Best Bill of Materials Software: 6 Picks for 2027

Pick your BOM system by the job it has to do

For a small contract manufacturer, the first decision is where the bill of materials has to live, not which editor has the longest feature list. If the BOM has to drive work orders, purchasing and stock, a manufacturing system is the more direct answer, which in this set means MRPeasy, Katana, the Advanced Manufacturing tier on Fishbowl, or the Manufacturing app in Odoo. If the BOM mostly needs revision control, approvals and a shared engineering record, OpenBOM or Arena PLM is the closer fit.

A bill of materials (BOM) is the structured list of parts, sub-assemblies, quantities and units needed to build one finished product.

TL;DR: buy for the workflow that costs you the most rework today, then price only the tier that includes it. The cheapest tier can leave BOMs out entirely, so confirm that the plan you quote covers multi-level BOMs, work orders and the export your accounting system needs.

This is an informed buyer's guide built from public vendor pages, vendor developer documentation and two review or trade sources. We did not run trials or demos of any product, and nothing in this article describes a customer result.

Key Takeaways

• Decide first whether your BOM must drive work orders and purchasing, or mainly needs revision control and approvals.

• Read the tier, not the product name: several inventory-only plans exclude BOMs, work orders and MRP entirely.

• Per-seat pricing from OpenBOM, MRPeasy and Odoo means headcount drives cost more than the number of parts in a product.

• Katana's paid tier and Arena PLM both require a quote, so get the module list and seat count in writing before you compare totals.

• Third-party price roundups conflict for several vendors in this set, so treat them as leads and confirm each figure on the vendor's page.

• Route every BOM change through a named human approver before it touches a purchase order.

How we evaluated these tools

We weighted six criteria toward a small contract manufacturer that builds to customer specifications and needs purchasing to act on the BOM. The weights are our judgment, not a vendor or survey figure, and we assign no overall ranking score because we did not run the products.

Our inputs were the vendors' own pricing and feature pages, vendor developer or help documentation, and two review or trade sources. Where a vendor did not publish a figure, we say so rather than estimate one.

What the public pages confirm for each product

Four of the six products show BOM detail on pages we opened. Fishbowl's manufacturing page describes simple, multi-level and staged BOMs, work orders organized under manufacture orders, MRP, and a sync of production costs into QuickBooks and Xero (Fishbowl's manufacturing page). Odoo's paid plans bundle its apps: Standard on Odoo: $31.10 per user per month, billed annually according to Odoo (current page), so the Manufacturing app is paid through that per-user rate rather than a separate line item.

A blank or "not confirmed" cell means the page we opened did not state the feature, not that the product lacks it. Ask for that feature in writing before you commit.

What each plan costs on the published pages

Only vendor pages count in this section. Where a vendor publishes no paid price, the cell says Quote-based, and no figure was estimated from memory or from a third-party listing. Pricing checked October 27, 2026.

Team seat on OpenBOM: $30 per seat monthly according to OpenBOM (2026 model), with the Company seat at $90 on the same annual billing basis and Enterprise available only through sales.

Starter plan on MRPeasy: $49 per user monthly according to MRPeasy (current page), with Professional at $69, Enterprise at $99 and Unlimited at $149 per user, and users from the eleventh onward added in blocks of ten, with each block of ten users costing $79 per month.

Each row below comes from the vendor pricing page or blog post named in its profile.

Worked example, illustrative and not a customer: take a 10-person shop with 4 people who edit BOMs, 3 who use CAD and 6 who only read. On OpenBOM's published model, the 4 editors on Company cost 4 × $90 = $360 a month, the 3 CAD seats add 3 × $25 = $75, and the 6 read-only seats are free, so the total is $435 a month on annual billing; OpenBOM's pricing article uses the same mix as its example. If all 10 people needed seats on the Professional plan on MRPeasy, the cost would be 10 × $69 = $690 a month, but that buys a different kind of tool, so compare scope as well as price. If you want change events to trigger a workflow, OpenBOM's API help lists ITEM_REVISION as a subscription event type, and that page states it stopped being maintained on January 1, 2026, so confirm the current OpenAPI reference before you build against it.

Vendor by vendor: best fit, limits and evidence

OpenBOM: for engineering-led revision control

Best fit: engineering teams that edit BOMs in CAD and need revision and change control before a build release. Limits: the pricing article does not say which manufacturing features, such as work orders or MRP, each plan includes, so a shop that needs them has to ask in writing. Enterprise pricing is available only through sales. Implementation: budget the CAD add-in per CAD seat and a flat fee for each ERP integration on top of the seat price, and watch the 2,000 free records, since graduated tiers apply beyond that per OpenBOM's pricing article. Evidence: OpenBOM's legacy API help lists ITEM_REVISION as an event type for subscriptions, according to OpenBOM (2026), but the page says it will no longer be maintained as of January 1, 2026.

MRPeasy: for per-user MRP with a published entry price

Best fit: a small shop that wants BOM, production and inventory records in one per-user system with a price it can budget. Limits: the pricing page lists single-level, multi-level and phantom BOMs in its feature comparison but does not show which plan includes which, so confirm phantom BOM access on the plan you buy. Implementation: count everyone who needs write access, because every user is billed, and plan for the block rule once you pass ten users. Evidence: the pricing page is the primary source here, and we did not find a review-site figure for MRPeasy's BOM features that we could verify.

Katana: for recipe-led shops that want to start free

Best fit: shops with recipes and sub-assemblies that want to begin on a free plan and move up later. The Free plan is $0 with no card required and is capped at 30 SKUs, according to Katana (current page); Advantage is a custom annual contract. Limits: Katana's pricing page does not state BOM depth per plan. A review summary reports that 93% of users would recommend it, based on 179 reviews, according to SelectHub (current page), and the only limitation it lists is "Too expensive." Implementation: Katana's developer changelog covers recipe (BOM) access through reference pages such as createrecipes and getallrecipes, per Katana's developer changelog, so check those pages against the live API before you build.

Fishbowl: for a manufacturing tier with QuickBooks or Xero sync

Best fit: shops already on QuickBooks or Xero that need BOMs, work orders and MRP from one vendor and accept a quote-based tier. Limits: the inventory plans exclude BOMs, so the cheapest plan is the wrong comparison. Advanced Manufacturing on Fishbowl starts at $675 monthly according to Fishbowl (current page), and the page says final pricing depends on your users and deployment. Evidence: according to SelectHub (current page), 82% user satisfaction comes from 693 reviews, but 58% of users report a clunky, sluggish system that occasionally crashes, so test the Advanced tier's speed with your own data during a trial.

Odoo: for a wider ERP suite

Best fit: a shop that wants accounting, sales and inventory in one suite and can handle a wider rollout. Limits: Standard and Custom include all apps for a single fee, so you pay the same per-user rate whether or not you use every app, and Custom users pay separately for Odoo.sh hosting. The pages we opened do not describe BOM depth, so verify multi-level BOM and kit handling in a trial before you commit. Implementation: monthly billing costs more per user on both tiers than yearly billing, so decide the billing term before you compare totals.

Arena PLM: for engineering change control and supplier-linked BOMs

Best fit: engineering-led teams that want BOM management, change management and document control in one cloud product. Arena's pricing page lists BOM Management and Item & BOM Management among its modules, and it says BOM Management is included in the Free Trial for Arena PLM. Limits: "Pricing is based on your team setup and requirements," according to Arena (current page), so there is no public price to budget against. For product history, Arena's flagship BOM product, then called BomControl, moved to monthly pricing with Basic, Plus and Unlimited plans, according to Automation World (2012). That is a dated article, so treat it as history rather than a current price. Implementation: ask for a written quote that lists users, modules and the ERP connection before comparing.

Where a workflow layer fits, and where it does not

A BOM tool stores the structure, and a workflow layer decides what happens when that structure changes or runs short. US Tech Automations is one option for that layer. The two designs below are proposed and configurable, not descriptions of a live deployment.

Proposed design, revision alerts: the trigger is a new BOM revision, received through an API subscription such as the ITEM_REVISION event in OpenBOM or a scheduled export from another BOM tool. The action compares the old and new BOM rows and lists added, removed and changed quantities. The output is a change summary with part numbers, quantities and an approval record, sent to the engineer and the purchasing lead. Prerequisites are API access or export files from the BOM tool, a named approver for each part family, and a rule that no purchase order releases on its own. The human review point is an engineer confirming each quantity change before purchasing acts. A US Tech Automations design would configure the approval step and the audit record, but you would still own the approver list.

Proposed design, work-order shortages: the trigger is a manufacture order created from a BOM, in Fishbowl's Advanced tier, Odoo or Katana. The action compares each required component with on-hand stock. The output is a shortage list with part numbers and quantities, sent to purchasing. Prerequisites are stock and work-order exports, or an API that your chosen tool exposes, and you should test them during the trial, because if the tool offers neither, this design cannot start. The human review point is purchasing approving every purchase order draft before it is sent.

The main alternative is to stitch the same flow together in Zapier, Make or n8n, or to script it in-house. Those tools can keep run histories, retries, error branches and audit evidence when you configure them. The buyer still designs and owns idempotency, so a retried run does not send a duplicate purchase request, along with escalation paths, access controls and maintenance when a BOM tool's API changes. A US Tech Automations design would configure the approval, audit and error-branch steps in one place, but you would still review and own each of them.

When NOT to use US Tech Automations: skip a workflow layer if your BOM changes only a few times a year and one reviewer already signs off by email, because a spreadsheet and a simple approval step are cheaper to run. Skip it also if the BOM tool you buy exposes no API or export, since the workflow would have no data to read. And skip it when your ERP already runs the approval and shortage steps you need, because a second automation adds another place to check.

Who this is for, and a decision checklist

Who this is for: an owner or operations lead at a small manufacturer who builds to customer specifications, already has an accounting system, and needs the BOM to drive purchasing or production records rather than sit in a drawing folder.

Red flags: no one owns BOM data today, you expect purchasing to run with no shop-floor check, or your products rarely change, in which case a spreadsheet with an approval step may cover you before you buy a platform.

Decision checklist:

• Write down the three BOM tasks that cause errors today.

• Ask each vendor in writing whether its plan includes multi-level and phantom BOMs, work orders and MRP.

• Confirm the accounting sync you need, whether QuickBooks, Xero or another system.

• Get a written seat count for editors, read-only users and CAD users.

• Request a quote for any tier marked Quote-based, including the tier that includes BOMs.

• Confirm the API or export format before you approve any workflow that depends on it.

Frequently asked questions

Which option is the cheapest to start with?

Katana's Free plan is the lowest published entry point in this set, but it is capped at 30 SKUs, so treat it as a trial of the workflow rather than a production plan, per Katana's pricing page.

Do I need a PLM tool or a manufacturing system?

Choose a manufacturing system if purchasing and work orders are the pain, and choose a PLM-style tool such as OpenBOM or Arena PLM if revision control and approvals are the pain.

Does Fishbowl's cheaper plan include BOMs?

No. Its Essentials, Growth and Scale inventory plans exclude BOMs, work orders and MRP, so price the Advanced Manufacturing tier if you need them, per Fishbowl's pricing page.

Can I trust third-party price lists?

Not on their own. Several roundups in this category disagree on the same vendor's price, so check the vendor's pricing page or get a written quote before you budget.

Should a workflow tool approve BOM changes automatically?

No. Keep a named human approver on every BOM change and on every purchase order a change triggers, and let the workflow prepare the change summary and the record.

Next step for your shortlist

Shortlist two tools, one from the manufacturing group and one from the engineering group only if change control is the pain, then put the checklist questions to each vendor. Price only the tier that covers your BOM depth, work orders and export needs. If you want to see how US Tech Automations configures this, see how US Tech Automations configures this for the approval and shortage steps described above.