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Popular PIM systems: features, specifics, and pricing

Comparison of popular PIM systems: how to choose the best solution for product data management and eCommerce automation

  • In 2024, we compared PIM systems available on the CIS market
  • Why does a business need a PIM system
  • We'll send you the materials you need or a commercial proposal
  • The world chooses: which PIM systems are popular in the European and American markets

  1. We compare PIM systems popular in the CIS, European, and American markets: Akeneo PIM, Catsy, inriver, Pimcore, Plytix, Riversand, Sales Layer, Salsify.

  2. The world chooses Akeneo PIM Catsy Inriver Pimcore Plytix Riversand Sales Layer Salsify Summary: how to choose a PIM system

  3. When we first started working with PIM systems, this area was relatively unpopular in CIS.

  4. It was of interest mainly to large companies and representative offices of international holdings, for which product information management was an urgent problem.

In 2024, we compared PIM systems available on the CIS market

In the new article, only the systems you can use in CIS without access issues. Read more It seems that interest in such systems would have grown organically as part of the broader digitalization trend. But 2020 gave the PIM market a boost, or rather, pushed retail and manufacturing businesses to automate processes more actively.

Why does a business need a PIM system

Each product can have more than 200 attributes: descriptions, SKUs, prices, photos, seasonality, discounts, product relationships, and more. These attributes must be assigned, edited, approved, transferred to sales channels and internal systems, updated, and transferred again. When sent correctly to marketplaces, each attribute can improve catalog ranking or change how it is linked.

Therefore, adding attributes or new values to them is a separate business process that in itself requires action. In addition, each attribute can be a separate complex reference list that both procurement, production, and suppliers must work with. Back in 2012, the research company Goodmasters calculated that about 25 minutes per year are spent collecting and updating data for one SKU. For non-core systems and applications, this figure remains roughly the same today.

The speed of entering data, for example in Excel, is only marginally affected by which exact product version the manager is using. If the company has a catalog of

SKU (which is rare, but it happens), the time spent on attribute operations can be ignored. But if we are talking about at least

SKU, the numbers become significant. A simple calculation shows 12 person-months per year spent on manual data work. In practical terms, one employee spends ALL of their working time on product data. The larger the catalog, the higher the maintenance costs and the greater the likelihood of disruptions and errors caused by human factors. More business processes live in people's heads rather than in information systems. Data quality gets worse.

And the longer the time to market. A PIM system (short for product information management system) automates work with product information: completeness checks, updates, versioning, data exchange, information search, and more. According to the same studies, implementing a PIM system reduces the time needed to collect and update data for each SKU to 4 minutes per year - six times less!

The time to market for individual products is also reduced by three to four times. Equally important, data quality improves. How a PIM system works

The world chooses: which PIM systems are popular in the European and American markets

The CIS market has traditionally developed along its own path, even if it still keeps an eye on the world. The same is true for PIM systems: if you compare the CIS and, for example, American top 10 PIM products, you will find at most three overlaps between the lists.

The remaining products will be unfamiliar to CIS businesses.

But if you plan to expand into international markets, it makes sense to build into your architecture the systems that will let you integrate faster with marketplaces and other sales channels operating in your target market. In this article, we will not go into what PIM means for manufacturing, retail, and hybrid companies, as that is a separate and complex topic that we will return to later. For now, we have analyzed which PIM systems are popular not only in CIS, but also in the European and American markets.

This is not a ranking of systems, and there are no “best” or “worst” options here, so to avoid unnecessary interpretations we have sorted the list alphabetically. In this article, we will look at:

Akeneo PIM

Catsy Inriver Pimcore Plytix Riversand Sales Layer Salsify Akeneo PIM Akeneo PIM interface A master system for centralized management of marketing and technical information. More than 500 enterprise-scale companies use Akeneo PIM.

Akeneo PIM features

  1. Akeneo PIM is a full-featured PIM system with PxM elements.

  2. Category and catalog management.

  3. Automatic and manual enrichment of product data.

  4. Editing data for multiple products at once.

  5. Analysis of the completeness and quality of product records.

  6. Managing media files according to channel-specific requirements.

  7. Role and access management (Enterprise Edition only).

Versioning

The history of product data changes is stored in the system: you can see who changed what and when. An administrator can roll back changes to the required version at any time.

Flexibility and scalability

Open source makes it possible to scale Akeneo PIM as the item master in the catalog expands and the number of distribution channels grows. Additional PxM modules can also be installed: Akeneo Onboarder and Franklin. Code-level customizations are possible for the Community Edition.

Who Akeneo PIM is for

For businesses of any size. Small businesses will find the basic version with limited functionality suitable - Community Edition (code-first, installed on your servers), while Enterprise Edition (SaaS) with expanded capabilities meets the needs of large enterprises. In our view, Akeneo PIM is generally not a good fit for manufacturing companies or businesses with products that have tightly linked attributes, due to the lack of independent reference list functionality.

License cost

  1. Akeneo PIM is available in three editions with different feature sets. Community Edition.

  2. A free open-source version with limited functionality.

  3. Deployed on your company's servers. Growth Edition.

  4. Paid version with limited functionality.

  5. Annual billing. Enterprise Edition.

  6. Full-featured paid version.

  7. Cloud deployment, SaaS/PaaS.

  8. The annual license fee is discussed with Akeneo individually during negotiations.

Catsy

Catsy PIM interface. Catsy is a PIM/DAM/PxM system that enables centralized management of product information, digital assets (photos, videos, etc.), and customer experience.

Catsy features

  1. Advanced catalog search for quick access to the right SKUs.

  2. Digital asset management (DAM).

  3. Product relationships: the system helps the end customer find an alternative if the selected item is out of stock.

  4. Grouping products into bundles and linking accessories to the main product.

  5. Role management with permissions to view, edit, and publish information.

  6. Saving content versions in the product card: you can track when changes were made and, if needed, roll back to previous versions.

Additional features

Fast launch. Among the vendor's successful cases is deploying and launching the system and loading data for 66,000 items into the system within nine days.

Flexibility and scalability

Catsy’s solution is designed for businesses of any size. A small company can choose only the modules it needs and add new PIM modules as it grows.

Who Catsy is for

For small and mid-sized businesses focused on manufacturing and selling products.

License cost

Deployed in the cloud (SaaS). There is no free version, but you can request a demo from the vendor before deciding to buy. The license is purchased per user. Information about the annual subscription price is available upon request.

Inriver

inriver PIM interface Inriver is a PIM system with advanced marketing tools. It not only stores, standardizes, and transfers product information, but also provides actionable recommendations on what influences users' purchasing decisions.

inriver features

  1. Creating, updating, and enriching product information.

  2. Creating relationships between products and categories.

  3. Marketing tools for demand analysis and improving the customer experience.

  4. Content segmentation by category.

  5. Assigning add and edit permissions to individual users or user groups.

  6. Built-in connectors for connecting to various data sources and sales channels.

  7. Building integrations in the inriver Integration Framework.

  8. A fully cloud-based technology deployed on Microsoft Azure.

Additional features

Pure PIM system. Additional MDM and DAM features are not available.

Flexibility and scalability

  1. Positioned as "the only product in the industry with an elastic scalable model".

  2. Adapts quickly to changes in business and consumer behavior thanks to a flexible entity structure.

  3. Scales attributes, making it easier to enter new markets and sales channels.

  4. Increases cross-sell volume through a model that takes product hierarchy and relationships between individual products into account.

Who inriver is for

inriver is designed for companies operating in B2B and B2C segments, especially those focused on online channels.

License cost

A SaaS product. Pricing depends on the size of your product data storage and the expected server load. Starting price is 55,000 EUR per year; the inriver Evaluate system for working with the digital shelf is billed separately.

Pimcore

Pimcore interface Pimcore is a PIM/DAM/MDM system and e-Commerce platform suitable for managing complex catalogs with multi-level hierarchies and multiple product relationships.

Pimcore features

  1. Integration with external systems for fast data exchange.

  2. Managing information flow, enrichment and export through standardized processes. DAM functionality.

  3. Content management tailored to channel and audience specifics.

  4. An internal portal for tracking marketing information about products.

  5. Structured export of product information to more than 2,000 channels in their required formats.

  6. Automatic translation of product information.

  7. Marketplace integration, a single dashboard for tracking orders from all marketplaces.

  8. Integration with Microsoft and Adobe products.

  9. Automated export of information into print-ready files (catalogs, advertising materials, and promotional assets).

Additional features

In terms of functionality, Pimcore is a low-code product. This means that certain integrations and business processes for collecting and transferring product data can be implemented without developers, by your own managers or analysts.

Flexibility and scalability

Pimcore is open source, so it can scale without limits.

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Who Pimcore is for

The system is suitable for companies of any size and with any number of sales channels. It is considered a strong choice for integrators and manufacturing companies. What is especially useful is that even the Community Edition already has enough functionality for very large implementations, can be deployed on company servers, and is open source.

License cost

  1. Three plans, with pricing based on functionality. 1.

  2. The free Community Edition does not support PxM/AXM functionality, marketplace integrations, or additional product information export features.

  3. No user support available.

  4. The number of installations is limited. 2.

  5. The monthly price of the advanced Enterprise Edition starts at 1,600 € per month, billed annually.

  6. Includes all Pimcore functionality and user support, but the number of installations is limited. 3. Unlimited Subscription is the full Pimcore version with no limits on functionality or the number of installations within one organization.

Plytix

Plytix PIM interface Plytix is a SaaS PIM system with out-of-the-box DAM functionality. It was designed for team collaboration on product information. One of Plytix's advantages, according to the vendor, is its thoughtful and intuitive system design.

Plytix features

  1. Management of all types of digital data. API for custom integrations.

  2. Unlimited users within one company across all pricing plans.

  3. User role separation with individual access permissions.

  4. Advanced filtering with built-in AND and OR functions.

  5. Tracking progress in completing product cards. 13 product information attribute types, unlimited custom attributes.

  6. Configuring relationships between products for upselling, suggesting related items, or creating bundles.

  7. Fast export to CSV, XLSX, and PDF.

  8. Calculated attributes for automatic editing of product information.

Additional features

Plytix offers broad analytics capabilities: you can generate reports using the filters that really matter to you (sales channels, products, categories, dates such as Black Friday, time periods, and price ranges). Dashboards are built directly in the system. Some data is pulled directly from Google Analytics.

Flexibility and scalability

In addition to the core functionality, you can add: the Channels module for automatic publishing of product information to marketplaces, product comparison services, e-Commerce platforms, and data table generation in CSV and XLSX formats; the Brand Portals module for exchanging product information with distributors and retailers, with data filtering; the Product Sheets module for creating product tables - a simple interface, broad

options for customizing the design and table structure to match brand requirements, PDF export.

Who Plytix is for

Depending on the selected plan, Plytix is suitable for both small businesses and large retail and manufacturing organizations with up to 100,000 SKUs in their catalog.

License cost

Plytix offers three pricing plans for users. 1. Free. Includes

Up to GB of cloud storage

SKU. Analytics volume is limited. There is no user limit. 2. Standard. 300 € per month, 3,600 € per year, billed annually. Unlimited cloud storage space, up to 100

SKU. Advanced analytics capabilities. Technical support. Content management add-ons. 3. PRO. 1,100 € per month, 13,200 € per year, billed annually. In addition to the Standard plan tools, it includes support for automated feeds to sales channels, automated generation of CSV and XLSX tables, and PDF template updates. DAM functionality is included in all plans.

Riversand

Riversand PIM interface PIM/MDM platform (SaaS), part of the Syndigo ecosystem. It is a leader according to Gartner (Magic Quadrant for Master Data Management Solutions) and Forrester (The Forrester Wave: Product Information Management).

Riversand features

  1. Automatic data import from multiple sources.

  2. Enrichment of product data within a single system.

  3. Planning product data based on insights into sales drivers across different categories and segments.

  4. Data management driven by KPIs and analytics.

  5. Automatic generation of recommendations for improving product information.

  6. Channel analytics, KPI tracking for promotions, pricing, targeting, and segmentation.

Additional features

Dedicated apps for data management and for tracking and improving customer experience. Riversand products include built-in commercial analytics apps that help identify bottlenecks in processes and data and improve the quality of presence across sales channels.

Flexibility and scalability

Riversand's core platform functionality can be extended to fit business needs by downloading connectors, consumer experience tracking apps, and content improvement services from the Riversand App Marketplace. It is also possible to build custom apps for Riversand.

Who Riversand is for

Riversand is best suited for enterprise-level companies.

License cost

Estimated cost for mid-sized businesses is from €50,000 per year, and for large businesses from €150,000 per year. The price depends on the number of users who will work with the system and the required capacity of cloud storage for product data.

Sales Layer

Sales Layer PIM interface Sales Layer is a PIM system with DAM functionality, developed in Spain. It is positioned as the "first PIM system designed with marketing teams in mind." Fully cloud-based.

Sales Layer features

  1. Product information management: import, enrichment, export.

  2. Direct export of product information from familiar spreadsheets.

  3. Supports multiple language versions of product information (from five in the Premium plan to unlimited in Enterprise Plus).

  4. Data analysis by language, brand, and product category.

  5. Instant generation of custom catalogs for sharing with suppliers, buyers, and others.

  6. Assigning roles and distributing access rights among users.

  7. Tracking the change history of product information: who changed what and when.

  8. Notifying users about made changes.

  9. Keeping product information in backups even if technical issues occur. Business processes for working with product information.

  10. Connectors for integration with marketplaces and IT systems.

Additional features

Automatic translation of product descriptions into 36 of the world's most widely used languages: English, French, Chinese, Spanish, and others. The system automatically retouches uploaded images.

Flexibility and scalability

Sales Layer's core features are available to all users. As the catalog grows and the number of sales channels increases, and therefore the need for additional features such as connectors, languages, and more, the company will need to move to more expensive plans.

Who Sales Layer is for

A universal PIM system suitable for businesses of different sizes. In demand among multinational companies with catalogs of 100,000 SKU or more.

License cost

Three plans for companies with different functional needs. 1. The Premium plan allows up to 10 users in the PIM system. Up to 20 connectors can be connected. Maximum catalog size is 150

SKU. A limit of five language versions of information. 2. The Enterprise plan is designed for companies with a catalog of up to 300

SKU. No more than 35 employees can work with the information. The system stores up to 10 language versions of product descriptions. Up to 35 connectors are supported. 3. Enterprise Plus is Sales Layer's most feature-rich plan: the number of users, connectors, SKU, and language versions is unlimited. Pricing for each plan is available on request.

Salsify

Salsify PIM interface Salsify is not only a PIM system, but also a commerce experience platform - a platform that manages the full range of product information, prices, customer experience, product promotion experience, digital data, and more. Cloud-based. Individual microservices support multitenancy.

Salsify features

  1. PIM system functionality: managing information about products and product groups. Editing, tracking, enriching information, exporting to sales channels, complex taxonomy, and relationships between products.

  2. Supports multichannel publishing: information changes according to the requirements of each sales channel. 2.

  3. DAM system functionality: centralized upload and organized storage of digital assets, digital asset management, DAM synchronization with existing business processes, validation of digital asset relevance, and more. 3. PxM functionality: managing content according to consumer interests and expectations. 4.

  4. Collecting and analyzing data to generate market insights. 5.

  5. Integration with marketplaces and social commerce platforms.

Additional features

A separate Salsify product is a live customer chat that embeds into a website or online store.

Flexibility and scalability

Salsify uses a microservice architecture, and parts of the system support multitenancy. This allows companies to optimize the total cost of owning the platform. With Salsify, you can use only the services you need and scale the platform itself when company growth requires it.

Who Salsify is for

Salsify is a good fit for retailers that operate across multiple channels or sell products from several brands. The system is designed for large teams and for handling large volumes of constantly changing data.

License cost

From $25,000 per year. The price depends on the number of users and their roles, selected functionality, and cloud storage capacity.

Summary: how to choose a PIM system

  1. At first glance, all participants in this review are roughly equal in terms of PIM functionality. Yes, each system has its own nuances and additional features that may be useful for business, although these often overlap as well.

  2. So how do you choose a product that will become part of your business IT infrastructure if reviewing its functionality on paper does not move you forward?

  3. At the selection stage, it is important to understand how the solution will fit into the company's existing IT architecture, how it will change processes, and what issues may arise during integration or future scaling of the system.

  4. IT consulting can help answer these questions.

  5. After analyzing your business, existing processes, and goals for the coming years, the consultant will narrow the options down to two or three.

  6. The next step is to request a demo from the vendor or its partner.

  7. You can see what each system looks like, how it works, how convenient its interface is, and which of the claimed features you actually need.

  8. In our experience, these two stages are enough to make a decision and begin PIM implementation, as well as integration of other systems in the company's IT infrastructure.

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23:38 Übersicht: Produktinformationsmanagementsystem (PIM) Akeneo | kt.team 23:38 Product data management: Akeneo PIM review. | kt.team 3:10 PIM integration with CRM / WHO needs it and WHEN?