AssembloERP
Ask a vendor "what does it cost" and you will get a per-month, per-user number. That number is real, and it is roughly half the story.
Below is the model we use when we scope a build, with the lines most quotes leave out. Figures are for a manufacturing or trading business doing Rs 3-10 crore, with 10-30 people who touch the system.
The six lines in a real ERP budget
| Line | Typical range (India) | When it bites |
|---|---|---|
| Software subscription | Rs 2,000-8,000/month | Every month, forever |
| Implementation & configuration | Rs 15,000-1,50,000 one-time | Weeks 1-6 |
| Data migration & master clean-up | Rs 10,000-60,000 one-time | Before go-live |
| Training (and re-training) | Rs 5,000-25,000, then annually | Go-live, and after every resignation |
| Customisation / integration | Rs 0-2,00,000+ | Month 2-6, once reality lands |
| Maintenance / AMC / upgrades | 15-25% of licence, on-premise | Year 2 onward |
A three-year total, side by side
Same business, three routes. Rounded, and deliberately unflattering to nobody.
| Spreadsheets + accounting tool | Legacy on-premise ERP | Cloud ERP, custom-configured | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software, 3 years | ~Rs 25,000 | Rs 18,000 + AMC ~Rs 16,000 | Rs 6,799/mo → ~Rs 2,44,000 |
| Server / infrastructure | - | Rs 60,000-1,20,000 | Included |
| Implementation + migration | - | Rs 50,000-1,00,000 | Rs 25,000-75,000 |
| Customisation | Endless manual work | Often billed per change | Scoped in the build |
| The cost nobody invoices | Owner's evenings, reconciling | IT dependency for every report | Discipline: someone must own data |
The spreadsheet column looks cheapest and usually is not, because the cost is paid in decisions made on stale numbers. That does not show up on any invoice, which is precisely why it survives so long.
Four pricing traps to check before you sign
Per-user creep
A Rs 500/user/month plan is fine at five users and Rs 1,50,000 a year at twenty-five. Ask what happens when you add a shift. Workspace pricing — one price, unlimited or generous users — is usually kinder to a growing shop floor.
Module unbundling
The demo shows everything. The quote covers three modules. Get the list of what is actually included, in writing, and check whether the module you will need in month four is priced separately.
The upgrade wall
Common with on-premise: version 9 works, version 10 costs a project. Ask specifically who pays for the next major version.
Support that is a queue
Free support that answers in four days is not free. Ask for the response commitment in hours, and who you actually reach on a dispatch-day problem.
Where we sit, since you will ask
We publish our plan prices rather than hiding them: Starter and Growth are listed in rupees for Indian customers and dollars elsewhere. What we do not do is pretend the software is the whole cost. Every build is scoped on a call first, because the honest number depends on how clean your masters are and how much of your process is genuinely unusual.
If you want the cheaper end of that range, the lever is not negotiation. It is clean item masters before you start. Nothing else moves the implementation figure as much.
