Is Cin7 better than Lumina?

It depends on what you're buying for. Cin7 is the stronger choice if you need to run order fulfilment, the warehouse floor, tills, a B2B ordering portal, or EDI from one system. Lumina is the stronger choice for everything on the inventory and planning side: stock records, POs and shipments, landed costs, cashflow, forecasting, merchandising, and production planning, in a system your whole team will use rather than one person maintains. The question on day one is which of those your business needs.

Can I run Lumina and Cin7 together?

Yes, and it's a common pattern. Cin7 (Core or Omni) holds stock records and runs orders and the warehouse, and Lumina sits on top for planning. Lumina connects to Cin7 with a custom connector and reads inventory, sales, and PO history from it, and runs forecasting, replenishment, costs, and cashflow planning on it, so the planning meeting runs from Lumina while Cin7 keeps doing the transactional work.

Does Lumina replace my IMS?

It can, for most of it. If you run Cin7 or another IMS for order fulfilment, the warehouse floor, POS, or a B2B portal, Lumina sits on top of it as your planning system. If what you need is a reliable stock record plus proper planning, Lumina's stock ledger can be your system of record for inventory, with Shopify, your 3PL, and your accounting software handling the rest. Either way, you shouldn't need a multi-month IMS migration to get value out of better planning.

What's the difference between Cin7 Core and Cin7 Omni?

Cin7 Core was previously DEAR Systems, a cloud IMS aimed at smaller brands with DTC and wholesale needs, including B2B portal and manufacturing. Cin7 Omni is the original Cin7, with broader retail, B2B, and built-in EDI capability and a heavier implementation. They share branding but are different products with different roadmaps. Most scaling DTC brands evaluate Core; multi-channel retail brands selling into major retailers typically end up on Omni.

What does Cin7 cost vs Lumina?

Cin7 Core is published at $349 a month for Standard, $599 for Pro, and $999 for Advanced, rising with users, warehouses, and integrations, with advanced forecasting, POS, and premium support priced separately. Omni is custom-priced and typically lands materially higher. Implementation services sit on top of either. Lumina's pricing is published: plans from £295/month plus a one-off setup fee, with the Merchandising and Production suites and custom modules added as you need them. Predictable spend, agreed up front.

Can Lumina handle multiple Shopify stores, Amazon, and retail?

Yes. Multi-channel is the default in Lumina, not an add-on. We bring demand from Shopify stores, Amazon marketplaces, retailer sell-through, and B2B orders together into a single forecast and replenishment view, whichever system holds the stock records underneath, Cin7, a 3PL, or Lumina's own ledger.

Lumina vs Cin7: Flexible vs Enterprise-Style

Lumina vs Cin7: flexible inventory system or heavyweight enterprise-style software?

Both hold your stock, manage your POs, and track your costs. Cin7 does it as heavyweight, enterprise-style software with basic planning bolted on. Lumina does it as a flexible inventory and planning system your whole team will use. Here's the line-by-line breakdown.

Updated September 2026By Oana Bradulet, Founder, Lumina

Cin7 is the right answer if you need to run order fulfilment, the warehouse floor, tills, or a B2B portal from one system. Lumina is the right answer for everything on the inventory and planning side, in a system your team will use.

The shortlist confusion most brands hit is treating Cin7 as a planning platform when it's fundamentally a system of record. Cin7 will hold your stock, sync your channels, and manage your orders and POs, competently. What it won't do at depth is forecast demand, optimise replenishment against cash, or surface working-capital risk; on Cin7 Core, forecasting is a separately priced add-on. It's also enterprise software in feel: it does everything, and it feels like it. Dense, unintuitive, and heavy to connect, so brands we work with have watched it shrink into a tool one person maintains while the rest of the team stays in spreadsheets. Lumina is the opposite shape: built around forecasting, replenishment, cost, and cashflow, with a spreadsheet-like feel the whole team will open, and designed to sit on top of an IMS (Cin7, Unleashed, Brightpearl, or a 3PL system) rather than replace it. If you don't yet have an IMS and don't need one, Lumina's stock ledger can act as a lightweight system of record for your inventory. The right answer depends on which half of the stack is broken in your business.

"Cin7 had every feature you could imagine, and nobody on the exec team wanted to log into it. The Shopify sync kept showing the wrong stock, so it ended up as a manual PO and month-end tool that one person maintained."

— Head of Operations, multi-channel consumer brand

When to pick which

Pick Lumina if

You need better planning, and you already have a way to keep stock records (or you don't need a heavy one).

Revenue between £1M and £30M, growing materially year on year.
Inventory records live in Shopify, a 3PL system, or an IMS you don't want to migrate, or your needs are light enough for Lumina's stock ledger to hold them.
Your real pain is forecast quality, PO timing, landed costs, and cashflow against supplier payments.
You'd rather plug a planning tool into your existing stack than swap stack twice.
You want a planning system live in weeks, with guided onboarding rather than a consultancy project.

Pick Cin7 if

You genuinely need a new system of record for stock and orders.

You're outgrowing Shopify-as-IMS and need order management, B2B, POS, or EDI as well as stock records.
Multi-channel retail plus B2B and wholesale is a real part of the business.
You're willing to run an implementation project to consolidate ops.
You're okay with planning being basic out of the box and adding a planning tool on top.
Stock records and order operations, not forecasting, are the failure mode you're trying to fix.

Lumina vs Cin7: feature comparison

Feature	Lumina Recommended	Cin7
Primary product type What the product is at its core	Flexible inventory and planning system: stock, POs, shipments, costs, cashflow, forecasting, merchandising, production planning	Heavyweight IMS: inventory, orders, warehouse, POS, B2B, EDI, manufacturing
Replaces your IMS / stock-record system	Sits on top of your existing IMS or 3PL; its stock ledger can act as a lightweight inventory record if you don't have one	Yes. Cin7 is your system of record
Time to live	Guided onboarding, live in weeks	4–8 weeks for a standard implementation, 8–12 for complex setups (per independent reviews), including data migration
Ease of use	Spreadsheet-like feel; built for the whole team, founders included, to open and use	Powerful and dense; reviews report new users needing weeks or months to feel comfortable
Connecting to your stack	Bespoke connectors built for what you run, including Shopify and Amazon	Broad connector list; integration quality varies by channel
Demand forecasting	Bottom-up, configured to how your range is split and profiled; transparent and adjustable	Basic; advanced forecasting is a separately priced add-on on Core
Automated replenishment & POs	Lead-time, MOQ, and container aware; supplier-linked; cash-aware; custom order rules	PO management; rules-based replenishment
Cash flow & supplier payments	Built in: supplier payment schedules and a cash forecast	Via accounting integration; not in Cin7 itself
Landed costs & margin	Built in: freight, duty, and extra charges per unit	Landed cost tracking as part of stock valuation
Stock records as system of record	Reads from your IMS / 3PL / Shopify, or holds a lightweight ledger	Yes. Cin7's strongest area
Order fulfilment, warehouse floor (pick, pack, scan), POS, B2B portal, EDI	No. Lumina connects to the systems that do these (Shopify, your 3PL, your wholesale platform)	Yes. IMS-grade
Manufacturing & BOM	Production Suite: BOMs, BOM explosion, production planning, MRP	BOMs, assembly, MRP, shop-floor controls
Multi-channel coverage (Shopify + Amazon + retail + B2B)	Native, built for omnichannel planning	Strong. IMS-grade channel coverage
Range planning & merchandising workflows	Merchandising Suite (range, options, WSSI, OTB, allocation)	Limited. Order ops focus, not planning focus
Reporting & metrics	Unlimited custom reports and dashboards; ask Lumina AI for any number	Standard IMS reporting
Pricing	Plans from £295/month plus a one-off setup fee; published	Core from $349/month (Standard), $599 (Pro), $999 (Advanced); Omni quote-only; forecasting and POS priced separately
Implementation services required	Guided onboarding with a one-off setup fee; no external consultancy	Typically required, often through partner consultancies
Best customer profile	Planner or ops lead at a £1–30M consumer brand	Ops team at a multi-channel brand consolidating systems

Yes Partial No

Forecasting: built for planning vs bolted onto an IMS

Cin7's planning surface (forecasting, demand projections, replenishment suggestions) is functional but basic, and on Cin7 Core the advanced forecasting is a separately priced add-on. It's enough to keep replenishment ticking if your demand is stable and your SKUs aren't highly seasonal. It struggles where most consumer brands live: promo cycles, channel-mix shifts, launches, returns spikes, retailer sell-through that moves on its own clock. Lumina is built around forecasting. It works from the data you have (Shopify orders, Amazon velocity, retail sell-through, returns, your promo calendar), and its models are configured to how your range is split and profiled and how your products behave, so the forecast matches your own intuition about the range, with your promotions, launches, and growth plans included and every number visible. New SKUs, peak season, and promo planning happen inside the same forecast view, not in a side spreadsheet nobody trusts. For a planner whose week starts with "what's the forecast saying," that gap matters every single day.

Where Lumina forecasting wins

Forecasts from every channel's demand data directly, at whatever level you plan
Configured to your range: how it's split and profiled, how each line behaves, with your promotions and launches included
Forecast updates roll into replenishment and cashflow automatically

Where Cin7 forecasting is fine

Stable SKUs with consistent monthly demand
Wholesale and B2B replenishment with predictable reorder rhythms
Brands that primarily need stock records, not forecast quality

Replenishment & supplier ops: cash-aware vs IMS-style

Both platforms produce purchase orders. The difference is what the PO knows about. Cin7's PO logic sees stock, suppliers, and lead times, sometimes price breaks, but doesn't natively tie to cash position or supplier payment terms. Brands routinely run cashflow and supplier payment timing back in spreadsheets even after Cin7 is live. Lumina ties replenishment to supplier payment schedules and a cashflow view. You can see what's on order, what each PO costs, when it lands, and what your cash position looks like months ahead, in one place. For brands where cash is a real constraint (most scaling brands), that one connected view changes how planning meetings run and how POs get decided.

Implementation: weeks of guided setup vs a consolidation project

This is the single biggest practical difference. A Cin7 implementation, Core or Omni, is a proper project: independent reviews put it at four to eight weeks for a standard setup and eight to twelve for complex ones, and you're migrating stock records, mapping channels, configuring B2B workflows, and training the team to operate the system end to end. That's appropriate for a brand consolidating five tools into one IMS; it's a real cost in time and money to absorb. Lumina is designed to go live in weeks. Connect Shopify, Amazon, your IMS or 3PL, and your accounting system. We import historical data, build your first forecasts, and walk you through your first PO run. Most customers are running their first planning meeting from Lumina within weeks of signing. Onboarding is a one-off setup fee, not an open-ended services engagement.

Lumina onboarding

A few weeks from kickoff to first live PO run
No external consultancy required
Modular: start with forecasting, layer in replenishment and cashflow when ready

Cin7 onboarding

Typically 4–8 weeks (8–12 for complex setups) including stock-record migration and channel mapping
Typically routed through partner consultancies
Designed around configuring the IMS to fit the business

Pricing: predictable and modular vs scales with stack consolidation

Cin7 Core is published: $349 a month for Standard, $599 for Pro, $999 for Advanced, rising with users, warehouses, and integrations. Advanced forecasting, POS, and premium support are priced separately on top. Cin7 Omni is custom-priced and typically lands materially higher once retail and B2B features are included. Implementation services and the planning add-ons most brands end up needing sit on top of the headline number. Lumina's pricing is published and modular. Plans start at £295/month plus a one-off setup fee (Starter), with Core at £495/month for growing teams and a custom Scale tier for complex operations. Every plan includes a 14-day free trial with your own data. You add the Merchandising or Production suites and custom modules as you need them, and onboarding is a one-off setup fee rather than an open-ended services engagement. For finance teams approving the spend, the predictability matters.

Customer fit: "I need planning" vs "I need a new IMS"

This is the part most shortlists skip. A 50-person consumer brand with three Shopify stores, an Amazon seller account, and outsourced manufacturing has a different real problem from a multi-channel retailer consolidating five legacy ops tools. The first usually needs planning depth and a tool that respects the stack it already has. The second usually needs a system of record and is willing to invest in a consolidation project. Cin7 fits the second shape extremely well. Lumina is built for the first. If you recognise yourself in the second profile, Cin7 is a credible pick, and Lumina is a natural complement once you're live. If you recognise yourself in the first, Cin7's planning surface will frustrate you, and the weight of the system will too: brands in this shape tell us it shrank into a PO and month-end tool that one person fed by hand, because nobody else wanted to log in. You'll be better off using Lumina on top of whatever record-keeping you already have. And there's a third shape worth naming: the brand outgrowing Shopify-as-IMS that doesn't need order management, POS, or B2B portals, just a reliable stock record and proper planning. For that brand, Lumina's stock ledger may be all the system of record you need.