Both MRPeasy and Cin7 are well-regarded platforms for Australian SMEs. But they're built for meaningfully different use cases — and choosing the wrong one is an expensive mistake.
Two of the most commonly considered platforms for Australian manufacturers and distributors are MRPeasy and Cin7. Both are well-regarded, both are priced for SMEs, and both claim to solve the same problem: managing inventory and production in a growing business. But they're built for meaningfully different use cases, and choosing the wrong one can cost you significant time and money.
This isn't a sponsored comparison. We work with both platforms and have real implementation experience with each. Here's our honest take on where each one excels — and where it doesn't.
MRPeasy is a cloud-based ERP platform built specifically for small and medium-sized manufacturers and distributors. Its core strength is production management — bills of materials, work orders, production scheduling, job costing, and inventory driven by manufacturing demand.
MRPeasy is used by businesses that make things. If your operation involves raw materials going in one end, production activity in the middle, and finished goods coming out the other end, MRPeasy is built around that workflow. The user interface is clean and the learning curve is manageable — something that can't be said of every ERP on the market.
Cin7 (which absorbed the DEAR Inventory platform in 2022) is an inventory and order management system built around multi-channel commerce. It's designed for businesses selling through multiple channels — Shopify, Amazon, wholesale B2B portals, retail POS — and managing the inventory complexity that comes with that.
Cin7 does include basic manufacturing functionality, but production planning is not its core strength. Where it excels is purchase, sales, and fulfilment workflows, particularly for businesses with high order volume across many channels.
If your complexity sits on the production side — you have BOMs with multiple components, you run production jobs, and you need to know what something actually cost to make — MRPeasy is purpose-built for that. It handles multi-level manufacturing well and the MRP calculation engine is genuinely useful.
If your complexity is on the sales and fulfilment side — managing orders from multiple channels, dropshipping, or running a distribution business without significant manufacturing — Cin7 may suit you better. Its channel integrations are more mature than MRPeasy's.
The key question is: where does your operational complexity actually sit? If you manufacture or assemble products — even relatively simple ones — and you need to manage production scheduling, BOMs, and job costing, MRPeasy is the stronger fit. Its production management module is far more mature than Cin7's.
If you're primarily a distributor or retailer selling through many channels with high order volume but limited manufacturing, Cin7 is probably the better choice for your situation.
Most of the Australian manufacturers we work with find that MRPeasy hits the sweet spot for their needs — it has enough functionality to manage complex production without the implementation cost and complexity of an enterprise platform.
See how we implement MRPeasy for Australian manufacturers, including what's included end-to-end:
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