Verelios LabsBy Sahil Chauhan · Founder & CEO, Verelios Labs · Published
The short answer: in 2026 an Indian SME will pay ₹3,000 to ₹25,000 per month for a subscription ERP, or ₹1,00,000 to ₹10,00,000 once for a custom build. Both numbers are close to meaningless on their own, because the licence fee is rarely the expensive part. What actually decides the bill is how far your process sits from the software's assumptions.
This post is written from the build side — we quote custom ERP work for manufacturers and traders — so read the comparison knowing where we sit. We have tried to be fair to the subscription option, because for a lot of businesses it is genuinely the right answer.
The two pricing models, side by side
| Subscription ERP | Custom build | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence / build | ₹3,000 – ₹25,000 / month | ₹1,00,000 – ₹10,00,000 once |
| Scales with | Users and modules — every hire adds to the bill | Nothing. Headcount growth is free |
| Time to live | 2–8 weeks if your process fits | 6–12 weeks for a multi-module system |
| Fit | Excellent where your process matches the product | Built around the rules you actually run |
| Where the data lives | The vendor's shared platform | Your own hosting account |
| If the vendor raises prices | You pay, or you migrate | Not applicable — you own the code |
What a full implementation really costs
Across the Indian market, an ERP implementation for a small or mid-sized business commonly lands somewhere between ₹60,000 and ₹20,00,000 — an almost useless range until you split it by size. For a manufacturing SME running 20 to 40 users, first-year totals of ₹8,00,000 to ₹12,00,000 are normal, dropping to ₹2,50,000 to ₹4,00,000 a year afterwards. Payback typically arrives somewhere around month 15 to 18.
Notice that the subscription is a minority of that figure. The rest is the work of making the software match your business, and it gets quoted separately or not at all.
The five costs that never appear in the first quote
- Data migration — ₹15,000 to ₹1,00,000. Getting years of Tally ledgers, Excel stock registers and a decade of party masters into a new system, without losing history or duplicating parties. This is almost always underestimated.
- Configuration and workflow setup. Approval chains, godown structures, tax rules, document numbering. Cheap on paper, slow in practice, because most of these rules have never been written down anywhere.
- Customisation. The moment the product cannot express your incentive formula or your job-work flow, you are paying a consultant by the day. This is where subscription ERP budgets most often break.
- Training and the productivity dip. Two to six weeks where your team is slower than before. Real cost, never invoiced.
- Integration. Tally sync, the GST portal, your bank's file format, the barcode scanners on the shop floor.
The break-even maths
This is the calculation worth doing before you sign anything. Take a business with 25 users on a mid-tier subscription at ₹12,000 a month:
| Year | Subscription, cumulative | Custom build, cumulative |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | ₹1,44,000 + setup | ₹3,50,000 |
| Year 2 | ₹2,88,000 + | ₹3,50,000 |
| Year 3 | ₹4,32,000 + | ₹3,80,000 |
| Year 5 | ₹7,20,000 + | ₹4,40,000 |
Crossover lands in year three, and earlier if you are hiring — because the subscription line grows with headcount and the build does not. Two honest caveats: the custom column assumes modest hosting and occasional changes, and a build that goes wrong can cost far more than either column suggests.
So the rule is not “custom is cheaper”. It is: below roughly ten users, or if your process is genuinely standard, subscribe. Above that, or if your team already exports to Excel every month to get the report the owner wants, a build starts making sense.
When a subscription ERP is the right call
- Fewer than ten people will use it.
- You need it live this month, not next quarter.
- Your process is close to standard — straightforward trading, single location, no manufacturing.
- You would rather have a predictable monthly cost than a capital outlay.
When a custom build is the right call
- You run contract, piece-rate or job-work alongside regular operations.
- Multiple units or godowns with genuinely different processes.
- Somebody exports to Excel every month to produce the one report that matters.
- Your per-user bill has become a real line item and it climbs every time you hire.
- You want the source code and the data on infrastructure you control.
What we charge, for reference
A focused single-module custom ERP — inventory plus purchase, say, or production tracking — starts at ₹99,999. A full multi-module system covering inventory, manufacturing, purchase, sales, accounting and reporting typically lands between ₹3,00,000 and ₹10,00,000, depending on how many modules and integrations it has to carry.
Fixed quote before any code is written, milestone payments of 30/30/40, hosting cost shown up front, and the source code in a repository under your own organisation. If you need something narrower to start with, billing and inventory or a custom CRM is often the better first module — and either can grow into the full system later.
Questions worth asking any ERP vendor
- What is the all-in first-year figure, including migration, configuration and training? Not the licence. The total.
- What happens to my data if I leave? Ask for the export format in writing.
- Show me this exact workflow. Bring your most awkward process to the demo, not a simple one.
- Who does the Tally and GST integration, and is it quoted?
- What does year two cost? Renewals and support contracts have a way of arriving later.
Want a real number for your business? Tell us your unit count, roughly how many people would use the system, and what breaks at month-end. We will send a fixed quote and a module-by-module breakdown — free, with no upfront payment. Start here.
Based in Kanpur? We map shop-floor processes in person — see ERP software in Kanpur, or read our roundup of ERP software companies in Kanpur.
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