We know you may be considering platforms like o9 Solutions.
Here’s a quick look at why brands and retailers choose Toolio instead. While o9 is powerful, it’s also expensive, complex to implement, and requires heavy IT support, making it harder for planners to adopt and use day to day.
Category
Purpose-Built for Retail
Ease of Use & Adoption
Implementation
Cost
Support & Updates
Integration
Configurable retail metrics (Build, WOS, FWOS) built specifically for planners.
Familiar spreadsheet-like, intuitive interface that’s easy to learn for fast adoption.
Fast, phased rollout in months, not years, with hands-on support. Quick time-to-value.
Predictable modular SaaS pricing. Pay only for modules your business needs.
Dedicated support included. New features, always up to date, no IT required.
Configurable ERP, POS, and e-comm integrations. Flexible data exchange.
Lacks retail-specific metrics, for inconsistent setups, forcing planners back to Excel or creating multiple iterations of metrics.
Steep learning curve, overwhelming feature set, complex UI, slower adoption.
Complex, lengthy, and resource-intensive. Requires heavy IT involvement & Resources.
High licensing and maintenance costs. Customization and IT support drive up TCO.
Updates / customization can take 2–6 weeks and require IT teams or external consultants.
Difficult, time-consuming integrations. Requires expert implementers, adding cost and disruption.
What Makes Toolio Different
Toolio is a cloud-native platform that’s quick to deploy, integrates smoothly with your existing systems, and doesn’t require a large IT team to support or maintain. Most customers are up and running in months, not years.
Toolio is designed with retail teams in mind. The interface is clean and intuitive, so users see only what they need to make decisions.
There’s no clutter or overwhelming dashboards, just straightforward tools that match how planners, merchants, and allocators actually work.
Planning teams have the flexibility to adjust Toolio to their needs, without relying on IT.
From assortment to inventory planning, users can fine-tune processes and make changes on their own, so the software adapts to the business, not the other way around.
Why would I use o9 Solutions over Toolio
o9 gives you the ability to configure nearly every aspect of the platform, from planning modules to data integrations. In theory, this means you can tailor it to match your business processes exactly.
That level of complexity makes o9 better suited as a broad supply chain planning tool with some retail functionality, rather than a dedicated retail planning platform. It often requires large teams and significant IT involvement to configure, test, and maintain, even small adjustments typically need technical support.
For brands looking for ease, agility, and speed, this can be a drawback. But if your priority is a supply planning system with retail capabilities layered on, and you have the IT resources to manage it, o9 can be a fit.
o9 Solutions offers...
a wide range of planning features and customization options, but many customers find that it takes significant time, IT involvement, and consulting support to configure and maintain. If your organization has a large budget and dedicated technical resources, o9 may be a fit.
Toolio, on the other hand,
is built specifically for retail planning teams and is ready to use with retail-first templates, workflows, metrics, and attributes. It’s fast to implement, intuitive for planners and merchants, and doesn’t require a steep learning curve or heavy ongoing IT support. If you want enterprise-grade planning power with the speed, agility, and ease of use that retail teams need, Toolio is the better choice.
See Toolio In Action
The best way to understand what Toolio could do for your team is to start a conversation.
