Indie
$35–$149 / month
Solo founders and small studios. Under thirty styles per season. Tech packs, basic vendor coordination, file sharing.
Techpacker, Backbone, Onbrand
After the foundation
What comes next.
Gabarit Labs builds the strategic foundation. Production, sourcing, and operations live in a different category of tools. This page is a quick reference for that next phase.
Two different problems
Strategy and production are different categories.
Most fashion founders learn this the hard way — two months into sampling, when a decision that should have been made earlier starts costing money in iterations. Gabarit Labs handles strategy. Production tools handle production. Both matter, but they don't share a category.
"Strategy answers what you're making and for whom. Production answers how you'll manufacture it."
Production tooling
Three tiers, depending on where you are.
The production category is generally called PLM — Product Lifecycle Management. It splits into three tiers. Most founders pick wrong: over-buying enterprise tools they can't operate, or under-buying lightweight tools they outgrow in a season.
Mid-market
$100–$300 / user / month
Multiple styles per season, supplier networks, costing tools. Implements in weeks.
Rechain, Delogue, WFX
Enterprise
$50,000+ / year
Mid-to-large brands managing complex, multi-region operations. Dedicated admin headcount required.
Centric, Lectra, Bamboo Rose
Pricing as of early 2026. The category is consolidating — Bamboo Rose acquired Backbone in 2023, Lectra absorbed Gerber and YuniquePLM in 2021.
Most likely fit
Start with an indie-tier tool. With a clear archetype, collection architecture, and launch plan already done, indie is enough for the first one to three seasons.
What to look for
Five things that matter.
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Factory acceptance Ask which factories in your region accept the tool's tech pack format without re-keying. If your mill won't take it, the tool is overhead.
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Costing that fits the archetype Innovators need detailed material costing. Commercializers need landed-cost modeling at volume.
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Real supplier workflows Some tools are document storage. Others actually move samples through approval. The difference shows up in week three.
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Pricing that survives growth Affordable contracts can jump dramatically year over year. Ask about year two and three before signing.
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Honest scope If a platform claims strategy, brand, and production all at once, it does none of them well. Buy specialized.
AI tech pack tools
Useful for speed. Not a production system.
AI tech pack generators have emerged at credit-based pricing ($3–$5 per style). Good for prototyping — a flat sketch and BOM from a reference photo in minutes. Not a replacement for production tooling once you're in real manufacturing cycles.
Foundation first. Then everything downstream costs less.
Gabarit Labs does the work that should precede production. Clean transitions are what serious launches look like.