Do you need an order management system for multichannel selling, and which one?

What an order management system does

An OMS sits between your sales channels (Shopify, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, wholesale) and wherever your goods are stored and shipped. Its job is five steps:

1. Collect every order into one list.
2. Check stock across all locations.
3. Route each order to the best location, based on rules you set.
4. Ship by printing labels and sending tracking back to the channel.
5. Handle changes, such as cancellations, splits and returns.

It overlaps with an inventory management system, which focuses on stock counts and purchasing. Most products you will meet do both, and the labels blur. If your main worry is stock counts, start there. If your main worry is "which order goes where, and did it go", you are looking at an OMS.

Do you need one?

You probably do if two or more of these are true:

• You sell on three or more channels and copy orders between them.
• You ship from more than one place, including a 3PL (a third-party logistics company that stores and ships for you).
• You oversell because stock numbers are late.
• Someone spends an hour or more each day moving order data around.
• You have rules like "wholesale ships from warehouse B" that live in someone's head.

You probably do not if you sell on Shopify plus one marketplace and ship from one spot.

When Shopify's order routing is enough

Shopify has order routing built in. According to Shopify's help pages, it needs two or more active locations. The default rules try to avoid split shipments, stay inside the destination market when possible, and ship from the closest location. You can customize the rules, including using location metafields (extra data you attach to a location, such as warehouse capacity or fulfillment speed).

Shopify's plans include up to 10 inventory locations on Basic, Grow and Advanced, and 200 on Plus. For marketplaces, Shopify's pricing page lists 50 synced marketplace orders a month free, then 1 percent of the extra orders up to $99 a month. That covers a lot of small multichannel sellers. I go through the Shopify side in Shopify inventory management.

Where it stops: it routes Shopify orders. It does not pull Amazon, eBay and wholesale orders into one queue with one stock count, which is the heart of multichannel selling.

The leading options and what they cost

All prices are as of November 2026 and from each vendor's own pricing page.

Option	What it is	Price
Linnworks	A platform for selling across many channels, with order routing, shipping and inventory	Quote based, priced on order volume, no percentage fees, add-on modules
Cin7	An inventory and order platform for growing sellers	Standard $349 a month, Pro $599, Advanced $1,199
Ordoro	A shipping, inventory and dropshipping tool	Shipping free to $149 a month, Inventory from $349 a month
Extensiv	A warehouse system focused on 3PLs, with an integration tool called Integration Manager (formerly CartRover)	Request a demo

Linnworks

Linnworks lists distributed order management, shipping to 70+ providers, and stock sync across 100+ channels. It suits sellers with real volume and many channels. See my Linnworks alternatives if the quote feels high.

Cin7

The Standard plan includes 5 users, 2 store or app integrations and 6,000 sales orders a year. That is about 500 orders a month, so a brand that ships 2,000 a month will land on Pro (24,000 a year) or higher. Extra integrations cost more, so ask for the full total.

Ordoro

Ordoro's shipping plans run free for 100 orders a month, $59 a month for 3,000 labels, and $149 a month for unlimited labels. Its Inventory plans start at $349 a month. It is a good fit if shipping labels and rate shopping are your main pain.

Extensiv and Skubana

Extensiv's site is now centered on warehouse software for 3PLs. Skubana was a multichannel order and inventory tool. If you have an old Skubana quote or are searching for a Skubana alternative, ask Extensiv what became of that product and what it costs, then compare it against Linnworks, Cin7 and Ordoro above. For Shopify connections, check Extensiv's integration list for your exact setup.

A worked example with made-up numbers

A brand sells on Shopify, Amazon and eBay, with 1,500 orders a month and two stock locations (its own garage and a 3PL). One person spends 90 minutes a day copying orders and fixing stock. At $20 an hour that is about $660 a month, plus a few oversells.

A platform at $349 a month is cheaper than that person's time if it removes most of those hours. If it removes only half, you save about $330 in time minus the fee, which is close to break-even, and the oversells it prevents decide the case. If setup takes weeks and a person still handles exceptions, the saving is smaller than the sales page says. These numbers are invented to show the math. Use your own.

The hidden costs

• Setup time. Mapping every product across channels takes longer than expected.
• Connectors. Extra channels and apps can cost extra.
• Order caps. Check what happens when you go past your plan's order limit.
• Clean data. If your SKUs (stock codes) differ between channels, fix that first.

When to think custom

If your rules are unusual, such as splitting orders by supplier, or mixing made-to-order and stocked items, you may pay for a big platform and still work around it. A small system that does only what you need can be cheaper over time. That is the idea behind a custom ERP, which means one program that holds orders, stock and purchasing the way you work.

How I'd approach this

I would first push Shopify's own routing as far as it goes, and write down every manual step in your order flow for one week. If more than half of the steps are copying data between channels, get demos from two platforms and ask each for a total price including the integrations you use. Test with a week of real orders before you commit. And keep a way out: your product data and order history should be exportable.