Katana MRP

The Manufacturing Tool E-Commerce Brands Actually Need

Here's the problem Katana solves: you're selling on Shopify, Amazon, and your own site. Orders pour in. You manufacture your own products or manage contract manufacturing. And you're tracking everything in spreadsheets. Sound familiar?

Katana MRP was built from scratch in 2017 specifically for this scenario. No legacy code. No retrofitted modules. It's cloud-native manufacturing software that speaks e-commerce fluently.

How It Actually Works

Connect your Shopify store (or WooCommerce, BigCommerce, or Amazon) and Katana pulls in sales orders automatically. The system breaks each order into its component materials using your bill of materials, checks raw material availability, and creates manufacturing orders. Simple, but it works.

The visual production scheduler is genuinely good. Drag and drop manufacturing orders across a timeline. See which orders are blocked waiting for materials. Reprioritize on the fly when your biggest customer needs a rush order. We've tested dozens of MRP interfaces — Katana's is among the cleanest.

Inventory management tracks raw materials and finished goods across multiple warehouses. Real-time stock levels update as you receive materials, consume them in production, and ship finished products. Reorder points trigger purchase orders automatically.

Integrations Make or Break It

Katana connects natively with Shopify, QuickBooks Online, Xero, and a handful of shipping tools. The Shopify integration is genuinely excellent — two-way sync of products, orders, and inventory happens in near real-time.

But what about everything else? You'll need Zapier or the API. The native integration list is short compared to established ERPs. If you need EDI connections for retail partners or deep accounting integrations beyond QuickBooks and Xero, you'll hit walls.

Where Katana Reaches Its Ceiling

This isn't SAP and doesn't pretend to be. Multi-level BOMs work but get clunky past 3-4 levels deep. There's no built-in quality management module. Shop floor data collection is basic — operators mark tasks complete, but there's no machine-level integration.

Can you run a 200-person factory on Katana? Probably not. Can you run a 30-person operation making artisanal food products, cosmetics, or consumer electronics? Absolutely.

Pricing Reality

Plans start at $179/month for the Essential tier (up to 500 sales orders/month). The Advanced plan at $359/month adds multicurrency, batch tracking, and priority support. Enterprise pricing requires a call but runs $799+/month. They offer a 14-day free trial — enough time to connect your store and test the workflow.

For what you get, it's fair pricing. The ROI usually comes from eliminating stockouts and reducing the 10-15 hours per week most small manufacturers spend on manual inventory tracking.