How much does a custom inventory management system cost?

Build or subscribe: where is the break even?

For a typical Australian distributor with around 25 users, an inventory subscription costs less over three years than a custom build, and the two come close by year five. The table compares list prices at the time of writing with the custom worked example further down. It is illustrative arithmetic, not a quote, and it leaves out costs that apply to both, such as scanners and payment fees.

Option (25 users, one warehouse)	Monthly arithmetic	3 year total (AUD, ex GST)	5 year total (AUD, ex GST)
Unleashed Pro with extra users, warehouse module and 4 devices	$819 + (20 × $79) + $149 + (4 × $49) = $2,744	$98,784	$164,640
Cin7 Core Advanced (15 users included)	US$1,199, about $1,738 at US$0.69	$62,568, before extra users	$104,280, before extra users
Custom single warehouse system with Xero sync	$91,000 build, then $18,450 a year	$146,350	$183,250

The subscription rows understate the real bill. Unleashed includes 100 sales orders a month and sells upgrades to 500, 1,500, 3,000 or unlimited; a business doing 2,000 orders a month needs one. Cin7’s Advanced plan includes 15 users, so 10 more seats cost extra. Ask both vendors for a quote at your real user count and order volume before you compare.

So the honest reading: if your process fits, subscribe. A build starts to pay its way when seats and modules keep growing, or when the platform cannot model how your stock actually moves.

What does off the shelf inventory software cost?

Inventory platforms meter three things: users, order volume and modules. These are list prices at the time of writing (November 2026), excluding taxes.

Plan	Listed price	Users included	Order volume included	Notable extras
Unleashed Core	$449 AUD a month	3	100 sales orders a month	Extra users $69 a month
Unleashed Pro	$819 AUD a month	5	100 sales orders a month	Extra users $79 a month
Cin7 Core Standard	US$349 a month	5	6,000 a year	2 integrations, unlimited inventory locations
Cin7 Core Pro	US$599 a month	10	24,000 a year	4 integrations, material requirements planning
Cin7 Core Advanced	US$1,199 a month	15	120,000 a year	6 integrations, advanced warehouse management

Unleashed also lists its warehouse management and multi bin module at $149 a month, warehouse devices at $49 a device a month and a B2B eCommerce store from $119 a month. At the time of writing it was advertising 90% off the first three months, which does not change the long run cost. Cin7 shows its prices in US dollars for new customers.

Which features push the cost of a custom build up?

Every rule about where stock is and when it can be used multiplies the testing. The features below are what move a build from the bottom band into six figures.

Feature	Why it costs more
Multiple warehouses and bins	Transfers, in transit stock, per location reorder points and putaway rules
Batch and expiry tracking	First expired, first out picking, recalls, traceability reports
Serial numbers	Per unit history from receipt to sale and returns
Kits and bundles	Available stock calculated from components, not stored
Manufacturing and bills of materials	Work orders, component consumption, partial builds, costing
Landed costs	Freight, duty and fees spread across received stock
Units of measure	Buy in cartons, sell in units, with conversions everywhere
Channel sync	Stock pushed to Shopify, marketplaces and B2B portals without overselling

Channel sync is a project of its own. Our multichannel inventory sync guide covers the technical side.

What do typical custom builds cost?

Indicative Australian ranges fall into three bands, set mostly by warehouses, traceability and integrations.

Build	Typical scope	Indicative range (AUD, ex GST)
App on top of Cin7 or Unleashed	Scanning, picking, packing or stocktake screens using the platform’s API	$15,000 to $45,000
Single warehouse system	Products, purchasing, receiving, picking, stock counts, Xero or MYOB sync	$50,000 to $120,000
Multi warehouse operations	Several sites, batches and expiry, manufacturing, a B2B ordering portal	$150,000 to $350,000+

These are consistent with Expeed’s published band of $15,000 to $40,000 for basic inventory management and Conduct’s observation that most mid complexity Australian projects land between $90,000 and $250,000. They are market ranges, not our prices.

A worked example: a single warehouse system with Xero sync

This hypothetical distributor has 25 users, one warehouse, about 2,000 orders a month and uses Xero. The figures are illustrative and use an assumed blended agency rate of $1,300 a day, inside an assumed $1,100 to $1,500 range. For context, Re:Sourced’s July 2026 guide puts senior software contractors in Sydney at $800 to $1,100 a day ex GST.

1. Effort: discovery and data model 6 days; products, units and pricing 8; purchasing and receiving 8; picking and packing with scanning 10; stock counts and adjustments 5; two way Xero sync for contacts, invoices and bills 8; Shopify stock sync 5; reports 5; roles and permissions 3; data migration 4; testing 6; deployment and project management 2. Total 70 days.
2. Build: 70 × $1,300 = $91,000 ex GST, or $77,000 to $105,000 across the rate range.
3. Running a year: hosting and monitoring at an assumed $400 a month ($4,800) plus maintenance at 15% of build ($13,650). Total $18,450.
4. Totals: three years $146,350; five years $183,250.

What would move this in the build’s favour: doubling the headcount, adding a second warehouse that would trigger more subscription modules, or rules such as consignment stock that the platforms handle poorly.

What do barcode scanning and mobile devices add?

Scanning is cheap to build when you use standard barcodes and phones, and expensive when you need rugged hardware and offline use. Budget three things:

• Codes. Internal bin and location labels can use your own codes. Products sold through retailers usually need GS1 barcodes, which GS1 Australia lists from $72 for one, $445 for a 10 pack and $620 for a 100 pack, with fees varying by membership option and turnover.
• Devices. Phones with camera scanning suit low volume. Busy warehouses use dedicated scanners, which cost far more than a phone; get reseller quotes early. On subscriptions, check device fees such as Unleashed’s $49 a device a month.
• The app. A web app with camera scanning is the cheapest route. A native app with offline queues for areas with poor signal adds weeks.

What do Xero, MYOB and ecommerce sync cost?

Accounting and channel sync is a large share of any custom inventory budget: in the worked example it is 13 of 70 days, about a fifth. A one way push of invoices is quick. A two way sync of contacts, invoices, bills, payments and stock values, with retries and reconciliation, is weeks of work. Our API integration cost guide breaks down effort by integration type and the platform API fees to budget for.

How much should you budget for data migration and the go live stocktake?

Plan both as separate work, because they decide whether staff trust the new system on day one.

1. Export products, suppliers, customers, price lists and open purchase orders from the old system.
2. Clean duplicates and dead products before import. Doing this in house is cheaper than paying developers.
3. Do a trial import and check a sample by hand.
4. Run a full stocktake as close to go live as possible, then load opening balances.
5. Freeze the old system to read only rather than deleting it.

Our data migration plan covers the method in more detail.

What are the ongoing costs?

A custom inventory system costs roughly 15 to 20% of its build each year to maintain, plus hosting. Subscriptions bundle maintenance into the fee but raise prices and add meters over time. Either way, budget for scanner replacement, label stock and the staff time to keep product data clean. Tax treatment differs between subscribing and building; our software development tax deductions guide explains the options, and your accountant should confirm them.

What should you ask before signing a subscription or a build?

The cheapest option on paper is often the one with an unpriced meter. Ask these questions of any vendor or development team, and get the answers in writing.

• What does the plan cost at our real user count and monthly order volume, and at double both?
• Which modules (warehouse, production, B2B, forecasting) are extra, and what do they cost?
• How many integrations and API calls are included, and what happens when we exceed them?
• What do onboarding, data import and training cost, and who does the work?
• For a build: who owns the code once it is paid for, and what does maintenance cost each year?
• How do we export all our data if we leave?

If the answers to the first three keep growing the monthly figure, rerun the break even table at the top of this page with the new numbers.

How AWLabs approaches inventory projects

We often recommend keeping Cin7 or Unleashed and building only the missing piece, such as a picking app or an integration. The first step is a 15 minute Development Consult. If a build is the right call, a paid Discovery Audit maps your stock rules, integrations and migration, and the fee is credited in full against the build. You then receive a fixed price Schedule of Work with three options, The Minimum, The Recommended and The Complete. Senior engineers lead every build. See our Xero and MYOB integration service, and our manufacturing and retail and ecommerce pages.