StartProto vs. ProShop ERP: Which Manufacturing ERP Actually Fits Your Shop?

StartProto and ProShop ERP are both good systems, for very different shops

Most "vs." pages exist to convince you the author's product wins in every category. This one doesn't, because it isn't true, and because picking manufacturing software that doesn't match your shop's actual work is expensive in a way no feature list captures.

The truth is simple: StartProto and ProShop ERP were built around different customers. If you know which customer you are, this decision gets easy. So let's figure that out.

The short answer

Consider ProShop ERP if you are chasing AS9100 for the first time. ProShop's Flying Start package is a prescriptive, end-to-end method for running a shop, backed by a team of AS9100 consultants who implement it with you. If you have no quality manual, no documented processes, and a customer telling you to get certified, that combination is genuinely hard to beat. Someone hands you the structure and walks you through it.

Already AS9100 compliant? This one is a real split decision. Once you have a quality manual that works and passes audits, the math changes. The single biggest reason to bring ProShop in, having someone build your compliance system for you, is a job you have already done. So the other factors start to dominate: how much of your work repeats, how much you assemble, how much you want to automate, and how much your team will actually use the thing. Evaluate both platforms against the work you actually do. The rest of this post walks through those factors.

Choose StartProto if you want software that fits how you already run, and AI that can actually operate it. Those are the two things we're best at. They matter most to contract manufacturers, OEMs with in-house manufacturing, and job shops with substantial repeat, make-to-order work, especially anyone building assemblies. If 70% or more of your work repeats (same parts, new orders, across assemblies and product lines), you are exactly who we built this for. The higher that percentage, the more the system pays you back.

What is ProShop ERP?

ProShop is a paperless ERP/MES/QMS built by machinists for machine shops, most specifically shops operating under AS9100. The most important thing to understand about ProShop is that it isn't really selling you software. It's selling you a way to run your shop.

ProShop's real strengths:

• The Flying Start package is a playbook for becoming compliant. An opinionated, end-to-end process covering how work moves through the shop, how it gets documented, and how it gets audited. Follow it and you will pass. For a shop building its quality system from nothing, this is the most credible thing about the product.
• AS9100 consultants who implement it with you. Real expertise and real hand-holding from people who have taken shops through certification before. If you're starting from zero, that's worth a lot.
• The QMS is the core of the product, not an add-on. Work instructions, training records, gauge calibration, corrective actions, and audit documentation are wired into how jobs flow. The compliance burden you'd otherwise carry in binders and spreadsheets becomes the system itself.
• Deep machining detail. Multi-stage precision machining processes, first article inspection, and the nitty-gritty records regulated customers demand.

If that description matches your shop, ProShop has earned its reputation with shops exactly like yours, and you should have them on your list.

Where ProShop may be more system than you need

Every product optimizes for someone. Here's where ProShop's choices cost you if you're not that someone.

The compliance rigor is structural. The depth that makes an aerospace auditor happy applies to every job, including the routine ones. You don't switch it off because a particular part doesn't need it. One of our customers, a precision shop doing varied work, described ProShop as "unnecessarily big" for how his business actually ran: more work than the manual system it replaced. That's not a knock on the software so much as a mismatch between a heavily regulated design and a shop that isn't heavily regulated.

Flying Start cuts both ways. The prescriptive method that's so valuable to an uncertified shop is a migration cost to a certified one. If your quality manual already works and passes audits, conforming to a different process is work you're doing again, to end up roughly where you started.

Implementation is a project, not a setup. Shops evaluating ProShop consistently describe extensive planning, process analysis, and configuration before go-live, commonly measured in months rather than weeks. That's the honest cost of a system this deep, and it's the right call when the depth is what you need. It's a long runway when it isn't.

AI and API depth. This is the clearest capability difference between the two products today. StartProto's AI can take every action a user can take in the system, and that's possible because the entire system is exposed through a complete API. ProShop's API surface is more limited and there's no MCP connector, which puts a ceiling on how much agentic automation you can build on top of it. If connecting your ERP to your own AI tooling is part of your plan, weigh that.

Machining-centric by design. If your work includes assemblies (building products from many manufactured and purchased components, managing multi-level BOMs, aggregating demand across orders), you're working against the grain of a system optimized for making precise individual parts.

What is StartProto?

StartProto is a cloud manufacturing ERP built for the other profile: contract manufacturers, OEMs with in-house manufacturing, and job shops with substantial repeat, make-to-order work, especially anyone doing assembly.

We do have AS9100 machine shops among our customers, for what it's worth. But the certification isn't what brought them to us. It was the shape of the work: high repeat volume, multi-level assemblies, lot-level traceability their customers demand, and automation they wanted to build themselves against our API and MCP connector.

StartProto's real strengths:

• AI that can actually operate the system. Not a chat box bolted onto search. If a person can do it in the UI, our AI can do it. More on this below, because it's the biggest single difference between these two products.
• It fits how you already run. Custom documents, custom fields, and configuration that map to your existing processes and quality manual, instead of a method you adopt wholesale.
• Built for assemblies and complex BOMs. Multi-level assemblies with manufactured and purchased parts are first-class citizens, not a workaround. If you build things made of things, this is the difference you'll feel daily.
• Outside processing is part of the routing. Plating, heat treat, anodize, and coating live inside the job like any other operation, with the PO, the lead time, and the return all tracked. Parts don't fall off the system the moment they leave the building.
• Demand aggregation. StartProto rolls demand together across sales orders, jobs, and stock levels: shared purchasing, work aggregation, and one clear picture of what to make and buy. For repeat make-to-order shops, the second order for a part is nearly automatic.
• An interface your whole team will use. Modern, fast, and self-explanatory. Adoption on the shop floor is where most ERP projects die; we've made it our main focus.
• Fast implementation. Onboarding measured in days and weeks rather than months, with AI-assisted tooling to bring your existing data in.
• Lean-team leverage. Small management teams get the most out of the automation: quoting, purchasing, and scheduling that don't require a back-office department.

What our AI actually does

Most manufacturing software has added AI in the last two years. Almost all of it summarizes and searches. Ours operates the system.

Every action a user can take, the AI can take: build a quote, raise a purchase order, restructure a BOM, adjust a schedule, update inventory, and answer questions against your historical production data. Not "draft it for a human to re-enter." Take the action.

That's only possible because StartProto is API-first all the way down. The AI reaches the system through the same complete interface everything else does, and we ship an MCP connector, so you can point your own AI tools at your shop's data too.

For a shop with a lean management team, this is where the hours come back. The bottleneck in most small manufacturers is a small number of people who touch every quote, every PO, and every schedule change.

Where StartProto isn't the best fit

Fair is fair.

We're not turnkey for AS9100. There's no StartProto equivalent to Flying Start. You can configure StartProto to your AS9100 manual with custom documents and fields, and customers do exactly that. But that's configuration work, not a compliance program handed to you with consultants attached. If you're starting from zero on AS9100, ProShop's playbook and their consultants are worth a serious look, and we'd tell you so on a call.

The system is only as good as what you put into it. BOMs, routings, and inventory take real effort to get in and keep accurate. We've made that as fast as we can with AI-assisted data migration, but there's no version of this where the work is zero. It's lightest for shops in the 10 to 100 employee range with lean management teams, which is where we do our best work.

If neither of those is a dealbreaker, book a demo and we'll show you your own parts in the system.

The decision checklist

Count which side sounds more like your shop:

Leans ProShop

• Chasing your first AS9100 certification
• Flying Start's prescriptive method appeals to you
• Almost all work is one-off precision machining
• You assemble little to nothing
• Compliance depth matters more than automation depth
• A multi-month consultative implementation is fine
• A dedicated admin will own the system

Leans StartProto

• Already certified, with a quality manual that works
• You want software that fits how you already run
• 70%+ of your work repeats: same parts, new orders
• You build assemblies from manufactured + purchased parts
• You want AI and open APIs you can build on
• You want to be running in days or weeks
• Lean management team, 10 to 100 employees

Mostly the ProShop side? They're worth a serious look. Mostly the StartProto side? That's who we built this for. Split down the middle? Demo both. Nobody has ever regretted spending two more hours on this decision.

The bottom line

These products solve different problems for different shops. ProShop sells a method, with consultants behind it, to shops whose business runs on AS9100 compliance. StartProto is built for contract manufacturers and OEMs: software that fits the way you already run, and an AI that can actually operate it rather than talk about it.

If you're doing repeat make-to-order work, building assemblies, aggregating demand across orders, or running a lean team that's tired of being the bottleneck, that's the shop we built this for.

See a demo of StartProto.