# ION Software Pricing, Alternatives & More 2026 | Capterra

> With the help of Capterra, learn about ION Software - reviews, pricing plans, popular comparisons to other Manufacturing Execution products and more.

Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/205019/ion

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# 

 ION Software Review 2026: Features, Integrations, Pros & Cons

Last updated on March 13, 2026

Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team.

[Description](#description)[Use cases](#use-cases)[Alternatives](#alternatives)[Features](#features)[Pricing](#pricing)[Integrations](#integrations)[Support](#support)[Reviews](#reviews)

ION

## What is ION?

ION is an advanced MES ideally suited for next-generation hardware manufacturers looking to manage their factories based on data. From prototype to production, ION reliably move parts, workflows, and data through the factory floor, tracking every person, part, and action. Designed based on agile manufacturing principles, the highly flexible solution digitally connects engineers and technicians in real-time to enable iterative building that leads to higher quality products. ION's unique aBOM (as-built bill of materials) provides unparalleled traceability as parts are built from raw materials to final assembly, and the true cost of a build that includes people, time, and parts. Through it's open API, ION provides the foundation for a modern factory tech stack where all of your systems, machines, and robots are connected. Choose an out-of-the-box integration with leading ERP and PLM solutions, or easily build your own.

## What is ION used for?

[Bill of Materials](https://www.capterra.com/bill-of-materials-software/)[Aerospace Manufacturing](https://www.capterra.com/aerospace-manufacturing-software/)[Manufacturing](https://www.capterra.com/manufacturing-software/)

Top alternative

Featured

Overall rating

Based on 28 user reviews

Reviews sentiment

Positive

82%

Neutral

18%

Negative

0%

Contact vendor  
for pricing

Free trial  
not available

Capterra Shortlist charts the highest-rated and most popular products...

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Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings...

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## Compare with a popular alternative

Capterra selects software alternatives based on relevant features, verified user reviews and user interactions. Placement may be influenced by client status.

### ION

4.0 (28)

VS.

[4.4 (243)](https://www.capterra.com/p/96371/Acumatica-Cloud-ERP/reviews/)

Starting Price

Contact vendor

Starting Price

Contact vendor

Free Trial

Free Version

Pricing Options

Free Trial

Free Version

Ease Of Use

3.9 (28)

Ease Of Use

4.2 (242)

Value For Money

4.4 (14)

Value For Money

4.2 (218)

Customer Service

4.8 (25)

Customer Service

4.1 (227)

## ION alternatives

[4.1 (283)](https://www.capterra.com/p/103908/IQMS-ERP-Software/reviews/)

Starting price

Contact vendor for pricing

Pricing Options

Free Trial

Free Version

User Rating

82%

of reviewers

rated it above 4 stars

Highest Rated

[4.9 (19)](https://www.capterra.com/p/125475/QT9-ERP/reviews/)

Starting price

$20000.00

Per User, Per Month

Pricing Options

Free Trial

Free Version

User Rating

100%

of reviewers

rated it above 4 stars

[4.2 (1,291)](https://www.capterra.com/p/135618/Odoo/reviews/)

Starting price

$31.10

Per User, Per Month

Pricing Options

Free Trial

Free Version

User Rating

83%

of reviewers

rated it above 4 stars

[4.8 (113)](https://www.capterra.com/p/155436/ProShop/reviews/)

Starting price

Contact vendor for pricing

Pricing Options

Free Trial

Free Version

User Rating

97%

of reviewers

rated it above 4 stars

## Features

Features with the highest number of reviews are displayed first. Those that have no reviews appear next, sorted alphabetically.

Traceability

3.3 (9)

77.78% of 9 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important

Track and document the history, application, or location of an item or activity

Inventory Management

3.3 (8)

87.50% of 8 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important

Track and manage inventory levels to maintain proper supply

Document Management

3.7 (7)

57.14% of 7 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important

Store, manage, and track all electronic documents in a centralized location

Quality Management

3.6 (5)

80.00% of 5 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important

Focuses on improving processes by collecting data and spotting bottlenecks or other challenges.

Supplier Management

2.5 (4)

25.00% of 4 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important

Manage all supplier data and operations

Supply Chain Management

2.5 (2)

100.00% of 2 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important

Manage the planning and execution of supply chain activities

ION 41 features

Application programming interface that allows for integration with other systems/databases

Automatically create schedules based on business needs or employee availability and qualifications

Scan barcodes to ensure accurate pricing and label tracking

Material list of manufacturing parts and associated costs

Create bills of materials

Track and manage adherence to policies for any service, product, process, or supplier

Process to track, record, and analyze expenses that occurred over the entire duration of a given project

Process of gathering, measuring, and analyzing accurate data

Import and export data to and from software applications

Graphical representation of data

Store, manage, and track all electronic documents in a centralized location

Transfer of data from one computer system to another

Integrate with existing ERP systems

Estimate expected cost based on various factors before a project begins

Intended to be used by manufacturers

Designed for small businesses

Form predictions based on past and present data/trends

Track and manage inventory levels to maintain proper supply

Track and monitor inventory items, such as raw materials, unfinished goods, and ready-to-sell items

Collect, organize, and track inventory/product data including item numbers, descriptions, etc.

Group and package individual but related items as one package set

Schedule predetermined or ad hoc maintenance services and labor requests

Manufacturing execution systems focus on quality control in the production process.

Observe and track the demand, usage, progress or quality of a system, product, or user

Manage and support multiple locations

A set of indicators that tracks the performance of networks, applications, systems, teams, etc.

Manage and track all stages of a product lifecycle, from its conception, design, development, and deployment

Plan and schedule the use of production resources

Ensure that quality requirements and standards are met across production processes

Focuses on improving processes by collecting data and spotting bottlenecks or other challenges.

Receive data and information in real time

Active monitoring of systems, applications, or networks

Collection, analysis, and representation of numerical data and generation of reports to understand various patterns

Assign available resources to various projects and tasks

Plan availability and assign specific time slots for tasks and resources

Manage and control operations that take place on the shop floor or factory floor

Manage all supplier data and operations

Manage the planning and execution of supply chain activities

Set up connections to third-party platforms to improve business processes

Track and document the history, application, or location of an item or activity

Create, design and manage workflows for repetitive tasks

Get Advice

We can help you find the software with the features you need.

Features

3.5 (28)

3.5

Based on 28 reviews

## Pricing

Value for money

4.4 (14)

### Starting price

Contact vendor  
for pricing

Free trial  
not available

Value for money

4.4 (14)

4.4

Based on 14 reviews

## Integrations

[

QuickBooks Enterprise](https://www.capterra.com/p/174984/QuickBooks-Enterprise/)[

Smartsheet](https://www.capterra.com/p/79104/Smartsheet/)[

NetSuite](https://www.capterra.com/p/135757/NetSuite/)[

Odoo](https://www.capterra.com/p/135618/Odoo/)[

Ramp](https://www.capterra.com/p/207081/Ramp/)[

Arena PLM](https://www.capterra.com/p/6101/Arena-PLM/)[

Arena QMS](https://www.capterra.com/p/135978/Arena-Quality/)[

Teamcenter](https://www.capterra.com/p/217609/Teamcenter/)

Connect with a Capterra advisor for a free 15-minute consultation

Get a personalized software list aligned to your business needs with guidance from our expert advisors. Our team has helped 1 million+ businesses like yours find options that fit their needs.

## Support, customer service and training options

Customer Service

4.8 (25)

Support

-   Email/Help Desk
-   FAQs/Forum
-   Knowledge Base
-   Phone Support
-   24/7 (Live rep)
-   Chat

Training

-   In Person
-   Live Online
-   Webinars
-   Documentation
-   Videos

Deployment

-   Web
-   Android
-   iPhone/iPad

Typical users

-   Freelancers
-   Small businesses
-   Mid size businesses
-   Enterprises

Customer Service

4.8 (25)

4.8

Based on 25 reviews

## User reviews

Overall rating

4.0

Based on 28 reviews

Filter by rating

5(6)

4(17)

3(5)

2(0)

1(0)

Mentioned topic

Sorted by most recent

MS

Mark S.

Senior Tech/ Machinist

Printing

### "Why we like Ion"

5.0

Overall Rating

5.0

5.0

Ease of Use

5.0

5.0

Features

5.0

5.0

Customer Service

0.0

0.0

Likelihood to Recommend

7/10

July 16, 2021

Pros

Organization. No annoying people bothering me

Cons

Complexity of the product. Annoying reviews.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

PB

Prashanth B.

Lead Propulsion Analyst

Aviation & Aerospace

### "Good product with potential to grow"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

3.0

3.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

8/10

June 30, 2021

Pros

Home UI is easy to understand. Easy place to keep track of completed and in-progress work.

Cons

Lack of ability to link different runs which could help move from one run to another without the use of going back to the run table.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

DY

Dmitriy Y.

Director, HW

Mechanical or Industrial Engineering

### "Initial sw trials"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

5.0

5.0

Features

2.0

2.0

Customer Service

0.0

0.0

Likelihood to Recommend

10/10

June 4, 2021

Manufacturing builds, procedures.

Pros

Easy to start and create procedures. Basic traceability process in place.

Cons

search function. Trace non-confirming materials.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

Charlie G.

Stealth Engine Chief Engineer and Production Manager

Aviation & Aerospace

### "Ion is a powerful manufacturing workflow tool with a very bright future."

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

3.0

3.0

Features

3.0

3.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

10/10

June 3, 2021

Even where Ion has rough edges, it is far superior in usability and feature richness to the competition. In the months we have been using Ion the robust feature roadmap has been borne out. Every update increases usability and functionality, though sometimes comes with some workflow changes. I can unreservedly recommend this software. It is good now with the potential to be great. I have had a very good experience with the First Resonance team and believe they are an excellent team to work with.

Pros

The traceability, work instruction, and issue ticket modules work together well and provide the needed functionality. The Ion team is highly responsive and actively adding features. They provide real time support on both bugs and usability concerns. The technician facing interface is highly functional. Setting up and scaling the software instance is easy. The First Resonance team makes export control compliance easy.

Cons

The GUI can be very clunky on older modules. Minor program errors are not uncommon while working in the tool. Data entry from our PDM system is very manual and time consuming. The lack of strong mobile support is a significant opportunity for the software, but a frustrating omission at the moment.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

MH

Mia H.

Manufacturing Engineer

Aviation & Aerospace

### "It's an okay start"

3.0

Overall Rating

3.0

3.0

Ease of Use

2.0

2.0

Features

2.0

2.0

Customer Service

0.0

0.0

Likelihood to Recommend

4/10

June 3, 2021

Pros

Very clean look. First Resonance has also been extremely receptive to feedback, even for new features that can take a while to implement. It's clear that this software is in it's early stages, but getting feedback and responding to it is a great wat to improve.

Cons

There are soooo many improvements need to make this software productions ready. The instruction editor is still pretty annoying to use when incorporating images, ordered list, and any non-basic formatting needs. I wish there was an option to create a field that can take multiple inputs. I have never tried to used the part tracking and traceability in ION, but from what I have seen it does not look ready to go. I wish the devs did more controlled roll outs of improvements/changes. Sometimes, I feel that things are rolled out really quickly and result in a lot of glitches upon implementation.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

BG

Ben G.

Additive Manufacturing Engineer

Airlines/Aviation

### "A good product with a lot of room to grow"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

3.0

3.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

7/10

June 3, 2021

Pros

The interface is simple and the software is generally pretty easy to navigate. Creating items and procedures is smooth and I can generate work orders with no problem. The First Resonance team is responsive and updates are dropped frequently, so issues that I might have one week may get resolved the next. Always nice to wake up to new functionalities and have an evolving UI.

Cons

The filtering is not great. Creating items or work orders is easy enough, but going back and finding work that was done previously is not an easy task. At the moment, this generally consists of scrolling through long lists. The search bar also is a little inflexible and queries have to be precisely defined, otherwise, it's back to scrolling through a long, long list. It's also not apparent what's going on in the backend of Ion and it's easy to mess up links among different items that are linked (i.e. it is pretty fragile).

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

WY

Wilson Y.

Avionics Hardware Development Engineer

Aviation & Aerospace

### "Reliable Robotics - Avionics"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

3.0

3.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

7/10

June 3, 2021

Pros

Procedures and Runs. I like how we are able to have a common location and format for these things.

Cons

Parts creation and list. It's clunky and I would rather we have unique pn.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

SC

Shane C.

Propulsion Design Engineer Intern

Defense & Space

### "This Software Has Great Potential"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

4.0

4.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

7/10

June 3, 2021

Pros

I like how easy it is to create new runs and procedures, as well as the usefulness of the runs. I also appreciate the how receptive to feedback the team is and how quickly they implement changes to make the software better.

Cons

My biggest complaint is that there is no way to view the history of a part. We often make an assembly, use it, then strip it down to use the parts elsewhere. When we try to go back to see where that part had been used in the past, there's no way to find out.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

TH

Tim H.

certified badass

Defense & Space

### "The future of manufacturing is bright"

3.0

Overall Rating

3.0

3.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

3.0

3.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

7/10

June 2, 2021

We were decently early adopters with Ion and have seen the software grow into a more and more powerful toolbox.

Pros

Ion is going to revolutionize the field of work instructions and inventory management. The support team is knowledgeable, helpful, and easy to work with. While working with the team, it feels like they're part of your internal team when finding solutions within Ion.

Cons

The price seems to be a little aggressive for the software when compared with alternatives. The per user price keeps the software from being fully adopted by the company to find solutions of their own.

Alternatives considered

[Fusion Operations](https://www.capterra.com/p/153796/Fusion-Operations/)

Reasons for choosing ION

ProdSmart didn't have a US Engineering support team.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

SN

Sohil N.

Staff Software Engineer

Machinery

### "Easiest way to set up a production workflow"

4.0

Overall Rating

4.0

4.0

Ease of Use

4.0

4.0

Features

3.0

3.0

Customer Service

5.0

5.0

Likelihood to Recommend

9/10

May 24, 2021

ION has brought great value to our company. It's very easy to use and set up. The customer service is amazing! The team really listens to your feedback in order to improve the product. If ION can't do something you need right now, it will likely get added or there is a sufficient work around. Highly recommend using ION!

Pros

ION is super easy to set up! You can get running with it within a few days and immediately make an impact on your production workflow. Having your work instructions directly in the software and not in some other system is a huge benefit. The ability to track the as-built BOM and collect data during the execution of runs is extremely valuable.

Cons

There are some edge cases and bugs that still need to be sorted out. There are some features that are lacking like in app reports, but there are good workarounds until they get a chance to implement it. Consumption of material for 3D printing applications needs to be improved.

Review source

Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication.

[View all Reviews](https://www.capterra.com/p/205019/ion/reviews/)

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