Most managing directors at small manufacturers ask this question before they look at anything else: “How much does production planning software actually cost?” The honest answer: for a factory with 20 to 50 people, you’re typically looking at £10,000 to £25,000 per year for a proper manufacturing software system, depending on what modules you need and how many users require access. That figure includes user licences, the platform itself, and often some level of implementation support. One-off onboarding costs can add another £5,000 to £10,000 in the first year if you want structured training and configuration help.

The question isn’t really whether you can afford manufacturing software. It’s whether you can afford to keep running without it. Most SME manufacturers in the UK are losing far more than £25,000 per year to late deliveries, expediting costs, excess WIP, and time spent firefighting on the shop floor. The right production planning software pays for itself within months, not years.

When you first start looking at manufacturing software for small businesses in the UK, the pricing structures often feel deliberately opaque. Some vendors advertise “from £50 per user per month” on their website, which sounds affordable until you discover that doesn’t include the MES module, the planning tools, or integration support. Other providers make you book a demo just to find out their entry-level price, which typically means the software is aimed at much larger companies.

For a 20 to 50 person factory, you’re looking at a few different cost components:

User licences are charged per person who needs to access the system. Planning staff, supervisors, and sometimes shop floor operators all count as users. Most systems charge between £200 and £400 per user per year for SME-focused platforms. Some vendors tier pricing so bulk users (like operators scanning jobs on tablets) cost less than planning or admin users.

Platform or core licence fees cover the software infrastructure itself. This is typically an annual fee ranging from £3,000 to £12,000 depending on whether you’re on a standard or enterprise version. Smaller manufacturers often start on standard tiers and upgrade as they grow.

Implementation and onboarding costs are one-off charges in the first year. These cover configuration, training, and getting your first jobs and BOMs into the system. Costs range from £0 (if you’re happy to configure it yourself) to £15,000 for more complex setups or multi-site rollouts.

Add-on modules such as quality management, advanced scheduling, or IoT integration can add £1,000 to £5,000 per year depending on your requirements.

What makes comparison difficult is that vendors package these differently. One platform might charge £300 per user and include everything. Another charges £100 per user but then adds £8,000 for the platform licence and £6,000 for the planning module. The total cost can be similar, but it’s hard to compare until you’ve built a full quote.

Let’s use a realistic example. You run a 30-person CNC job shop in the Midlands. You’ve got five machines, a mix of turning and milling work, and you’re currently managing jobs on a whiteboard and spreadsheets. Delivery promises are made by the MD based on gut feel and workload guesses. The shop floor supervisor spends two hours every morning working out priorities and chasing missing paperwork.

At around £15,000 per year, you’d typically get:

• 30 user licences covering planners, supervisors, setters, and operators
• Core MRP and production planning software to schedule jobs, manage BOMs, and track materials
• Shop floor data capture so operators can clock on and off jobs using tablets or barcode scanners
• Real-time job tracking showing what’s on each machine, how long it’s been running, and what’s due next
• Basic reporting and dashboards for delivery performance, machine utilisation, and job profitability
• Structured onboarding including initial configuration, data migration, and user training

Within three months, that £15,000 investment typically eliminates most of the morning firefighting, cuts late deliveries by half, and gives you accurate visibility of shop floor capacity before you make promises to customers. The ROI usually shows up as recovered time (supervisors stop chasing paperwork), fewer expediting costs (because priorities are clear), and better on-time delivery (because you can see bottlenecks before they cause delays).

Most small manufacturers underestimate how much their current manual systems are costing them. Spreadsheets and whiteboards feel free, but they’re not. Here’s what we see in factories still running on manual processes:

Firefighting time. Production managers and supervisors typically spend 1 to 2 hours per day working out what should run next, chasing missing information, or dealing with priority changes. At £35 per hour fully loaded cost, that’s £9,000 to £18,000 per year in lost productive time from one person alone.

Late deliveries and expediting. When you can’t see what’s actually on the shop floor or how long jobs will take, you either over-promise and deliver late, or you under-promise and lose work. Late deliveries often lead to premium freight costs (£200 to £500 per urgent shipment) or customers withholding payment until issues are resolved. Three late jobs per month at £300 expediting cost each adds £10,800 per year.

Excess work in progress. Without proper visibility, jobs sit waiting between operations. Material gets ordered too early and ties up cash. WIP levels creep up because nobody has a single source of truth. Reducing WIP by even 20% in a small factory can release £20,000 to £50,000 in working capital.

Lost machine time. Operators waiting for paperwork, setters hunting for tools or programs, and machines sitting idle while someone works out what to run next all add up. Recovering even 30 minutes per day per machine (about 6% of an 8-hour shift) is worth £8,000 to £12,000 per year per machine in recovered capacity.

Add those together and you’re often looking at £50,000 to £100,000 per year in hidden costs. Manufacturing software that costs £15,000 per year and recovers even half of that delivers a 2x to 3x ROI in the first year.

DynamxMFG uses transparent, scalable pricing designed specifically for SME manufacturers. There are no hidden modules or surprise add-ons. You pay for user licences and the platform, and everything you need for production planning, scheduling, and shop floor control is included.

For a 20-person factory:

• 20 user licences at £300 per year each = £6,000
• Standard platform licence = £6,000 per year
• Total annual cost: £12,000
• Optional onboarding package: £7,500 (one-off, first year only)

For a 30-person factory:

• 30 user licences at £300 per year each = £9,000
• Standard platform licence = £6,000 per year
• Total annual cost: £15,000
• Optional onboarding package: £7,500 (one-off, first year only)

For a 50-person factory:

• 50 user licences at £300 per year each = £15,000
• Standard platform licence = £6,000 per year
• Total annual cost: £21,000
• Optional onboarding package: £7,500 (one-off, first year only)

Those figures include:

• Full MRP and production planning
• Real-time shop floor tracking and data capture
• Job costing and profitability analysis
• Quality management and traceability
• Integration with accounting systems (Xero, Sage, QuickBooks)
• Unlimited job and BOM entries
• Cloud hosting with automatic backups
• Ongoing support and updates

The optional onboarding package covers initial configuration, data migration from your existing systems, structured training for planners and supervisors, and support through your first production runs. Most factories find it’s worth the investment to get up and running faster, but if you’ve got the time and capability internally, you can configure the system yourself at no extra cost.

Larger operations or those needing multi-site coordination can upgrade to the Enterprise platform at £9,958 per year. This adds unified dashboards across locations, advanced planning algorithms, and enhanced API integration capabilities.

There are free manufacturing software options and low-cost tools that charge £10 to £30 per user per month. These work for very simple operations, but most small manufacturers outgrow them quickly.

The limitations usually show up in three areas:

Limited shop floor visibility. Cheaper tools focus on planning and inventory but don’t capture real-time job status on the shop floor. You still end up with supervisors chasing progress manually or relying on operators to update spreadsheets.

No job costing or profitability tracking. Knowing what’s due is one thing. Knowing whether you made or lost money on each job is another. Without accurate time capture and cost tracking, you’re quoting blind and can’t identify which customers or product types are unprofitable.

Poor integration and support. Low-cost platforms often struggle to integrate with other systems, meaning you’re still manually re-keying data between your MRP, accounting software, and customer systems. Support is typically email-only with slow response times, which becomes a problem when you’re stuck mid-production.

For factories with straightforward, repetitive production and no need for real-time tracking, simpler tools can work. But for CNC job shops, fabricators, or anyone dealing with custom orders and changing priorities, you’ll quickly find yourself needing the visibility and control that only a proper manufacturing execution system can provide.

It’s worth understanding how DynamxMFG pricing compares to other manufacturing software options available to small UK manufacturers.

Entry-level cloud MRP systems (like MRPeasy or Katana) typically charge £50 to £150 per user per month for all-in-one plans. For 30 users, that’s £18,000 to £54,000 per year. These platforms work well for planning and inventory management but often lack deep shop floor execution capabilities or require add-ons (Katana) for real-time tracking.

Mid-tier ERP platforms (like Sage or Access) usually start at £25,000 to £50,000 per year for SME manufacturers, including user licences and the manufacturing module. Implementation costs can add another £15,000 to £40,000. These systems are comprehensive but often slower to deploy and harder to configure for small teams.

Custom or legacy MES systems built by local integrators can cost £30,000 to £100,000 upfront plus annual support fees of £5,000 to £15,000. These give you exactly what you need but lock you into dependency on a single supplier and make upgrades expensive.

DynamxMFG sits between entry-level planning tools and full ERP systems. You get MES-level shop floor control and execution tracking (which most entry-level tools don’t provide) at pricing that’s closer to simple cloud MRP platforms. For a 30-person factory, £15,000 per year delivers capabilities that would typically cost £30,000+ with traditional providers.

Timing matters. Most small manufacturers wait too long and lose years of potential savings. The trigger point is usually when one or more of these situations becomes routine:

• You’re regularly missing delivery dates despite having machine capacity available
• The production manager or MD spends more time firefighting than planning
• Nobody can give you an accurate answer about what’s on the shop floor right now
• Job profitability is a mystery until the accountant closes the books weeks later
• Customer queries about job status take hours to answer because information is scattered
• Growth is being constrained not by demand or equipment, but by operational chaos

If two or three of those apply, you’re past the point where spreadsheets and whiteboards can cope. The cost of delay is higher than the cost of the software.

The right time to implement production planning software is before you’re drowning, not after. Factories that implement systems proactively (when they’ve got 20 to 30 people and are planning to grow) have smoother rollouts and faster ROI than those that wait until they’ve got 50+ people and are already in crisis mode.

• Manufacturing software for a 20-50 person factory typically costs £10,000 to £25,000 per year, including user licences, platform fees, and support.
• The hidden costs of manual systems (firefighting time, late deliveries, excess WIP, lost machine capacity) often exceed £50,000 per year in small factories.
• DynamxMFG pricing is transparent and scalable: £300 per user per year plus a £6,000 annual platform licence, with optional onboarding at £7,500 one-off.
• Entry-level planning tools are cheaper but lack real-time shop floor control, while traditional ERP systems cost 2x to 3x more and take longer to implement.
• Most small manufacturers see ROI within 3 to 6 months through recovered time, fewer late deliveries, and better capacity utilisation.
• The best time to invest is before operational chaos forces your hand—proactive implementation delivers faster returns and smoother adoption.

DynamxMFG gives you production control without the enterprise price tag. For a 30-person CNC shop or fabrication business, you get real-time job tracking, adaptive scheduling, and full shop floor visibility for around £15,000 per year, comparable to entry-level planning tools but with MES-level execution control.

The system captures job status as it happens, not hours or days later. Operators clock on and off jobs using tablets or barcode scanners. Supervisors see live updates on what’s running, what’s waiting, and what’s overdue. Planners can simulate scenarios and see the impact of priority changes before they release work to the floor.

Within 90 days, most factories see measurable improvements: fewer late jobs, clearer priorities for operators, less time spent chasing information, and better visibility of bottlenecks before they cause delays. You’re not replacing your entire operation overnight, you’re adding the control layer that lets your existing team work more effectively.

The pricing is transparent and scales as you grow. No surprise add-ons, no per-module charges, no complex tiering. You know exactly what you’re paying and what you’re getting.

Use our free ROI calculator to see potential savings in your factory. Enter your team size, labour costs, and operating hours to calculate estimated payback period and annual savings based on real-world efficiency gains at similar manufacturers.