Build or Buy Assortment Planning and Open-to-Buy on Shopify?
Assortment planning and open-to-buy on Shopify is a BUILD decision for merchants above $20M: the three App Store apps that name open-to-buy carry 12, 0 and 7 reviews (verified Sep 2026). Toolio has no App Store listing and quotes by demo. Stocky, Shopify's only forecasting app, ended on 2026-08-31 with no native open-to-buy replacement. A warehouse OTB model feeding a governed planning sheet costs $20,000–$50,000 (Deploi estimate, illustrative).
Your profile — see how the verdict shifts
- Confidence
- Medium — Checked the App Store's inventory-planning listings for open-to-buy features: Cogsy (4.9★, 12 reviews), Lila (0 reviews) and Automyze (5.0★, 7 reviews) name OTB or demand planning, and none has reached 15 reviews (verified Sep 2026). Toolio's own App Store partner page lists 0 apps and both of its pricing pages route to a contact form. Shopify's help confirms Stocky stopped being available after 2026-08-31, and Shopify's own open-to-buy guide is an educational article, not a feature. The absence of a proven mid-market app is established; the build effort band is a Deploi estimate.
- Reference scenario
- $20M–$100M GMV · fashion or seasonal assortment across 5–10 categories, 2–4 buying seasons a year · planning in spreadsheets today · Shopify orders, inventory and purchase orders as the source · data warehouse in place or planned · agency dev bench
- As of
- September 2026
Decision at a Glance
| Your profile | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Under $5M revenue | BUY | A planning spreadsheet is fine at this size. If you want software, Automyze's Forecast/Replenish tier names OTB plans at $99.99/month (verified Sep 2026). Nothing here justifies a build. |
| $5M – $20M | BUY | Trial Cogsy: Built for Shopify, 4.9★ on 12 reviews, free tier then $199/month (verified Sep 2026). The vendor risk is real but cheap to exit, and the planning process you form is the asset that outlasts the app. |
| $20M – $100M | BUILD | The reference scenario. A season's buy is too large to plan on a 0–12 review app, Toolio is a demo-led enterprise project, and the OTB math is standard. Build the model on your warehouse data and keep the planners' sheet as the interface. |
| $100M+ | CUSTOMIZE | Dedicated planners deserve a merchandise-planning platform (Toolio-class, quote-only, by demo). The Shopify, ERP and purchase-order feeds it depends on are the same warehouse build, so budget for both. |
What Assortment planning and open-to-buy Actually Drives
| Outcome | Impact | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue — direct | High | A category bought to a trusted budget avoids the two failure modes that cost real money: stockouts on winners in week 6 and markdowns on losers in week 12. |
| Operational efficiency | High | Planners stop rebuilding actuals and on-order columns by hand each week; the model refreshes from Shopify orders, inventory and purchase orders, and the meeting starts at the decision. |
| Data & insight | High | Sell-through, weeks of supply and productivity per style per category, from two seasons of your own data, turns 'how many new styles' from a debate into a number. |
| Retention & LTV | Medium | Depth in the right styles means fewer size-outs on the products returning customers came back for. |
| Customer experience | Low | Assortment planning reaches shoppers only as the absence of sold-out sizes and stale markdown racks. |
Spend ceiling: Size the spend to the buy it governs, not to the software. A $40M merchant receiving $18M of inventory a year (illustrative) that plans 5% better frees or protects $900,000 (illustrative). A $20,000–$50,000 model (Deploi estimate, illustrative) is small against that; a $199–$899/month app (verified Sep 2026) is smaller still, but bets the season on a vendor with 0–12 reviews.
What buying enables (top apps)
- + Twelve-month demand plans, scenario modeling and restock purchase orders out of the box, Built for Shopify (Cogsy, 14-day trial, verified Sep 2026)
- + An explicit open-to-buy budget calculator with category-level allocation for fashion and seasonal retail (Lila, 30-day trial, verified Sep 2026)
- + A full merchandise-planning workspace with planner workflows for teams that will live in it daily (Toolio, by demo)
What building additionally unlocks
- + An open-to-buy model on your own warehouse data that survives any app or platform change, because every planning tool needs the same feeds
- + The planners' spreadsheet kept as the interface, with actuals, on-order and forecast locked to live data instead of pasted
- + Assortment productivity views (sales per style, sell-through by option, depth curves) from your own two seasons of history
- + Season-versioned plans with a reconciliation trail: what was planned, what was bought and what sold, side by side
Find Your Verdict in 3 Questions
Do you buy in seasons, with category-level receipt budgets a planner has to allocate?
Yes: Go to question 2.
No: Your verdict: WAIT — replenishment-driven catalogs need reorder points, not open-to-buy; native purchase orders and Sidekick suggestions plus an inventory app cover you.
Is revenue above roughly $20M, with a data warehouse in place or planned?
Yes: Go to question 3.
No: Your verdict: BUY — trial Cogsy (free tier, then $199/month, verified Sep 2026) or Automyze's Forecast/Replenish tier at $99.99/month (verified Sep 2026); the vendor risk is cheap to exit while the process is still forming.
Do you have, or plan to hire, dedicated merchandise planners who would live in an enterprise planning tool daily?
Yes: Your verdict: CUSTOMIZE — a Toolio-class platform by demo, on top of the same Shopify and ERP data feeds you would build anyway.
No: Your verdict: BUILD — an open-to-buy model in your warehouse feeding a governed planning sheet, $20,000–$50,000 (Deploi estimate, illustrative), on data you own.
The TCC Scorecard — 12 Dimensions
TCC — Total Cost of Capability: what it actually costs to have this capability over three years, whichever way you get it. Each dimension is scored 0–5 for both paths. How we score →
| Dimension | Buy | Build | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | |||
| Acquisition & implementation | A planning app installs in a day with a 7–30 day trial and $99–$899/month tiers (verified Sep 2026); a Toolio-class platform is an implementation project by demo; the warehouse model takes 6–10 weeks (Deploi estimate, illustrative). | ||
| Recurring fees | App tiers run $199–$599/month for the plans a mid-market merchant would actually use (verified Sep 2026) and never stop; the build's recurring line is upkeep on a model you own. | ||
| Maintenance & upgrades | Vendors ship their own updates; the model needs ~$3,000–$10,000/yr (Deploi estimate, illustrative) for API version bumps, new categories and seasonal calendar changes. | ||
| Switching & exit | Plans and scenarios live in the vendor's database with plan-dependent exports; the warehouse model, season plans and productivity history are yours and are the feeds any future platform asks for. | ||
| Risk | |||
| Vendor risk | The App Store options carry 12, 0 and 7 reviews (verified Sep 2026), and Shopify itself retired the only first-party planning tool on 2026-08-31; a season plan is a poor place to be an early customer. | ||
| Security & compliance surface | Sales, inventory and cost data are commercially sensitive, not regulated; the risk is one more vendor holding margin data versus one more warehouse pipeline your team secures. | ||
| Platform-deprecation exposure | Orders, inventory levels and purchase orders are stable Admin API objects; the buy path already absorbed one first-party deprecation when Stocky shut down. | ||
| Value | |||
| Fit to requirement | Apps deliver forecasts and OTB numbers on their own category logic; a built model uses your seasons, your category tree and your markdown cadence, and answers the style-count question from your own two seasons of history. | ||
| Time to market | An app produces a plan inside its trial window; the warehouse model needs 6–10 weeks and one planning cycle run in parallel before anyone trusts it. | ||
| Performance & scale | Neither path touches the storefront; at 5,000 SKUs across 10 categories the question is whether the plan refreshes from live data every morning or from a monthly export. | ||
| Data ownership & AI-readiness | Sell-through, weeks of supply and productivity per style are the training data for any forecasting you do later; owned in the warehouse they compound, rented in an app they reset at exit. | ||
| Focus & opportunity cost | A 6–10 week data build competes with integration work on the same bench, and it must land before the next planning cycle or wait a season. | ||
The App Landscape
| App | Status | Pricing | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cogsy | Live — flagged — 4.9★, 12 reviews; Built for Shopify; 14-day free trial. Twelve-month demand planning for existing and new products, real-time inventory across warehouses, best-case, worst-case and most-probable scenario modeling, replenishment alerts and restock purchase orders. The strongest listing in a young category, still short of 15 reviews. | Free tier (limited, not itemized on the listing); standard plan $199/month (verified Sep 2026) | Merchants under $20M forming a planning process on a Built for Shopify app they can exit cheaply |
| Lila | Live — flagged — 0 reviews; brand-new listing; 30-day free trial. The most explicit open-to-buy feature set on the App Store: optimal purchase budgets, demand forecasting and category-level budget allocation for fashion and seasonal retailers. Nobody has publicly reviewed it, and which tier includes category allocation is not itemized. | Starter $99/month or $1,069/year; Advanced $299/month or $3,229/year; Growth $599/month or $6,469/year; Enterprise $899/month or $9,709/year (verified Sep 2026) | A fashion merchant willing to be an early customer for the closest feature match |
| Toolio | Live — Platform integration; no App Store listing. Toolio's own App Store partner page lists 0 apps, and both toolio.com pricing pages route to a contact form. An enterprise merchandise-planning platform with planner workflows, reached by demo and integrated with Shopify data through an implementation project. | Pricing not listed; quote-only by demo | Retailers above roughly $100M with dedicated planners who will live in the tool daily |
| Stocky | Sunset — First-party Shopify app; delisted 2026-02-02, sunset 2026-08-31; read-only data export for at least 90 days | Free to install; core features were included with a Shopify POS Pro subscription (verified Sep 2026); no longer available after the sunset | Nobody now; the reason this decision is live this season |
| Open-to-buy model and governed planning sheet (custom) | Build lane — Shopify orders, inventory levels, purchase orders and markdowns land in your warehouse; models compute beginning and ending inventory, sell-through, weeks of supply and open-to-buy per category per month; the planners' spreadsheet stays as the interface with actuals, on-order and forecast columns fed live and locked, and plan inputs versioned per season. | $20,000–$50,000 one-time plus ~15–20% a year in upkeep (Deploi estimate, illustrative) | Merchants above $20M who buy in seasons and will not bet the plan on a 0–12 review vendor |
The Build Path
- Open-to-buy model in the warehouse: Shopify orders, inventory levels, purchase orders (on-order) and markdown flags land in BigQuery, Snowflake or your ERP's warehouse. Models compute beginning and ending inventory, sell-through, weeks of supply and open-to-buy per category per month: planned ending stock plus planned sales plus planned markdowns, minus opening stock and on-order.
- Governed planning sheet: The planners' spreadsheet stays as the interface, but actuals, on-order and forecast columns are fed from the warehouse and locked. Plan inputs (sales targets, planned margin, receipts by month) are versioned per season, so the meeting compares plan to actual instead of arguing about the numbers.
- Assortment productivity views: Sales per style, sell-through by option, depth curves and markdown rates from your last two seasons, by category. The 'how many new styles' question gets a number: the style count and depth the category has actually turned at target margin.
- Optional: baseline forecast layer: A statistical seasonal baseline per category gives planners a starting point to adjust rather than a blank cell, with Sidekick's native suggestions kept as a cross-check for replenishment items.
- Effort band
- $20,000–$50,000 build — Deploi estimate (illustrative); lands in the $25–75K contact-form band. Data cleanup (categories, seasons, markdown flags) sets the low or high end more than the model itself
- Typical timeline
- 6–10 weeks (Deploi estimate, illustrative); land it one full cycle before the next season's planning meeting and run it beside the old sheet once
- Maintenance, honestly
- ~15–20% of build cost per year (Deploi estimate): roughly $3,000–$10,000/yr (Deploi estimate, illustrative) for API version bumps, new categories, season-calendar changes and model tuning after each cycle. There is no subscription line.
- What you own — and what you take on
- You own: the model, the season plans, the productivity history and the governed sheet. You take on: keeping purchase orders and markdown flags consistent in Shopify or the ERP, and retiring the old spreadsheet rather than running two.
3-Year Total Cost of Capability
| Buy (app path) | Build (custom path) | |
|---|---|---|
| Year 0 (setup) | $1,000–$3,000 (setup and taxonomy cleanup) | $20,000–$50,000 |
| Years 1–3 (recurring) | $7,200–$21,600 | $9,000–$30,000 (maintenance) |
| 3-year total | ≈$8,200–$24,600 | ≈$29,000–$80,000 |
- † All figures illustrative samples for the reference scenario — not quotes, not verified pricing.
- † Buy path: a dedicated planning app at the $199–$599/month tiers a mid-market merchant would use, with light setup and data cleanup; Toolio-class platforms are excluded because their pricing is quote-only.
- † Build path: warehouse OTB model, governed planning sheet and assortment productivity views; three-year horizon.
What the Sticker Price Hides
On the buy path
- — Every App Store option carries 12 or fewer reviews (verified Sep 2026); a season's buy is a poor place to be an early customer
- — Lila's tiers climb from $99 to $899/month (verified Sep 2026) and the listing does not itemize which tier includes category allocation; confirm before the 30-day trial ends
- — Toolio is quote-only and reached by demo; budget for an implementation project, not an install
- — App forecasts inherit your product taxonomy; categories mis-tagged in Shopify produce a confident wrong plan
On the build path
- — Data cleanup (categories, seasons, markdown flags) is half the effort and none of the glamour
- — Purchase orders must live consistently in Shopify or the ERP, or the on-order column lies
- — A model nobody adopts is a spreadsheet with extra steps; the governed sheet must replace the old one, not sit beside it
- — ~$3,000–$10,000/yr upkeep (Deploi estimate, illustrative)
What Merchants Say
Category managers describe the planning meeting the same way: the spreadsheet says one thing, the inventory report another, and next season's style count gets decided by whoever argues best.
The Stocky exit reopened the planning question: merchants who leaned on its forecasting for reorders found the native suggestions fine for replenishment and useless for a seasonal buy.
If You Change Your Mind Later
If you bought and outgrow it
Plans, forecasts and scenarios live in the vendor's database; exports vary by plan and rarely reproduce the planning logic. With 0–12 reviews behind the App Store options, keep your category taxonomy and season calendar in Shopify metafields so a switch loses the tool, not the structure. Leaving a Toolio-class platform is an implementation project in reverse.
If you built and want out
Nothing strands: the warehouse model, the season plans and the productivity history are yours, and they are exactly the feeds a future planning platform would ask for. Adopting Toolio-class software later becomes a connector job rather than a data project, which is the quiet payoff of building the foundation first.
When This Answer Changes
We're watching for:
- ▸ Shopify adding open-to-buy or category budget planning to native inventory or Sidekick (none as of September 2026; Stocky's forecasting has no seasonal-planning successor)
- ▸ Cogsy, Lila or Automyze passing 100 reviews, or a Built for Shopify planning app publishing mid-market case studies
- ▸ Toolio or another merchandise-planning platform publishing an App Store listing with self-serve pricing (Toolio's partner page shows 0 apps, September 2026)
Verdict change log:
- 2026-08-31Shopify's Stocky app stopped being available, ending the only first-party demand-forecasting and purchase-order tool (delisted to new installs earlier, hard stop 2026-08-31). Native inventory kept purchase orders and Sidekick suggestions, but open-to-buy and assortment budgeting have no native home, and the replacement apps that appeared carry 12 or fewer reviews. That is what made this a live build-versus-buy decision this season.
Common Questions
Does Shopify have an open-to-buy feature?
Shopify has no native open-to-buy or assortment-budget feature. Stocky, its forecasting and purchase-order app for POS Pro, stopped being available after 2026-08-31, and native inventory kept purchase orders and Sidekick forecasting suggestions but nothing that budgets receipts by category. Shopify's own open-to-buy guide is an educational article, not a feature. Three App Store apps name OTB, with 12, 0 and 7 reviews (verified Sep 2026).
How is open-to-buy calculated?
Open-to-buy equals planned end-of-period inventory plus planned sales plus planned markdowns, minus beginning-of-period inventory and stock already on order. A category planning $400,000 in sales next month with $50,000 of markdowns, $600,000 of target closing stock, $700,000 on hand and $150,000 on order has $200,000 open to buy (illustrative). The formula is trivial; trusting it depends on live sales, inventory and purchase-order feeds, which is what the build supplies.
Is Toolio a Shopify app?
Toolio is not a Shopify app: its own App Store partner page lists 0 apps (verified Sep 2026), and it operates as a standalone merchandise-planning platform that integrates with Shopify data. Pricing is quote-only, with both pricing pages routing to a contact form. Toolio-class platforms suit retailers above roughly $100M with dedicated planners, and the Shopify and ERP feeds they need are the same warehouse build a smaller merchant runs its own OTB model on.
Your Next Steps
If you're going with BUILD(matches your selected profile)
- Fix the taxonomy first: one category tree, one season calendar and a markdown flag on every product in Shopify
- Land orders, inventory levels and purchase orders in the warehouse and reconcile one month against finance
- Build the open-to-buy model per category per month and the productivity views from the last two seasons
- Wire the planners' sheet to the warehouse with actuals, on-order and forecast columns locked
- Run one planning cycle beside the old spreadsheet, then retire the old one
If you're going with BUY
- Start Cogsy's 14-day trial or Lila's 30-day trial on one category and compare its OTB to your current sheet
- Confirm which tier includes category-level allocation before paying for it
- Keep your category tree and season calendar in Shopify metafields, not only in the app
- Diary a re-decision at $20M or the first season the app's plan and reality diverge badly
Official Docs & Sources
- Stocky retirement notice (Shopify Help) — Shopify Help Center
- Locations — Shopify Help Center
- Order routing — Shopify Help Center
Official documentation linked for verification — our verdicts and estimates are our own.
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Ready to plan next season on numbers everyone trusts?
The open-to-buy math is standard; the trust comes from live feeds and a governed sheet. We build the warehouse model, connect Shopify orders, inventory and purchase orders, and hand your planners a spreadsheet that is finally right.
Contact us todayVerdict scored for the reference scenario above. Estimates are not quotes; app pricing carries its verification date and gets re-verified quarterly. Full scoring anchors: see the TCC methodology.
Read how we score these decisions (the TCC Framework). No affiliate links, no paid placement — no app vendor pays to appear here.