Bill of Materials Software: What to Buy and What It Costs

Bill of materials software ties the parts list to stock and cost. When you record a build, it deducts the components, adds the finished product to stock and prices the batch from current component costs. An Excel sheet holds the same list, but nothing in it reacts when stock or prices change.

Four terms decide how useful a tool is:

• Multi-level BOM: a product made of subassemblies that are themselves made of parts. The software expands it into the raw parts needed.
• Revision: a numbered version of a BOM, so you know which version built which batch.
• Where-used: a list of every product that contains a given part, so a supplier or price change shows its full reach.
• Scrap allowance: extra material you expect to lose to cutting or rejects.

Our recommendation: Excel is enough while you make a handful of products from flat lists that rarely change. Once components are shared across products, or stock must move on every build, a spreadsheet becomes the place where errors hide.

This page covers manufacturing BOMs. The cybersecurity term "software bill of materials" is a different subject, explained in the FAQ.

Buy inventory software with a BOM when stock must move on every build and your products have a few levels of subassemblies. Choose an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system when you also need routings, scheduling and capacity planning. Choose product lifecycle management (PLM) software when computer-aided design (CAD) driven engineering changes drive the BOM.

This is our recommendation, by situation:

In our view, most small and mid-size manufacturers sit in the second row. Our guide on when you need an ERP for inventory covers the move to the third.

No. A kit bundles items you already stock into one sellable package. A bill of materials defines a new finished item built from components and costed as a build. Use a kit (kitting, meaning bundling items into one sellable pack) at order time, and a BOM when you assemble ahead and hold the finished product.

Tools name these ideas differently. Some inventory tools separate kits, which group existing items for sale without any physical assembly, from assemblies, where you physically assemble a single item from components. Whatever a tool calls the feature, check what recording a build does to stock, using check 1 below. A working assembly should consume the components and increase the stock of the finished item.

BOMs break because a list is easy to store and hard to change safely. A BOM in use is referenced by open orders, parent products and cost reports. A tool must let you revise it, move parent products to the right version and refresh cost. Weak tools fail at least one of those three.

Our eight-point test below catches all three failures:

• Locked after use: the tool refuses edits once a BOM has transactions. Check 2 finds this.
• Stale cost: a parent product keeps an old component price. Check 3 finds this.
• Parent ignores the new version: a product containing a revised subassembly keeps building from the old one. Check 4 finds this.

Here is a worked example. The numbers are ours, chosen to show the arithmetic, not market data. The formula is: requirement = quantity per unit × (1 + scrap allowance) × units built.

The batch costs ₹82,120, or ₹410.60 per unit. If the driver rises to ₹110, the batch costs ₹85,120, or ₹425.60 per unit. A parent BOM still showing ₹95 under-quotes by ₹15 a unit, which is ₹3,000 on this batch.

As of October 2026, five users cost between $150 and $655 a month across six published plans that include a BOM. Prices are US dollars from each vendor's own price page. The $655 is our subscription only, because each user also needs a Salesforce licence, bought from Salesforce. We publish this page, and our Advance plan is one of the six compared.

Our working: 5 × $30 = $150; 5 × $49 = $245; 5 × $69 = $345; 5 × $90 = $450; $499 + (3 × $52) = $655. Over a year, five users on Advance cost 12 × $655 = $7,860 before Salesforce licences.

Read the table with these points in mind:

• Salesforce licences. As of October 2026, Salesforce's India pricing page lists its five paid Sales Cloud editions in US dollars, from US$25 to US$550 per user per month. The lowest edition is billed monthly or annually and the others annually. Which licence type your users need depends on your Salesforce setup, so confirm it with Salesforce and with us.
• The AppExchange figure. As of October 2026, the Salesforce AppExchange listing for Arka Inventory shows "Starting at $79/User/Month". Bills of Material sit on our Advance plan, so use the Advance figures here and ask us to confirm the total for your user count.
• Per-seat versus flat. $299 ÷ $49 is about 6.1. On listed monthly prices, MRPeasy Starter is cheaper through six users ($294) and Katana's listed price is cheaper from seven ($343 against $299).
• "From" and billing. Katana's "from" price is before add-ons and extra locations. MRPeasy gives one month free on annual billing.
• Records count. OpenBOM includes 2,000 records free and charges $100 a month, billed yearly, up to 5,000 records. Five Team seats plus that tier come to $250.

For a wider view across inventory tools, see our guide to inventory management software cost.

Take your three most awkward BOMs into every demo, including one with subassemblies, and run the same eight checks. Each has a clear pass and fail. A tool that fails check 3 will misprice orders, and one that fails check 2 or 4 cannot show which version built a batch. The thresholds are our recommendation.

Score every vendor on the same BOMs and compare the totals, not the feature lists.

We built Arka Inventory 100% native on Salesforce, meaning it is built to run inside Salesforce itself. Each user signs in with a Salesforce login, and Salesforce licences are bought from Salesforce and priced separately from our subscription. Our Bills of Material feature lets you create standard and order-based BOMs for multi-component products, check material availability against each BOM, plan purchases, and track consumption and production.

You also get product-wise costing. Teams that need to trace materials by batch add lot and serial tracking, which is on our Enterprise plan as of October 2026. Read more on our Bills of Material feature page, and see our guide to manufacturing inventory software for how BOMs fit the wider picture.

Bills of Material, production and kitting start on our Advance plan. The cost section above has the plan price and the Salesforce licence note. As of October 2026, Salesforce AppExchange lists Arka Inventory at 4.8 stars from 46 reviews. If your products need revision history or multi-level structures, ask us about them before you decide.

See Arka Inventory pricing, or book a demo and bring one of your BOMs.