--- title: Avoiding the Exorbitant Cost of a New Third-Party Supply Chain Planning Software (March 2025) description: Implementing a new ERP purchasing system or supply chain planning system for a wholesale distributor is expensive. While the price tags can be high, the sticker price isn’t the only cost to keep in mind. image: https://thrivetech.com/hubfs/Screenshot%202024-10-22%20095603-1.png --- [![ClickCease](https://monitor.clickcease.com)](https://www.clickcease.com) [![ClickCease](https://monitor.clickcease.com/conversions/conversions.aspx?value=0)](https://www.clickcease.com) # Avoiding the Exorbitant Cost of a New Third-Party Supply Chain Planning Software --- Implementing a new ERP purchasing system or supply chain planning system for a wholesale distributor is expensive. While the price tags can be high, the sticker price isn’t the only cost to keep in mind, as there are additional risks involved with a new supply chain planning system that can be costly in their own right. Third-party supply chain planning systems have two main components of cost. First, there’s an implementation cost, which typically starts at around $20,000 to $50,000 for smaller wholesalers. For larger wholesalers, though, that can be $100,000 or more. Then there’s the monthly fee that wholesalers have to pay. These costs start at between $3,000 to $6,000 per month for smaller wholesalers and can cost larger wholesalers $20,000 to $30,000 per month. There are low-end supply chain planning systems – Unleashed, Cin7, Valogix, Netstock, Slimstock, StockIQ, for example – that are on the low end of these cost ranges and these solutions may improve inventory for very small wholesalers with less than 5 branches. But there are weaknesses within these solutions given the simplicity of the math they were built upon. For example, these systems use a simple rate of sales calculation instead of an actual forecast to base all of the inventory calculations on.  Let’s break this down. Say an item at a certain location sells three units in the last 12 months, and all three of the units sold 11 months ago to one customer. The inventory purchasing systems that use a simplistic rate of sales may calculate rate of sales at 12/365 = .0328 units per day, which may want to hold a pack there. The problem is that you might not actually want to hold a pack of that SKU at that location given that the sales were 11 months ago to one smaller customer (not a Tier 1 client). The cost of a third-party supply chain planning software doesn’t just impact the initial setup and monthly cost. In fact, it can have reverberations throughout your company. Take, for instance, your IT team. A third-party supply chain planning system receives data from your ERP system daily for your item master, daily stock status, purchase orders, sales history, and more. If you are not on one of the most common ERP systems, this can take weeks – if not more – to build this interface with a heavy involvement from your IT team. More than 60 percent of supply chain–planning IT transformations take more time or money than expected or don’t achieve anticipated business outcomes, per research done by [McKinsey.](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/the-winning-recipe-for-transforming-advanced-planning-systems) If there are upgrades with your ERP system or changes to the data settings, it can break the interface to your supply chain planning system, requiring a consistent level of troubleshooting from the aforementioned IT team. The supply chain planning system will provide some canned reports but if your senior managers and operations team and purchasing team would like some custom reports, your supply chain planning vendor may charge you per report. Otherwise, your IT team has to build these reports. According to [Pazago](https://blog.pazago.com/post/cost-of-supply-chain-management-software), the integration cost when it comes to implementing a supply chain management software can range from $25,000-$50,000 for smaller companies and $100,000-$500,000 for larger organizations. An underrated cost of implementing a new third-party supply chain planning system is the impact that it has on your buyers – especially when it comes to reduced productivity. Implementing a new system causes [disruption](https://thrivetech.com/taking-stock/disruption) for your buyers. They are familiar with the present system that they have, and learning a new system requires training, retraining, and yes, even more training. Thrive’s experience is that wholesalers rarely get all of their buyers to use the new system. Experienced buyers often distrust the new system, instead preferring to use their own analysis and gut feel. After the initial vendor training, who is doing this training? Your other existing buyers, of course, which takes away even more productivity from your employees. And after time, there can be attrition or just memory loss, where less and less functionality is being utilized from the large supply chain planning investment. ## Similar posts insights ### [5 Signs You Need to Optimize Your ERP System](https://thrivetech.com/taking-stock/5-signs-you-need-to-optimize-your-erp-system) In the News ### [Thrive Technologies Launches Enlighten® Digital Analysis System to Help Distributors Identify Specific Causes of Lost Sales and Dead Stock](https://thrivetech.com/taking-stock/press-releases/enlighten-pr) insights ### [Part 1: Why Your Distribution Forecasting System Is Stuck in 1975](https://thrivetech.com/taking-stock/part-1-why-your-distribution-forecasting-system-is-stuck-in-1975) ### Get customized insights straight to your inbox Sign up for our monthly Taking Stock newsletter to receive actionable insights for wholesaler success. ## Subscribe * indicates required First Name * Last Name * TITLE * Company * Email Address *     ![](https://px.ads.linkedin.com/collect/?pid=6925994&fmt=gif) ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "Organization", "address" : { "@type" : "PostalAddress", "addressLocality" : "Marietta", "addressRegion" : "GA", "postalCode" : "30064", "streetAddress" : "707 Whitlock Ave. Suite H13" }, "contactPoint" : [ { "@type" : "ContactPoint", "contactType" : "Customer Support", "email" : "info@thrivetech.com", "telephone" : "770-222-8599" } ], "description" : "We solve the persistent inventory blind spots of SKU-intensive companies with patent-pending inventory optimization technologies that work with your ERP to minimize unpredictability and react more quickly to change.", "hasOfferCatalog" : { "@type" : "OfferCatalog", "itemListElement" : [ { "@type" : "Offer", "itemOffered" : { "@type" : "Service", "description" : "You rely on your ERP to help you manage it all. And that works OK, at best, for high-demand, predictable SKU items, but for low-demand, unpredictable SKUs, that’s another story. It doesn't keep key parts in stock or buys too much of SKUs that are no longer selling because their sales are not predictable. Our inventory optimization software targets what constrains the functionality of your current ERP: unpredictable demand from low-selling SKUs, and slow response time to demand and supply changes. These are your inventory blind spots, and we can help you address them – simply.", "name" : "ERP Inventory Optimizers", "url" : "https://thrivetech.com/inventory-optimization" } }, { "@type" : "Offer", "itemOffered" : { "@type" : "Service", "description" : "Gain Control of Unpredictable Inventory Demand With Thermostock. Automatically identify your blind spots that result from unpredictable low-selling SKUs with our patent-pending AI technology Thermostock and prevent up to 90% of your dead stock.", "name" : "Thermostock AI Inventory Demand Solution", "url" : "https://thrivetech.com/thermostock" } }, { "@type" : "Offer", "itemOffered" : { "@type" : "Service", "description" : "Improve your forecast and lead-time accuracy with Tiltmeter®, our patent-pending technology that automatically detects demand and supply changes faster than your ERP. Tiltmeter increases the speed your existing purchasing system reacts to demand and supply changes for hundreds of thousands of SKUs across multiple locations. The rapid alert system in Tiltmeter automatically alerts your team and requests validation of significant changes. Buyers can then adjust inventory settings based on the new forecasts to reduce lost sales and dead stock.", "name" : "Tiltmeter Demand and Supply Chain Detection Software", "url" : "https://thrivetech.com/tiltmeter" } }, { "@type" : "Offer", "itemOffered" : { "@type" : "Service", "description" : "Improve your inventory performance and profitability with our digital purchasing system that takes the guesswork out of forecasting and replenishment.", "name" : "Enterprise Purchasing System for Wholesale Distributors", "url" : "https://thrivetech.com/forecasting-and-replenishment" } }, { "@type" : "Offer", "itemOffered" : { "@type" : "Service", "description" : "An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system integration is all it takes to optimize your inventory blind spots for peak performance. Thrive Technologies integrates with many popular ERP systems delivering monthly data exposing your inventory blind spots, enabling you to take quick action to improve performance.", "name" : "ERP Integrations", "url" : "https://thrivetech.com/erp-integration" } }, { "@type" : "Offer", "itemOffered" : { "@type" : "Service", "description" : "We partner with AWS (Amazon Web Service) to provide innovative software-as-a-service (SaaS) inventory optimization technologies for SKU-intensive companies. AWS services offer unparalleled reliability, flexibility, and scalability to enhance the value of our AI technologies for our clients.", "name" : "Secure and Scalable Digital Inventory Optimization Technologies", "url" : "https://thrivetech.com/our-datacenter" } } ], "name" : "Inventory and ERP Optimization Software" }, "knowsAbout" : [ "Inventory Optimization", "Inventory Optimization Software", "Inventory Control", "Dead Stock Prevention", "ERP Planning", "ERP Optimization", "Stockout reduction", "Enterprise Purchasing System", "ERP Inventory Optimizer", "Demand Inventory Forecasting", "Inventory Intelligence", "Supply Chain Consulting", "Sales and Operations Planning" ], "logo" : "https://23118886.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/23118886/Thrive_Logo_FINAL_Logo_FullColor.png", "name" : "Thrive Technologies", "sameAs" : [ "https://www.linkedin.com/company/thrive-technologies", "https://www.facebook.com/ThriveTechnologies" ], "url" : "https://thrivetech.com" } ``` ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Thrive Technologies", "url" : "https://thrivetech.com/taking-stock/author/thrive-technologies" }, "dateModified" : "2025-03-04T18:10:15.271Z", "datePublished" : "2025-03-04T18:10:15.000Z", "headline" : "Avoiding the Exorbitant Cost of a New Third-Party Supply Chain Planning Software (March 2025)", "image" : [ "https://thrivetech.com/hubfs/Screenshot%202024-10-22%20095603-1.png" ], "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://thrivetech.com/taking-stock/avoiding-the-exorbitant-cost-of-a-new-third-party-supply-chain-planning-software-march-2025", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://thrivetech.com/hubfs/Thrive_Logo_FINAL_Logo_FullColor.png" }, "name" : "Thrive Technologies" } } ```