/pricing on July 21, 2026. Katana's structure changes; check their page before deciding.*