9 Order Management Software Solutions For Businesses Of All Sizes
Photo by Pavel Danilyuk
- Order management software simplifies the order lifecycle.
- Consider customization, reporting, integration, scalability, and automation when choosing a solution.
- Most solutions have a free trial option.
Order management software (OMS) helps businesses, large and small, streamline and automate key components in the ordering process to speed up fulfillment. With the right system in place, companies can improve customer satisfaction, reduce errors, and prevent stock issues.
Standard features in leading order management solutions include:
- Label creation
- Dispatch management
- Status updates
- Inventory management
- Integration with other platforms
With the right OMS, businesses can reduce fulfillment time and human error while keeping orders flowing smoothly.
We’ll review nine of the best order management software solutions, provide insights for users, and help you better understand the drawbacks of each platform.
How does the order management process work?
Order management software helps throughout the complete order lifecycle. Every management system is slightly different, but the processes follow these general steps:
- A customer places an order using a business’s sales channel.
- Businesses add key data to the order management system, such as the customer’s name, address, product details, and more.
- Processing begins with the OMS verifying data, inventory, and total costs.
- The next step is fulfillment: Picking and packing products, creating labels, and getting the order ready for shipment.
- Shipping is next, and customers should receive tracking information for their orders.
- Businesses track the order status and provide updates to the customer. Inventory level updates are also made.
- Customers are updated when their package is delivered, and the internal order status is updated.
Your unique needs will determine the right OMS to help streamline your business. You’ll need to review features, pricing, add-on options, and the limitations of an OMS to find the right fit for your company.
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How to choose the right order management solution for your business
Every business is unique, but there are a few important factors that companies should consider when choosing an OMS:
- Customization: Your OMS should work for you and be tailored to your needs. Ideally, you should be able to customize your order management to some degree, so you can easily filter orders and find what you need quickly and easily.
- Scalability: Your OMS should grow with you. Look for solutions that offer multi-channel support and can handle larger order volumes.
- Reporting: An OMS with detailed reporting functions will make understanding your inventory needs, sales history, and customer preferences/trends easier.
- Support: Order management can be complicated. Choose a solution that offers training and is backed by responsive customer support that can help you solve problems.
- Integration: Make sure your OMS can integrate with your CRM, accounting system, sales channels, and other solutions in your tech stack.
- Automation: OMS solutions are designed to make your life easier, so look for options that automate workflows for order processing, tracking, and fulfillment.
With these points in mind, let’s look at some of the top order management software solutions and what users like and dislike about each solution.
Top 9 order management software options
1. ShippingEasy
ShippingEasy integrates into the world’s leading e-commerce platforms such as Etsy, eBay, Amazon, Woo, Square, and multiple others. The platform’s order management system empowers users with options to:
- Add manual orders
- Sync new orders (only those placed in the last 14 days)
- Filter unshipped orders
- Import orders via CSV
Users can split a sales order to improve the customer experience and streamline shipping by fulfilling orders based on item availability, reducing delivery wait time.
Order status icons allow you to monitor the fulfillment process while the platform’s integrations, options to automate workflows, and discounted shipping rates help growing businesses streamline operations.
Who it’s best for: Small and medium e-commerce businesses, D2C, and B2B
What ShippingEasy customers say
Advantages
- Customer service offers rapid solutions to user problems.
- Shipping comparison options allow you to find the best pricing.
- The intuitive interface makes learning the platform easier.
“ShippingEasy is hands down the most convenient, intuitive, streamlined and professional shipping solution I have ever used.” — Chase P.
“The platform has saved me a lot of money,by shipping hundreds of orders from my Shopify e-commerce store.” — John K.
Disadvantages
- Monthly fee changes can make certain features inaccessible on lower pricing tiers.
- Shipping labels are limited to the pricing tier, so you will need to upgrade to higher tiers as your business needs grow.
“Cannot define alternative shippers — we ship some orders same-day by van and can't track this or share information with shipper.” — William G.
“ShippingEasy didn't offer USPS Cubic rates for my account despite a monthly $19.99 subscription. At first I was allowed to connect my FedEx account at no extra charge, but then they added a monthly fee for that option.” — Theo C.
Pricing
- ShippingEasy is free to try for 30 days, and for up to 25 shipments per month.
- After that, the pricing is tiered according to how many shipments you process each month. Prices range from a $19.99 Basic plan with 26-200 shipments per month, all the way up a $99.99 Premium plan with 3,000 to 6,000 shipments per month.
2. Shippo
Shippo offers “shipping technology for every business.” Robust API options allow developers to automate many manual processes and extend the platform’s functionality further. Order management options include:
- Create and print labels
- Shipment management
- International shipping
- Insurance
- New and existing order pages
- Order syncing with other platforms
- Split order options
Shippo helps small businesses manage customer orders from one dashboard. Order details are even automatically populated for rapid label printing and order fulfillment status is in real-time.
Who it’s best for: B2C, B2B, international e-commerce
What Shippo customers say
Advantages
- Seamless integration into dozens of platforms for multichannel selling.
- Centralized management system for shipping labels, packaging, and inventory control.
- Integrated order management software for labels, shipments, and international shipping.
“API connection to our system makes it really simple to use.” — William G.
“I use Shippo daily for my Etsy store and they make it so easy to ship packages from their platform. The integration between the two companies is practically flawless.” — Amber B.
Disadvantages
- Response time may be slow.
- Onboarding is lacking.
“The shipment summaries can sometimes lack the granularity necessary to file it away in our other systems such as airtables, however all things considered this is a super small issue!” — Dylan I.
“It would be great to have a faster response time to solve any questions or problems that I may have.” — Ronald Abilmar R.
Pricing
Shippo’s pricing is based on the number of shipping labels printed each month:
- The Starter plan is free up to 30 labels per month.
- The Pro plan starts at $19 per month, but there’s some small print on the website: “Pro Plan pricing depends on your monthly label volume”. You can print up to 10,000 labels per month, but they don’t list the actual prices.
- You will have to contact them to get prices for API use and more than 10,000 labels per month.
3. QuickBooks Enterprise
QuickBooks is known for its cloud-based accounting software, but the Enterprise version of the software incorporates streamlined order management features that include options to:
- Track orders
- Track inventory
- Invoice
- Forecast
Automation is built into the order management software, helping companies fulfill orders faster with pre-filled shipping labels that sync data from inside of the Salesforce CRM. Order management is available online or through apps where businesses can connect directly to the fulfillment team to route orders.
QuickBooks offers the scalability businesses need with key features for inventory management, order management, reporting, piercing, time tracking, job costing, and much more.
Who it’s best for: Small- and medium-sized, B2B, B2C who are already using QuickBooks.
What Quickbooks Enterprise customers say
Advantages
- OMS allows for managing all areas of order management.
- Order processing, invoicing, forecasting, and inventory management in one system.
- Integrates into leading CRM and competes with ERP solutions.
“QB has been my first choice for the past 20 years of managing businesses. Its ease of use and setup are by far the best I have found with similar products out there.” — Amy W.
“What I like most is its user friendly experience and ability to manage invoices from a diverse selection of suppliers / projects.” — Kevin P.
Disadvantages
- Customer support for previous versions is lacking.
- Learning how to use all features is cumbersome.
“Maybe at the beginning is kind of complicated but after you get into it it gets easier and easier.” — Leonardo H.
“They have been made aware by numerous customers that after the upgrade to 2023 software we are no longer able to send statements.” — Alicia D.
Pricing
Quickbooks Enterprise is only available via annual subscription, starting at $1,922 per year.
4. Finale Inventory
Finale Inventory’s platform offers inventory, order, and warehouse management in one solution. Order management makes it easy for business owners to:
- Automate sales forecasting
- Set multiple pricing tiers
- Pick and pack shipments
- Consolidate sales data
- Track inventory levels
Businesses can connect Finale to dozens of platforms, quickly generate a purchase order, automatically adjust future purchase orders based on forecasts, and more. Multiple monthly plans are available to scale with your business, and no long-term commitments are required.
Who it’s best for: B2B, B2C, and Small- and medium-sized businesses
What Finale Inventory customers say
Advantages
- User-friendly platform.
- Cloud-based order and inventory management system.
- Integrates with QuickBooks and other major platforms.
"Fantastic inventory management and order management platform with great reporting" — N/A.
“Finale was one of the easiest, most intuitive platforms that I have used in my business.” — Lauren L.
Disadvantages
- Syncing seems to have issues.
- Initial data loading is slow.
“Sometimes with our integration syncing, my commands can glitch and I will have to manually push through, or it can take a while (around an hour) for it to sync.” — N/A.
“It is not easy to take stock. There are so many steps to follow.” — Sanjeeva U.
Pricing
Finale Inventory offers a wide range of price plans:
- A single-user Starter account supports up to 500 orders per month for $99.
- A Bronze account is $240 per month for up to 2,000 orders.
- A Silver account is $420 per month for up to 5,000 orders.
- A Gold account is $649 per month for up to 10,000 orders.
- A Platinum account is $949 for up to 20,000 orders.
Annual pricing is available at a discount.
5. Katana
Katana is inventory management software that offers order management tools for e-commerce SMBs and manufacturing companies.
Businesses can track their inventory and orders in real-time. Sales teams also receive accurate status updates and completion dates, so they’re always up to date on order statuses.
Through the platform’s features and functions, businesses maintain a real-time overview of their supply chain.
To streamline processes even further, the platform integrates with the most popular e-commerce, reporting, accounting, and CRM tools.
Who it’s best for: E-commerce SMBs and manufacturing companies
What Katana customers say
Advantages
- Easy to create recipes and builds for products for manufacturing companies.
- Support is responsive and helpful with integration.
- User-friendly interface and functions.
“Ease of use, support, inventory management features, able to create builds/recipes for products (BOM), ability to upload data using Excel, integration with Quickbooks Online” — Dennis F.
“Katana is 100x faster than our previous ERP system and integrates with many platforms. It is very user-friendly.” — Jon L.
Disadvantages
- Monthly fees can be hefty.
- Onboarding isn’t as customizable as some other providers.
- Reporting is basic and requires a lot of manual effort.
“Pricing is getting worse. Basic functions disappear and appear later as a paid add on for hefty monthly fee.” — Lukas H.
“We wish the onboarding process allowed for more experimentation as we learned the system. For example, we wanted to start from scratch by deleting/re-importing our Shopify orders but were unable to do so.” — Luka A.
Pricing
Katana’s pricing also offers a discount for annual plans. To make it easier to compare, we’re listing the prices for their monthly plans here:
- Starter: $199 per month for up to 1,200 orders per year.
- Standard: $399 per month for up to 6,000 orders per year.
- Professional: $899 per month for up to 18,000 orders per year.
- Professional Plus: $1,999 per month for up to 40,000 orders per year.
6. Brightpearl
Brightpearl streamlines and simplifies multi-channel order management. The platform claims that users can process orders up to 70% faster using their Automation Engine, which allows you to set your own rules for everything from picking to shipping.
Plug-and-play integrations make it easy to expand to new sales channels. Brightpearl connects with all major e-commerce platforms and marketplaces, including Shopify, Amazon, eBay, Magento, BigCommerce, and more.
Brightpearl also has an integrated point of sale (POS), so you can manage online and offline sales and inventory levels in real-time. The platform even gives you access to performance insights on revenue, profitability, customer lifetime value, average order value, and more.
Expert support and setup make it easy to integrate this platform into your tech stack.
Who it’s best for: Multi-channel order management; brick-and-mortar shops
What Brightpearl customers say
Advantages
- Staff training is thorough.
- Easy to manage sales for large catalogs of SKUs.
- Inventory management is simple and accurate.
“Staff training was thorough and in no way rushed. They made sure we were confident and knew our way around the system before we went live.” — Tom H.
“We are a 2 person operations team managing a multi-thousand SKU catalog. Brightpearl is our centralized source of truth when it comes to inventory and our catalog and integrates directly with our sales channels.” — Abigail A.
Disdvantages
- The UI needs updating.
- API bottlenecks can be frustrating.
“Some elements of the UX/UI and functionality are clearly outdated and needs a revision.” — Kristoffer J.
“The API bottleneck. It would be nice if Brightpearl had the capability to have more API connections” — Austin H.
Pricing
Brightpearl doesn’t make its pricing public. You will have to contact them to discuss a price plan.
7. Salesforce Commerce Cloud
Salesforce Commerce Cloud helps businesses manage their order fulfillment right from their CRM and save money in the process.
Their distributed order management function offers pre-built fulfillment flows and omnichannel inventory management helps you stay on top of stock levels.
Customer-facing features, like order support, empower consumers to cancel, return, and reship items for a more positive experience.
Because the platform integrates into the Salesforce CRM, your sales agents can personalize customer interactions by getting access to their order history, payment terms, and more.
While robust and feature-rich, Salesforce Commerce Cloud is complex and requires training to maximize its benefits.
Who it’s best for: Enterprise B2B and B2C
What Salesforce Commerce Cloud customers say
Advantages
- Easy order management.
- Convenient to manage customers and orders from a single platform.
- Improves customer satisfaction.
“Easy of accessibility, full order life cycle, better customer experience” — Puneet K.
“Keeping track of our clients and consumers on the same platform where we do all our other businesses is also a big plus for us.” — Verified Reviewer from LinkedIn
Disdvantages
- Because the platform is so complex, you need the help of a certified system integrator to get started.
- The system can be glitchy at times.
- Technical limitations can make it tricky to customize certain features.
“ You definitely need a certified system integrator which could help you with integrations, developments and maintenance. You cannot manage it on your own.” — Guido G.
“Can be glitchy at times...would like to be able to customize further to my particular business.” — Rick D.
Pricing
Salesforce Commerce Cloud pricing is based on turnover:
- There are different plans for B2B, B2C, and D2C businesses. Costs are anything from 1% to 3% of gross merchandise value per annum, depending on business type and turnover.
- Support plans — they call them “success plans” — cost extra.
8. Shopify
Shopify needs no introduction. As of 2023, the e-commerce platform had more than 4.61 million online stores. Along with helping users set up their e-commerce stores, Shopify includes order management tools in their plans.
The platform makes it easy to organize orders and customize their management from all of your sales channels. From your dashboard, you can view and track order delivery statuses.
With the help of Shopify Flow, you can automate tasks like drafting shipping labels and sending notifications of high-risk orders. You can even optimize your inventory through real-time inventory syncing so that you can say goodbye to overselling.
Shopify’s order management system is robust and user-friendly, making it a great choice for both new and seasoned e-commerce store owners.
Who it’s best for: E-commerce stores
What Shopify customers say
Advantages
- Easy to set up and manage an e-commerce store.
- Third-party apps extend the platform’s functions.
- Streamlined inventory management.
“Anyone can create and manage a Shopify store without hiring a developer or e-commerce manager.” — Shuvo M.
“Our backend support team can easily view and fulfill orders and we can handle customer service right from our site.” — Sarah O.
Disadvantages
- Things get pricey as you grow.
- Shopify’s tech can slow things down, making it challenging to scale.
- Customer support is lacking.
“When you want to implement more complex solutions it gets very pricey” — Adam G.
“Very difficult to scale beyond a certain revenue mark on shopify since shopify's tech starts becoming a bottleneck to any deeper features you want to build.” — Abhinav B.
Pricing
Shopify offers four pricing tiers. There is a 25% discount for annual plans, but these are their per-month prices:
- Basic: $25 per month.
- Shopify: $65 per month.
- Advanced: $399 per month.
- Plus: From 2,300 per month for a three-year contract.
9. ChannelApe
ChannelApe simplifies order management by automating mundane tasks and helping you manage all of your orders —- no matter which sales channels they came from.
With features like bulk order import, there’s no need to import from spreadsheets or worry about data entry errors. Order aggregation gives you a birds-eye view of all of your orders from all commerce channels from a single platform.
Features like EDI support, address verification, and order tagging help ensure orders are processed quickly and without the risk of overselling.
ChannelApe even offers distributed order management, which helps you broker orders intelligently by fulfilling orders from the best location, reducing delivery times, and reducing fulfillment costs.
Who it’s best for: B2B, D2C, online orders, in-store orders
What ChannelApe customers say
Advantages
- Responsive and helpful customer support.
- Easy setup and user-friendly interface.
- Ability to sync live product feeds from multiple vendors.
“When first installing the app, the team was very helpful with the initial setup, and going forward has provided accessible, professional, and friendly support whenever we had questions.” — Miriam L.
“I like that once the software is setup there is little input from the user, the software simply works.” — Megan H.
Disdvantages
- The UI is outdated and clunky on the mobile app.
- Some features are complex and have a steep learning curve.
“It's a little technical and has a few limitations, but I believe these will be sorted out in time.” — Aar J.
“The actual interface and UI could use a little bit of work in our opinion, but it's the functionality and the support that makes this a relatively small problem well down the list.” — Ilya F.
Pricing
ChannelApe doesn’t make its pricing public. You will need to book a demo and get a custom quote.
Conclusion
There are many order management software solutions out there, but these nine are top-rated among users. Many of these platforms have trial options, so you can take them for a test drive before making your final decision. As you explore and experiment with each solution, consider whether it will help you reach your goals and be easy to implement into your current tech stack.
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