Industrial and MRO suppliers handle repeat orders from maintenance teams, contractors and purchasing departments. A product may be quoted in one unit and sold in another, under an account-specific price or jobsite delivery instruction. Test the buyer portal, inventory and fulfillment handoff as a single transaction.
Industrial and MRO suppliers handle repeat orders from maintenance teams, contractors and purchasing departments. A product may be quoted in one unit and sold in another, under an account-specific price or jobsite delivery instruction. Test the buyer portal, inventory and fulfillment handoff as a single transaction.
The cost case · Industrial, MRO, electrical & plumbing supply houses
What the software costs—and where your margin can improve.
Start with the bill and one costly workflow. The comparison is straightforward: recurring software costs you can actually remove, minus the hosting, AI, integrations and upkeep a replacement needs. Time saved is a separate gain, and only becomes margin when the business can use it.
Current software · researched prices
$679/ month
$8,148 a year in this worked example
A single-branch, 12-person industrial supply house with a will-call counter and 150 trade accounts
Cin7 Core Standard - 5 users, 6,000 sales orders/yr$349/mo
Now Commerce B2B Customer Portal, stand-alone$280/mo
Now Commerce Sales Rep Portal, from $150 less the $100 bundle discount$50/mo
A source-priced scenario, not a claim about your invoice. Check required modules, usage fees and your negotiated terms.
A focused tool · under your control
Pay for the parts this workflow needs.
One time: map the rules, build, test edge cases, move only the data needed and train the people who use it.
Each month: affordable hosting, coding-AI usage, any database or integrations, backups and maintenance. Price these for the actual application; a $0 or low hosting tier is not the total cost.
You control: the code repository, domain, data and service accounts. Someone on your side owns updates, access, recovery and support.
MarginVendor costs removed − the replacement’s full monthly operating cost.
Admin timeFirst target: Units and pack conversion. Quote cable by spool and fasteners by case. Confirm unit conversion and margin are visible through fulfillment.
Business valueDurable, documented margin can strengthen a business; buyers still assess risk and whether someone else can run the workflow.
The exact replacement cost depends on scope and usage. Bring your invoice and one frustrating task; we’ll map what can stay, what could be owned and the costs to verify.
What a safe switch means for industrial, mro, electrical & plumbing supply houses
Build an order and stock workspace around your sales process. Test purchasing, fulfillment and returns before connecting checkout or replacing a point of sale.
These terms appear in the same research category. Check your specific workflow before treating products as interchangeable.
industrial supply software
MRO distributor software
electrical supply house software
plumbing supply distributor management
supply house
MRO supplier
industrial distributor
electrical supply
plumbing supply
HVAC supply
fastener distributor
PVF distributor
janitorial supply
trade counter
will-call counter
A shortlist to investigate
Compare by the job you need done
Fit notes are our assessment of the linked vendor descriptions, not hands-on product reviews. Feature sources checked Oct 2, 2026; pricing records below retain their own dates.
Import customer accounts and price books, SKUs, units of measure and conversions, branch inventory, supplier lead times, open purchase orders, customer POs, open sales orders, delivery addresses and balances. Validate a sample across units, accounts and branches before publishing online availability.
Where a first build could stop
Inventory software does not guarantee supplier lead times, product suitability or regulatory compliance. Keep technical selection and substitutions under qualified review and confirm account-specific pricing, tax and delivery terms with the customer.
Workflow documentation checked Oct 2, 2026. Pricing tables elsewhere on this page retain their own capture dates. The demo scripts and migration guidance are our proposed evaluation method, not hands-on vendor reviews.
Now Commerce ↗ Vendor overview of wholesale online ordering.
What does the software cost?
For industrial, mro, electrical & plumbing supply houses, our worked example runs $679 a month, which is $8,148 a year. A website-related price point in the research is $280 a month; check whether it is a plan rate or a separate fee. 6 of 9 vendors have quote-only pricing in our research.
See the worked example: A single-branch, 12-person industrial supply house with a will-call counter and 150 trade accounts
Inventory and orders sit in something like Cin7 Core Standard at $349 a month for 5 users and 6,000 sales orders a year. Cin7 lists a B2B Portal but doesn't publish its price, so many houses buy one elsewhere: Now Commerce charges $280 a month for a customer portal and from $150 for a sales rep portal, less a $100 bundle discount. B2B Wave is $270 a month with 20 price lists on Pro.
What to keep
Keep the ERP. Multi-branch inventory, special pricing agreements, rebate accruals and EDI to buying groups are ERP jobs, and the audit won't go near them.
What to verify
Ask providers to demonstrate this workflow using your edge cases. Check which plan includes each step, what costs extra and how your records can be exported.
Prices are what each vendor publishes on its own pricing page, on the date shown. "Quote only" means the vendor doesn't publish prices. "Not verified" means we couldn't read a price off the vendor's own page, so we don't print one.
Questions owners ask
What makes industrial supply software different from a generic online store?
Contract pricing, buyer permissions, units of measure, branch availability, purchase orders, backorders and jobsite fulfillment are common requirements worth testing.
How can a portal avoid promising stock that is unavailable?
Define the inventory source of truth and test reservations, concurrent carts, branch transfers, incoming stock and order holds across every sales channel.
How much does distribution software cost for a small supply house?
Cin7 Core publishes three tiers: $349 a month for 5 users and 6,000 orders a year, $599 for 10 users and $1,199 for 15 users. The dedicated distribution ERPs, such as Epicor Prophet 21 and DDI System, are sold by quote.
What does a B2B customer portal cost?
Now Commerce charges $280 a month for its stand-alone B2B Customer Portal. B2B Wave's Pro plan is $270 a month with 20 price lists. Cin7 offers a B2B Portal add-on but doesn't publish the price.
Why does B2B Wave limit price lists?
Price lists are how B2B Wave meters its plans: 20 on Pro, up to 100 on Scale. For a distributor with customer-specific pricing, that limit matters more than products or orders, which are generous or unlimited.
Could software for industrial, mro, electrical & plumbing supply houses work on your terms?
Bring one workflow or software bill to a free 30-minute conversation. We’ll map what a coding AI and affordable hosting might cover, and what ownership would require.