Last Updated on December 4, 2024 by Ewen Finser
Until I really started looking for an ERP for our agency business, I’ll admit that Striven wasn’t on my radar. But it should have been!
If you are interested in Striven’s ERP offering, but aren’t sure 1) if it’s a legit ERP solution and 2) if it will work for your business, this review is for you.
I spent 2 weeks running Striven through the paces, poking for weak points and uncovering overlooked features.
But first, after trying it out for a while, how would I describe Striven in a nutshell?
What is Striven and How Does it fit?
The ERP system is a complicated space because even the term “ERP” means different things to different businesses.
Striven fits in as a price-conscious, fully capable ERP that is ideal for small (growing) businesses and doesn’t necessarily require a “certified” administrator to run.
If you’ve been scared off by Oracle, SAP, or the other “big data” wormholes, Striven is the approachable ERP for teams where the leadership team still wears a few hats and nobody has time for a years-long “migration” process.
Striven Setup Process
One of the things I liked about Striven was that it can be either a completely blank slate, or quick-launched with some common presets based on business types:
Since I was considering this from our agency perspective, I went the “Professional Services” route. As a side note, I’m also testing out the “manufacturing” module in a separate guide (I’ll add link when it’s live).
Once you pick your module, there’s not much else to do before getting to the main dashboard.
I was immediately struck by how customizable everything is. You can drag and drop all of the modules, delete or add what you need, and basically use it as a tabula rosa. The “Professional Services” module is basically just some common presets here.
Features I Really Liked About Striven
Rather than just re-listing all of the advertised features, I’ll brief by exception and just highlight the ERP strong points that stood out to me (relative to the competition, what you might expect):
- Blank Slate: I found Striven to be incredibly easy to customize, from moving around modules on the dashboard to modifying text fields. You can easily create exactly the views and data integrations you need without too much fuss!
- Approachable: Striven is a refreshingly straightforward ERP. If you’ve struggled with the overwhelming commitment required to learn and implement upmarket ERPs like Netsuite, etc… Striven is a breath of fresh air.
- Affordable: Their pricing alone makes Striven worth considering. The pricing is fairly transparent and your initial commitment is $100s of dollars vs $1,000s (or more) with upmarket peers. Because it’s more affordable and there is less at risk overall, I generally recommend businesses at least TRY Striven first.
- SMB Friendly: Striven is ideal for smaller to midsized operations (<50 headcount) due to its cost and simplicity. It’s not difficult to cross-train team members in Striven and no third-party “implementors,” consultants, or resellers are involved in the process. Easier to get started, smaller up front investment, and easier to maintain over the long term.
- Lightweight: Totally cloud-based; no expensive implementations, upgrades, or onsite upkeep required. Note: Striven does have the ability to do implementations if you need it, but not nearly as expensive as peers.
Striven ERP Integrations
Getting the most out of an ERP often involves integrating well with others. The alternative is an “all in the family” approach (e.g. Oracle) where you pay for all sorts of different modules and suites.
Thankfully, Striven seems to be proactive and not territorial about integrating with other systems.
As of this writing, Striven integrates directly with:
- Authorize.net
- ShipStation
- Stripe
- Twilio
- Gmail
- Google Calendar
- Microsoft Calendar
Striven also has a well established Zapier library (my personal favorite to maximize value), something that the big ERPs typically do not have.
I also appreciate their open API structure for endpoints, allowing for a much greater degree of customization and deep integration if you have the technical ability.
Striven ERP Pricing Considerations
Pricing is obviously a big concern for any ERP implementation. I’ve seen plans go haywire… with catastrophic consequences. Often there’s a combination of sunk cost fallacy (“we’ve already invested SO much”) and awful switching costs once you are even marginally set up.
With Striven, I was immediately struck by the relative transparency of their pricing model. Starting with their flat per user pricing and simple two-tier structure:
Striven then has a monthly hosted pricing fee based on the modules you need (Customer Portal, Vendor Portal, Career Portal):
I really like this free tier for smaller organizations that are just looking to see if the platform will work. A perfect testing ground to see if an ERP – or this specific ERP – is right for you without incurring insane costs.
In my comparison directly with an upmarket peer (Netsuite) the cost savings were quite substantial.
All in all, I generally like how Striven prices things out here.
Striven ERP Alternatives & Peers
Alright, so as I just touched on, the REAL proof is how Striven measures up to some top peers. While I really like Striven as an approachable small to mid market option, there’s a few reasons you may want to consider one of these competitors…
- Netsuite: Previously the darling of mid sized or down market organizations, Netsuite now is part of the Oracle family (comes with pluses and minuses). If Striven just doesn’t seem like it has enough features for you, or you already use other Oracle products, give Netsuite a look. See how Netsuite compares directly to Striven here.
- Odoo: Odoo aims to disrupt the stodgy old world of ERPs with a more user friendly and extensible ERP (and more) solution for business operations. Odoo is a good option to compare Striven against as a close peer.
- Dolibarr: Dolibarr is another easy-to-use ERP solution (with some CRM and HR features too), built in a modular way. It has it’s roots more in the European business framework, but many US companies use Dolibarr without issue.
- TallyPrime: Tally is a more accounting, CPA, and tax focused ERP focused on the SMB market.
- monday.com: I love monday.com for all sorts of use cases beyond their project management roots. They have some good presets for ERP setups, making it a good pick or companies already familiar with monday.com and/or digitally native organizations that need a lighter-weight cloud solution that is web accessible for a distributed workforce.
- SAP: An upmarket solution that – like Oracle and others – offers an ERP product line as part of their overall business intelligence and provisioning suites. You probably won’t sign up for SAP on a whim, but if your organization already uses SAP, it may be easier to just add the ERP solutions.
- Microsoft Dynamics: Dynamics – like SAP – is an upmarket business intelligence platform that includes ERP functionality. It’s a good option if Striven, Odoo, TallyPrime, Dolibarr, etc… are clearly underclassed for your business needs.
Who Should Use Striven?
Striven is an ideal solution for companies that need an ERP solution, but either don’t have the budget for a massive implementation, or don’t want the headache of learning a massively complext new system.
I find myself particularly recommending Striven as an option for growing (small) businesses or mid sized operations that need a good ERP without the hassle. It’s a good entry-point into the market when a Netsuite or Dynamics implementation seems much too high of a hill to climb.
Bottom Line: If this sounds like you, I’d give Striven ERP a try before some of the more established ERP incumbents.