Craftybase ‑ Manufacturing ERP

Craftybase is a fantastic app for keeping all of your inventory up to date in one place. It's easy to use no matter what size your business is and keeps up to date automatically. If you want to know, where everything is and how much you have this is for you. Manufacturing, orders, sales, deliveries etc. It's all in one easy place. The recipe section on the products I find especially helpful. Couldn't recommend it more.

I began with Craftybase in January 2021. I wanted an updated and more efficient web-based system to track inventory and sales. I liked that it imported sales from Shopify every morning. Previously, I had to do that manually.

Once I got into using it, I started seeing several issues. As a soap and cosmetic maker, I follow GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices), so lot and batch tracking is imperative. In order to use lot tracking, I had to pay for the highest tier subscription only to learn that CB doesn't track quantities of each lot and doesn't use the "first in, first out" practice of using older materials first. When creating a batch of a product, I need to manually select the lot number I used. This wasn't worthy of the higher tier price. In addition to this, Craftybase's servers continually had issues with lagging and not syncing. Thinking I didn't commit changes, I would repeat the steps. Once the servers did catch up, I had to go back and undo all the repeat changes I made.

Over the 2.5 years, I continued to use Craftybase, I asked for features and fixes for GMP and other simple requests, but none were ever addressed. The final straw happened in July when I received an email announcing a price increase. I was currently paying $34.99/mo, but come September 1st, it would increase to $79.00/mo!! There were no improvements or new features except adding sales channels for other customers, and they more than doubled my monthly subscription fee.

I'm currently seeking out another system that works the way manufacturers work and looking forward to ending the relationship with Craftybase. I do NOT recommend this system.

We love this app and highly reccommend it for anyone looking to take control of their inventory and really hone in on their pricing.

Much more than a shopify app for this price!!!! Amazing. This is a whole software that can manage inventory for craft professionals and I couldn't live without it. It just happens to connect to shopify but the price is for the whole software itself!!!

Like all software and apps.... the most important factor is whether it is a good fit for YOUR needs. Not all software will suit the needs of everyone. And like most software, it can take time to learn something new. I started my very small business roughly 12 years ago and used Craftybase early on. After some time learning the system and going through typical "new software" data entry steps, I was able to get up and running and have been using it ever since. It has grown with me over the years.

Is it perfect? No, and anyone who says that any software is perfect isn't being completely honest. I have yet to find an app or tool that is perfect all the way around. There is always something I would change. But, here's the thing... most people, including myself, found it hard pressed to find a better solution than this one for the price and value. Particularly for those small to mid size handcrafted businesses.

My advice would be to fully utilize the free trial. Add in materials, create products, create recipes, use the trial to find out if it will suit your needs. It might not... which is the purpose of the trial. This software is incredibly powerful, and with that can sometimes feel overwhelming because it can do so much. But you can simply use the features you need. After trialing, take the time to plan your setup and use cases. Proper setup from the beginning will make it SO much easier to use going forward. But I found this to be the case with EVERY inventory or manufacturing software I have ever used.

Whether this is an app that works well for you is going to depend on you and your needs. It may not be a a perfect or a '5 star' app for everyone. But it has been for me for 10 years. For anyone struggling, check out the help articles and other documentation. They have plenty of content out there available to help! :)