Seven inventory management systems for Shopware 6 compared, five integration methods, the data flows that have to be right, and what an ERP integration costs: €5,000 to €40,000 based on our experience.
Shopware 6 is an ecommerce platform, not an inventory management system. As soon as you have more than one sales channel, your own warehouse, or accounting with real requirements, the store needs a system behind it that manages items, stock, prices, and orders.
There are seven established options for Shopware: Pickware runs directly in the Shopware admin (from €99 per month), while JTL-Wawi (entry price €0), Xentral (from €99), and weclapp (from €163 per user) come with their own connectors. Sage 100, Dynamics 365 Business Central, and SAP Business One are connected via Store extensions or custom integrations.
Based on our experience, the integration costs €5,000 to €20,000 with an off-the-shelf connector and €20,000 to €40,000 for a custom bidirectional integration, plus ongoing licenses for the ERP and the connector.
Before founding solution25, we ran our own online store with more than 500 orders a day and know what happens when stock levels in the store and the warehouse drift apart. Since 2017 we have been connecting ERP and inventory management systems to Shopware, from Pickware to Business Central.
When stock, prices, and orders are maintained in several places, you get overselling, duplicate data entry, and errors on invoices. This article is for store owners running their own Shopware store who are introducing or switching an inventory management system, and for ecommerce leads at mid-sized companies who want to connect Shopware to an existing ERP.
After reading it, you’ll be able to decide which ERP and which integration method fit your channels, your warehouse, and your accounting, and set a realistic budget for the integration. All prices as of October 2026, excluding VAT.
An inventory management system (in German, Warenwirtschaft or Wawi for short) manages items, suppliers, stock, purchasing, orders, and shipping. An ERP system (Enterprise Resource Planning) additionally covers financial accounting, controlling, production, or HR. In practice the terms blur: Pickware calls itself an ERP, JTL-Wawi has inventory management in its name, and both do the same job for a merchant.
Shopware 6 comes with order management, a stock value per product, and the generation of invoices, delivery notes, credit notes, and cancellation documents. What’s missing is purchasing, supplier management, goods receipt, picking, payment reconciliation, and accounting that your accountant will accept. Inventory across multiple locations is only available in the Beyond plan.
The most important decision in any integration project is which system is the system of record for which data. The usual setup: the ERP owns the item master, prices, and stock, and the store owns customer accounts, carts, and orders until they are passed to the ERP.
If you leave this question open, you end up with duplicate data entry. An employee changes the price in the store, the next sync overwrites it with the value from the ERP, and nobody knows which price is valid.
In an article on the topic, Shopware itself gives around 40 orders a day as a rule of thumb for adopting an inventory management system. Based on our projects, we would draw the line earlier, because it isn’t order volume alone that decides, but the number of places where data is maintained.
Typical triggers we see with merchants:
Conversely: a store with ten orders a day, one channel, and dropshipping doesn’t need a €600-a-month inventory management system. Shopware plus an invoicing tool is enough until the processes grow.
Every integration consists of the same data flows. The table shows the split as we implement it in most projects.
| Data object | System of record | Direction | Typical frequency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Item master data (name, description, variants, categories, images) | ERP or PIM | ERP to Shopware | On change or daily |
| Prices (list prices, tiered prices, customer groups, currencies) | ERP | ERP to Shopware | On change or hourly |
| Stock | ERP or warehouse management | ERP to Shopware | Every 5 to 15 minutes, in real time if needed |
| Orders | Shopware | Shopware to ERP | Immediately via webhook or every 5 to 15 minutes |
| Customers and addresses | Shopware (B2C), both systems (B2B) | With the order, and back as well in B2B | On order |
| Order status and tracking numbers | ERP | ERP to Shopware | On status change |
| Invoices and delivery notes | ERP | ERP to Shopware (customer account) | On creation |
| Returns and credit notes | ERP | Both directions | Per transaction |
Not every integration needs all eight flows. Many Store connectors only transfer orders and customers to the ERP and the status back, while items and prices stay in the store. That’s enough for a stable catalog, but not for a merchant with 20,000 items and weekly price changes.
The question “Which system?” can’t be separated from the question “How will it be connected?”. Five options cover practically every project.
Pickware installs the inventory management system as an extension directly in the Shopware admin and works on the same database, so there is nothing to sync. That’s the simplest option, but it ties you to Shopware and to a self-hosted installation or PaaS, because Shopware SaaS only allows apps, not plugins.
JTL, Xentral, and weclapp run their own integrations with Shopware 6 via the store’s Admin API. They are maintained by the vendor and updated for Shopware releases, but only cover the fields and processes the vendor has planned for. For Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Shopware has offered its own integration since August 2026.
The Shopware Store lists 51 extensions in the ERP category, including connectors for Sage 100, SAP Business One, Business Central, Odoo, and PlentyONE as subscription licenses between roughly €79 and €179 per month. Before buying, check the compatibility information, reviews, and the date of the last update: a connector with no update in over a year becomes a risk at the next Shopware update.
Middleware sits between the store and the ERP, translates data formats, and logs every run. Shopware offers its own platform for this with Shopware Nexus, which according to the developer documentation was still in beta in October 2026; every plan includes a monthly quota of executions, and each additional 1,000 cost €10. Alternatives are n8n, Make, or Synesty. Middleware pays off when more than two systems work together or the ERP has no ready-made Shopware integration.
Custom development maps exactly your processes: customer-specific pricing logic, multi-step approvals, special shipping cases. It costs the most and has to be checked with every update. It makes sense when a connector covers less than about 80% of the requirements and the rest is business-critical.
Miniature Market, a retailer of board games, miniatures, and hobby supplies, ran a large Magento store with thousands of SKUs. Stock levels from the Deposco warehouse management system reached the store with delays and unreliably, which led to overselling.
According to the project report, we connected the new Shopware 6 store to Deposco via an integration layer from Patchworks, with instant inventory updates and order status in both directions. Inventory rules reserve quantities for preorder windows and protect them from open sale. Afterwards, according to the report, fulfillment errors and support tickets went down, though it doesn’t give figures.
The lesson for your project: before the integration, define which quantities count as available and which are reserved. During peak loads, the frequency of inventory syncs decides whether you oversell, not the name of the ERP.
All options except the native plugin use the same foundation: the Shopware 6 Admin API. Three aspects of it determine the stability and speed of the integration.
Under Settings, System, Integrations, you create a separate integration with an access key and secret key for each connected system; the secret key is shown only once. The integration gets a role with exactly the permissions the ERP needs, not blanket administrator rights. With it, the ERP obtains an access token via OAuth that expires after one hour and is renewed.
For item imports, stock updates, and price updates, Shopware provides the Sync API, an Admin API endpoint that creates, updates, or deletes many records in one call. A header lets you move indexing into the queue so that an import of 20,000 items doesn’t slow down the store. Shopware recommends batches of 50 to 200 products per call, and up to 500 for simple records. More on our Shopware Sync API page.
Orders shouldn’t wait for the next polling run to reach the ERP. Through the Flow Builder or webhooks, Shopware can send a message to the ERP or middleware for every new order. For stock, a short sync interval from the ERP remains the norm, because that’s where the movements happen.
The following information comes from the vendors’ pricing pages and the Shopware Store, as of October 2026. Where a vendor doesn’t publish prices, it says “on request”.
Pickware is a Shopware Technology Partner Platinum and runs as an extension directly in Shopware 6, currently compatible with versions 6.6.10.5 to 6.7.15.1. The ERP, WMS (warehouse with scanners), POS, and shipping modules work on the Shopware database. According to the pricing page, Starter costs €99 per month with 1,000 orders included (each additional one €0.20), Advanced €299, and Professional €599, with 10% off for an annual contract.
Purchasing, DATEV accounting, and bills of materials are only available from Advanced, and API access only from Professional. The WMS costs €199 per device license per month, the POS €149 per license. Our guide Integrating Pickware into Shopware 6 describes the setup.
JTL-Wawi is Windows software with Microsoft SQL Server, installed locally or hosted by JTL. The Shopware connector runs as a service on JTL servers, supports Shopware 6.1 to 6.7.14 according to the JTL guide, and transfers items, variants, images, prices, and stock to the store and customers and orders back.
According to the pricing page, JTL Start costs €0 with community support, and orders from Shopware are billed through order packages: 100 orders for €25 per month, 500 for €79, 1,000 for €129. JTL Advanced costs from €99 per month with an annual contract, JTL Pro from €329.
Xentral is a cloud ERP with purchasing, warehouse, shipping, and finance. According to the Xentral help center, the current integration generation, Xentral Connect, is compatible with all Shopware 6 versions up to 6.7, syncs stock in real time, imports orders with payment method, and reports tracking numbers back.
Pricing starts at €99 per month (Launch, up to 100 orders per month), Starter from €349, Business from €649, Pro from €849. According to the pricing page, Xentral Connect, goods receipt, and API access are included from Business, and the final price depends on revenue and shipping volume. Our guide Connecting Xentral to Shopware 6 shows the setup.
weclapp bills per user. According to the pricing page, the Shopware store integration is only included in the ERP Trade package, which costs €163 per user per month with annual billing and €179 with monthly billing. The integration itself is free in the weclapp store, works in both directions, and transfers the item master, stock, and orders. The store and admin have to be reachable from outside for this.
With three users you’re at around €490 per month, with five at €815, including CRM, projects, and accounting. Our guide Connecting weclapp to Shopware 6 describes the setup.
Sage 100 is an inventory management system with financial accounting for mid-sized businesses, according to Sage from €50 per user per month with annual billing and a twelve-month minimum term. Sage explicitly mentions the Shopware store integration but delivers it through partner solutions, such as OmniSeller from HTK. The Shopware Store also offers the sync4 connector from dupp for €179 per month, compatible up to Shopware 6.7.15.1, which passes orders and customers to Sage and reports the status back.
Business Central is Microsoft’s mid-market ERP, according to the pricing page €69.30 per user per month for Essentials, €95.30 for Premium, and €6.90 for Team Members, each with annual billing. There are two routes to a Shopware integration: the Business Central integration developed by Shopware itself on top of Nexus (price on request, version 1.0.0 from August 2026), and the Store connector from Ecomwise from €83.25 per month with annual billing, which exports customers and orders to Business Central and imports products and stock into the store on a schedule.
What to keep in mind for the Azure app registration and API permissions is covered in our Business Central integration guide.
According to SAP, SAP Business One is intended for small and medium-sized businesses; SAP doesn’t publish list prices, and licensing runs through SAP partners on request. For Shopware, the Store offers the sync4 connector for SAP Business One from dupp for €179 per month (orders and customers to SAP, status back). In the Nexus documentation, Shopware announces further ERP connectors, including SAP, for after the beta phase. As soon as items and prices are to be maintained from SAP, most projects end up with a custom integration.
For small stores, Billbee is an alternative: a €9 monthly base fee plus per-order billing, with no minimum term. Odoo can be connected via the Shopware Odoo Connector from the Store (€79 per month), and PlentyONE via the connector from LENZ from €124.17 per month.
| System | Deployment | Shopware 6 integration | Price (as of October 2026) | Typical profile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pickware | Plugin in the Shopware admin, self-hosted or PaaS | Native, no sync | from €99 per month (1,000 orders included), WMS €199 per device | Own warehouse, selling via Shopware, from about 30 orders a day |
| JTL-Wawi | Windows and SQL Server, local or hosted by JTL | JTL-Connector as a JTL service, Shopware 6.1 to 6.7.14 | JTL Start €0 plus order packages from €25, Advanced from €99, Pro from €329 | Marketplace sellers, multiple stores |
| Xentral | Cloud | Xentral Connect, up to Shopware 6.7 | from €99 (Launch), from €349 (Starter), from €649 (Business) | D2C and retail from a few hundred orders per month |
| weclapp | Cloud | Own integration, free, ERP Trade package required | €163 per user per month with annual billing | Small teams, retail plus services |
| Sage 100 | On-premises or hosted by a partner | Partner solutions (OmniSeller), sync4 Store connector | from €50 per user per month, sync4 €179 per month | Mid-sized businesses with an existing Sage installation |
| Dynamics 365 Business Central | Cloud (Microsoft) | Shopware integration based on Nexus or Ecomwise Store connector | Essentials €69.30 per user per month, connector from €83.25 per month | Mid-sized businesses, multiple entities, Microsoft environment |
| SAP Business One | On-premises or cloud via a partner | sync4 Store connector or custom integration | on request, sync4 €179 per month | Manufacturers, wholesale, corporate mandate |
The ERP license is the predictable part; the larger and more variable part is setting up the integration. The following ranges are based on experience from our projects and match the cost blocks in our article on Shopware pricing.
| Option | Setup (one-time) | Ongoing | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pickware in an existing store | €5,000 to €15,000 (warehouse structure, master data, training, scanner processes) | from €99 per month plus WMS licenses | 4 to 8 weeks |
| Vendor connector or Store extension | €5,000 to €20,000 (field mapping, pricing logic, status mapping, testing) | €0 to €179 per month for the connector plus ERP license | 4 to 10 weeks |
| Middleware | €8,000 to €20,000 | Platform fee, with Shopware Nexus €10 per additional 1,000 executions | 6 to 12 weeks |
| Custom bidirectional integration | €20,000 to €40,000 | Maintenance, as a rule of thumb 10 to 20% of setup costs per year | 3 to 5 months |
An example for a merchant with 3,000 orders per month on Xentral Business: setup via Xentral Connect with pricing rules and status mapping around €12,000, plus €649 per month for Xentral and about €150 per month for maintaining the integration. That’s around €21,600 in year one and around €9,600 in each following year.
What drives the price up is rarely the systems themselves but the exceptions: price lists per customer group, bundle items with their own stock logic, partial shipments, marketplace orders with different payment methods. Each of these rules has to be defined, tested, and documented. How to keep the effort in check is covered under Implementing ERP integration for Shopware 6 cost-effectively.
Figure: Depending on the integration method, setup costs €5,000 to €40,000, so check first whether a connector covers around 80% of your requirements. solution25 experience from integration projects, as of October 2026
An integration project rarely fails because of the technology, usually because of unclear responsibilities and bad data. That’s why, for us, it doesn’t start with installation but with master data.
This timeline applies to a vendor connector or a Store extension. A custom integration extends the setup to eight to twelve weeks.
The tools are the error log of the connector or middleware, the order overview in the Shopware admin, and the ERP’s stock report. Check daily for the first two weeks, then weekly, and spot-check stock once a month as well.
Adjust course if the same error occurs several times a week, customers receive wrong status emails, or customer service corrects stock by hand.
Every integration requires unique item numbers in both systems, a staging environment, and a named person responsible for the error log. The limits are usually set by the standard: a connector only maps the fields and processes its vendor planned for, and outside the Beyond plan Shopware only knows one stock value per product.
The table maps the systems to typical merchant profiles. It doesn’t replace a requirements analysis, but it shows where to start looking.
| Your profile | Recommendation | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 30 orders a day, one channel, no own warehouse | Shopware’s built-in tools plus Billbee or an invoicing tool | An inventory management system doesn’t pay off yet; the processes are manageable. |
| Own warehouse, selling only via Shopware | Pickware | No sync, scanner processes and POS from a single source. |
| Marketplaces plus several stores, Windows environment in place | JTL-Wawi | Broad marketplace coverage, large service provider network, low entry price. |
| Growing D2C brand, team works across several locations, cloud preferred | Xentral or weclapp | Cloud operation, purchasing and finance included, price scales with volume or users. |
| Existing ERP in the company (Sage 100, Business Central, SAP Business One) | Connector or custom integration to the existing system | Switching ERPs because of the store costs more than any integration. |
| B2B with customer-specific prices and approvals | Business Central, SAP Business One, or Sage 100 with a custom integration | Pricing logic and credit limits live in the ERP; the store only displays them. |
Our take: We almost always keep an existing ERP and invest in the integration, because a switch would hit purchasing, warehouse, and accounting at the same time. If you’re introducing a new system and only sell via Shopware, look at Pickware first; if you serve several marketplaces, JTL-Wawi; if you want to work in the cloud, Xentral or weclapp. Decide based on warehouse and accounting processes; the connector comes after that.
No. Shopware 6 is an ecommerce platform with order management, one stock value per product, and document generation. Purchasing, suppliers, goods receipt, picking, and financial accounting are handled by a connected inventory management system or ERP.
Item master data, suppliers and purchasing, goods receipt, warehouse and stock, order processing, picking and shipping, returns, and the handover to accounting. ERP systems add financial accounting, controlling, production, and HR.
Pickware has the tightest connection because it runs inside the Shopware admin. JTL-Wawi, Xentral, and weclapp come with vendor-maintained connectors, and Sage 100, Business Central, and SAP Business One fit if they’re already running in your company. What matters is channels, warehouse, accounting, and operating model, not the brand name.
Based on our experience, €5,000 to €20,000 with an off-the-shelf connector and €20,000 to €40,000 for a custom bidirectional integration. On top of that come the ERP license and, if applicable, €79 to €179 per month for a connector from the Shopware Store.
4 to 10 weeks with a vendor connector, 3 to 5 months with a custom integration. The duration depends less on the technology than on the quality of the master data and how quickly special cases are decided.
Pickware is a plugin and requires a self-hosted Shopware installation or PaaS. Shopware SaaS only allows apps, not plugins. If you use SaaS, you connect an inventory management system via its connector, Shopware Nexus, or an integration through the Admin API.
The Community Edition has no license fee, Rise starts at €600 per month, and Evolve at €2,400. A starter store comes to around €25,000 in year one, and a mid-sized store with an ERP integration to €80,000 to €120,000, with details in our article on Shopware pricing.
Already know which system it will be, or still choosing? Tell us which channels, warehouse, and accounting you run. We’ll tell you which integration method fits and what it costs before you sign a license. Our overview of Shopware ERP and CRM integrations shows which systems we connect.
Already running a Shopware store and dealing with stock discrepancies, duplicate customers, or slow imports? Our free store audit shows where your store is leaving revenue on the table today. On request, we’ll include the ERP integration in the review.
Learn more about how we work, our certifications, and our locations on the Shopware agency solution25 page.
Besnik Bilalli is the founder and CEO of solution25, the Shopware agency from Bremen. Before founding the agency in 2017, he built his own online store and grew it to more than 500 orders a day. Since then he has been helping merchants with Shopware projects, from the first budget to ongoing operations. He’s happy to answer questions about this article personally: get in touch.
Responsible for content and updates: Besnik Bilalli. Last updated: October 2026. Next content review: January 2027.
