Do this, in this order
Before you open the product. An evaluation done by browsing finds whatever the product is good at; an evaluation done against a list finds whether it is good at what you need.
The trial grants every module for 30 days. Look at all of them once — the shape of the suite is part of what you are judging.
The demo path always works. The one you are worried about is the one that decides this.
Every module page has a "what this does not do" block. They are written to be findable in an evaluation rather than discoverable in month four.
Several things are named in the product and not built. If one of them is central to you, that decides the evaluation and it should decide it now.
Questions that actually separate fit from misfit
| Ask | Good sign | Bad sign |
|---|---|---|
| How many entities do we consolidate? | One to a handful, one base currency. | Dozens, several functional currencies, statutory filings in each. |
| Do we manufacture? | We design and buy; we need parts and BOMs. | We need MRP, shop-floor control and scheduling. |
| How custom is our sales process? | Stages, sequences, a shared inbox. | A bespoke CPQ with approval matrices. |
| Who needs the books? | Our team and our accountant. | A regulator with a prescribed filing format. |
| What talks to what? | A bank feed, a payment processor, a store. | Fourteen legacy systems over SFTP. |
erp.io has PLM — parts, bills of material, suppliers — and it does not have MRP. There is no material requirements run, no shop-floor control, no production scheduling. If you need those, buy something that has them. This is stated on the manufacturing page too, and it costs us deals we would rather lose early than late.
What to compare against
The honest comparison set depends on what you are replacing. Replacing spreadsheets and QuickBooks, the question is whether a suite is worth the change at all. Replacing a mid-market ERP, the question is whether the AI and the shared origin buy enough to justify a migration. We publish comparisons including against products we lose to.
One structural difference worth weighing rather than taking on trust: everything here is one origin and one account. That removes an entire category of friction — no per-app logins, no cross-site hand-off, no separate user directory per tool — and it also means the suite is a single vendor relationship. Whether that is a strength or a risk is a judgement about your company, not about the software.
What to produce at the end
- A list of the gaps, each marked *live with it*, *work around it*, or *deal-breaker*.
- The one workflow you will pilot, named, with the person who owns it.
- A rough seat count, so the plan ladder is a number rather than a shrug.
- A decision on whether you are migrating history at all.
What this does not do
Vendor-authored feature matrices are marketing. Test your own workflows instead.
Thirty days with everything on is usually longer than an honest evaluation needs. Ask if it genuinely is not.
Questions
Do we need a call to evaluate?
No. Everything is self-serve. A call helps when the question is about migration scope rather than the product.
Can we load real data during the trial?
Yes, and you should for the pilot workflow. Just do not do a full historic migration yet.