---
title: Cin7 is overkill for wholesale ordering
Metadescription: Cin7 Core starts at $349 a month and bills the B2B portal as a quote-only add-on. What a small producer who only takes wholesale orders actually needs.
author: Dan Edwards
author_role: Founder
author_url: https://danedwardsdeveloper.com
author_linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-edwards-developer
published: 2026-08-26
updated: 2026-09-27
---

Token estimate: ~2,300

# Cin7 is overkill for wholesale ordering

Cin7 is inventory and order management across sales channels, and it is good at that job. It is the wrong shape for a small producer who bought it to do one thing - let trade customers place their own orders. Cin7 Core starts at $349 a month for five users, the B2B portal that carries those orders is a quote-only add-on on top, and the inventory platform underneath it goes unused. Where a trade order desk is the whole requirement, a [wholesale customer portal](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/wholesale-customer-portal) sold as one product does that job for less. Anyone running stock across Amazon, Shopify and a warehouse should stay on Cin7.

By **[Dan Edwards](https://wholesalehandler.com/about)**, Founder.

## Cin7 Core's published prices start at $349 a month

Cin7 publishes three Core tiers and quotes the fourth. Figures are from Cin7's pricing page, in USD and excluding taxes.

| Plan | Price a month | Included |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Core Standard | $349 | 5 users, 6,000 orders a year, 2 integrations |
| Core Pro | $599 | 10 users, 24,000 orders a year, 4 integrations |
| Core Advanced | $1,199 | 15 users, 120,000 orders a year, 6 integrations |
| Omni | Quote only | 8 users, 5 integrations, flexible order volume |

Extra users, extra integrations and extra order volume are all purchasable on every tier, and none of those rates is published. Several pricing directories still show Core Advanced at $999 and describe the ladder as a per-user rate; Cin7's own pricing page and Capterra both show $1,199, and the tiers include a user count rather than charging by seat.

The entry point is the number that matters to a small producer. $349 a month buys five user accounts and six thousand orders a year, which is a sensible floor for a business syncing stock across several sales channels and a poor fit for one that sends thirty cases of bread to twelve cafes a week.

## Cin7 Core and Cin7 Omni are still two separate products

The split is live. **Cin7 Core** is the former DEAR Systems, rebranded in 2022, and is the line with published prices. **Cin7 Omni** is the enterprise product, absorbed Orderhive after the 2021 acquisition, and is quote-gated. Core is where a small producer lands.

Cin7's own positioning reverses the usual assumption about which is bigger: Core carries the deeper manufacturing support, including multi-level bills of materials and production jobs, while Omni handles a simplified manufacturing process. Omni is not Core with more of everything.

## The B2B portal is an add-on module, licensed per portal

Cin7's B2B online store FAQ states that both Core and Omni offer B2B portal functionality and that "it is an add-on module". Cin7's pricing page lists it beside Point of Sale, RMA, MRP, advanced warehouse management, forecasting, the API and premium support, and every item in that list is quote-only. A licence is required per portal, so a second portal for a different customer group is a second licence.

The trade ordering page sits outside the $349 and has no published price. Onboarding is bought separately too, in group, one-to-one or partner-led packages, also unpriced, and non-refundable once the work starts.

Several things in the portal land squarely on wholesale. A minimum and maximum order amount can be set per order, shown to the customer as a notice at the top of the screen, and a minimum and maximum order quantity can be set per listed product. Up to ten price tiers exist, with per-customer custom prices overriding them. Sales reps invited into the portal do not count against the Core user licences, so a field team does not inflate the seat count.

What is not documented as a portal setting is a time-based ordering cutoff. Cin7's delivery scheduling is a per-location calendar of days and timeslots for scheduling delivery tasks, which is internal dispatch capacity rather than a rule that closes Friday's orders at noon on Thursday. For a producer whose whole week turns on that rule, [how to stop wholesale customers ordering after the cutoff](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/how-to-stop-wholesale-customers-ordering-after-the-cutoff) covers what the rule has to do.

## The inventory platform is what the price is for

Cin7 earns its cost on the half an order desk leaves untouched. Stock synced across Amazon, Shopify, eBay, Walmart and TikTok Shop from one record. Purchase orders and the supplier side. Bills of materials, assembly and MRP. Warehouse management and barcode scanning. Live accounting sync to Xero and QuickBooks. Unlimited inventory locations on every tier.

A business with stock moving through retail, a marketplace and a warehouse at once has a real problem that only a platform of that size solves, and swapping it for an ordering portal would be a downgrade. The question is only whether that describes the business, or whether the platform was bought to produce an order form.

## Wholesale Handler does not track inventory across channels

The gaps are the reason it costs less. Wholesale Handler has no multi-channel inventory sync, no marketplace or e-commerce integrations, no purchase orders or supplier records, no bills of materials, assembly or MRP, no warehouse management or barcode scanning, and no point of sale. Accounting is a CSV export of invoice line items with customisable columns and date ranges, not a live sync. Stock tracking exists only as an optional per-product quantity with restock notifications.

If any line in that list is load-bearing, Cin7 is the right answer.

## A flat monthly fee covers the ordering side

What Wholesale Handler does is the order desk, sold as one product with nothing gated behind a quote. Customers sign in and order 24/7. Standing orders repeat on a weekly, two-weekly, three-weekly or four-weekly cadence and can be paused, skipped or updated. Order profiles bundle delivery days, an ordering cutoff that can vary per delivery day, a maximum lead time, delivery charges and a minimum spend, then get assigned per customer. Named price lists give each account its own prices. Orders roll up into a consolidated production schedule, PDF packing slips and invoices, and a payment tracking timeline.

The price is a flat monthly fee. No per-user charge, no per-order fee, no commission on order value, and no separately licensed portal module - the ordering portal is the product. [Flat-fee wholesale ordering software](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/flat-fee-wholesale-ordering-software) explains why the flat shape matters once order volume grows. It is free up to 3 customers, and there is a working demo, with no signup and no card.

Where the answer to "what is Cin7 doing for us" is "customers place their own orders", the platform is being paid to produce a form. [Wholesale ordering software without ERP integration](https://wholesalehandler.com/articles/wholesale-ordering-software-without-erp-integration) covers running that order desk as its own system.

## Q&A

**Q: Is Cin7 bad software?**
A: No. Cin7 is a capable inventory and order management platform and it is priced for the job it does, which is keeping stock accurate across multiple sales channels, warehouses and a supplier side. It is only mismatched when a business bought it purely to take wholesale orders and uses none of the inventory machinery.

**Q: Does the Cin7 price include the B2B ordering portal?**
A: No. Cin7's own B2B online store FAQ describes the portal as an add-on module on both Cin7 Core and Cin7 Omni, and the pricing page lists it among the quote-only add-ons with no published rate. A licence is needed per portal, so running a second portal for a different customer group costs again.

**Q: Does Cin7 have a free trial?**
A: Yes. Cin7 Core offers a fourteen-day free trial with no credit card required at signup, and the trial account is deleted at the end of the fourteen days if no subscription follows. Add-ons, billing cycle and an onboarding package are all chosen at the point of subscribing.

**Q: Can Wholesale Handler replace Cin7?**
A: Only for the ordering half. It takes trade orders, applies per-customer prices, enforces cutoffs and minimum spends, and produces production schedules, packing slips and invoices. It has no multi-channel inventory sync, no purchase orders, no manufacturing, no warehouse management and no point of sale, so a business relying on any of those should stay on Cin7.

**Q: How much does Wholesale Handler cost?**
A: A flat monthly price for the whole product, with no per-user charge, no per-order or transaction fee and no commission on order value. The ordering portal is not a separately licensed module, and the demo runs without a signup or a card.