Katana's Core plan starts at $299/month with one location, plus a charge for each sales order delivered. Batch numbers and expiry dates are in its Traceability add-on at $249/month, so a food maker who needs lots is looking at about $548/month before usage. The alternatives a small kitchen usually compares are MRPeasy, Stocksmith (the product that was Craftybase), inFlow Manufacturing, ReciPal and TaroStack. Below is what each costs for the same two-person kitchen, with prices read on September 26, 2026.
The short version
- Katana changed to usage-based pricing: Core from $299/month with one location, sales orders billed as you deliver them, and add-ons on top. The free plan stops at 30 SKUs, and ingredients count.
- Lots and expiry are the Traceability add-on, $249/month. For a food business that isn't optional.
- For a two-person kitchen with lots, recipes and a production plan, the alternatives below come to between $99/month and about $293/month.
- Katana is still the stronger choice for routings, a shop floor app, and a long list of integrations, QuickBooks and Xero included. The alternatives win on price, and some of them on food.
- For that same kitchen, TaroStack is $99 a month, with lots on every plan. The section near the end has the detail.
What Katana costs now
Katana's pricing page describes a Free plan, a Core plan and a custom Advantage plan. Here's what matters for a small maker (Katana):
| Katana | Price | What's included |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Up to 30 SKUs (unlimited for the first 15 days), unlimited users and locations, all add-ons |
| Core | From $299/month | Unlimited SKUs and users, 1 location included, sales orders billed by usage |
| Traceability add-on | $249/month | Batch or lot numbers with expiration dates, and serial numbers |
| Manufacturing Management add-on | $199/month | Routings and manufacturing insights |
| Warehouse Management add-on | $149/month | Bins, pick and pack, receiving on a phone |
| Advantage | Custom | Built and maintained for you |
Two lines on that page are worth reading twice. Sales orders are "billed based on the number of sales orders delivered, with a lower per-unit cost as you deliver more", so the monthly bill moves with your busy season. And yearly billing costs a little more, not less: it "includes a small premium because Katana absorbs the risk of usage fluctuations."
Why the free plan doesn't last
Thirty SKUs sounds like plenty until you count the way Katana does. An SKU is any "product or material variant", so ingredients and packaging count alongside what you sell.
Take a two-person hot sauce kitchen with six sauces in two bottle sizes:
| What | Count |
|---|---|
| Sauces, 5 oz and 12 oz | 12 |
| Ingredients (peppers, vinegar, garlic, salt and the rest) | 14 |
| Bottles, two sizes | 2 |
| Caps | 1 |
| Labels, one per sauce per size | 12 |
| Shipping cases, two sizes | 2 |
| SKUs | 43 |
That's 13 over the limit on the first day. Katana is clear that past the 15-day grace period you reduce the count or talk to sales, which in practice means Core.
The same kitchen, priced six ways
The kitchen needs lot numbers with expiry dates, recipes, batch production, a production plan, two people using it, and one location. Prices are the monthly rate from each company's own page on September 26, 2026, billed monthly unless noted.
| Option | What that kitchen buys | About a month |
|---|---|---|
| Katana | Core, plus the Traceability add-on, plus sales order usage | $548 and up |
| inFlow Manufacturing | StartUp, $224/month, plus the lot numbers add-on, $69/month | $293 |
| Stocksmith (was Craftybase) | Business, for production scheduling; lots start on Indie, $99/month | $199 |
| MRPeasy | Professional, $69/month per user, for expiry dates; two users | $138 |
| ReciPal | Pro Inventory, for more than one user: FIFO lot tracing and production planning (its page doesn't mention expiry dates) | $100 |
| TaroStack | Standard, for recipes, batches and planning; lots and expiry on every plan | $99 |
A few notes so the table is fair. MRPeasy's Starter plan, $49/month per user, has lot traceability but not expiry dates, and barcode printing and scanning are on its Enterprise plan, $99/month per user (MRPeasy). inFlow Manufacturing includes two team members on StartUp; the lot add-on covers "lots, batches, and expiry dates" (inFlow). Stocksmith has unlimited users from Indie up, and you pick each lot by hand when recording a batch; I covered that in the Craftybase comparison. ReciPal's Start-Up Inventory is $50/month for one user (ReciPal). Its pages talk about lot tracing and recalls but not expiry dates, so test that in the trial. It also makes FDA nutrition labels, which none of the others here do.
Where Katana is the better answer
Honestly, in several places. Katana connects to Shopify, WooCommerce, Amazon, BigCommerce, ShipStation, QuickBooks Online and Xero (Katana). It has routings, a shop floor app for operators, AI-suggested purchase orders, and unlimited users on every plan. If you're a manufacturer with several work stations, an accountant who lives in QuickBooks, and sales on four channels, it's built for you, and $548/month may be a fair price for what it replaces.
It's when you're two or three people making food in batches that the add-on model stings, because the thing you can't do without is the thing that's extra.
What to test in any alternative
Price isn't the only thing that changes when you switch. In a free trial, check these with your own products:
- Receive two lots of one ingredient with different dates, record a batch, and see which lot it takes. If you had to choose, someone will choose wrong at 5 a.m. (More on this in what to look for in a lot tracking app.)
- Build one recipe with a sub-recipe (a dough, a sauce base) and check the cost per unit against your own numbers.
- Plan next week's production from real orders and see whether it tells you what to buy, and by when.
- Import your items from a spreadsheet. If the import can't take your list, nothing else matters yet.
Where this stops working
This part is about us, since you're weighing us too. TaroStack connects to Shopify and Square only: no WooCommerce, Amazon or BigCommerce. There's no live QuickBooks or Xero connection yet, which for some Katana users settles it. Shopify is connected by hand with you, and orders arrive by import and a daily check rather than to the second. Our Square connection is built and set up, but no customer has connected a till yet. There's no separate shop floor app for operators either: people record batches in the same app on a phone or tablet. If any of that is a dealbreaker, Katana or MRPeasy is the better call.
How TaroStack does it
For the hot sauce kitchen in the example, the numbers are the argument: Katana with traceability comes to about $548 a month before usage, and TaroStack Standard is $99, with nothing billed per sales order. Lots, expiry and recalls are on every plan, including Starter, so traceability is never the add-on you discover after the free plan runs out.
Standard adds what that kitchen needs to make sauce, not only sell it: versioned recipes with sub-recipes and unit conversion, production orders, batch records that note which lots were used automatically, true cost from FIFO cost layers, and planning (what to make, what to buy and when, shelf-life aware, with every suggestion a draft you approve). It's up to three sites and ten people. Plans are priced by sites and people, not SKUs, so 43 of them, ingredients included, cost the same as four.
If routings, a shop floor app and a long list of integrations matter more, Katana is the better call, and the paragraph above says so. If lots and cost matter more, try TaroStack free for 30 days: your items, recipes, suppliers and opening stock import from CSV with a preview of every row. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.