Pricing built for the work.
Not for your top line.
Ward charges based on the operational complexity of your stack — how many systems need to talk, how many brands you run, how custom your schema is, how serious your compliance requirements are. Two POS systems and one ERP? You’re Focused. Five brands under one parent? You’re Federated. Pay for the work, not the size of your business.
Choose your complexity.
Every tier includes the full Ward platform. You only move up when your stack genuinely gets harder to run.
- 1 brand, 1–2 source systems
- Standard retail schema
- Up to 10 locations
- 5 named users, unlimited queries
- Email & Slack notifications
- Shared-tenancy cloud
- Standard support, business hours
- 1 brand, 3–5 source systems
- Custom fields & KPIs
- Up to 30 locations
- 15 named users, unlimited queries
- Push notifications (Ward mobile)
- Premium connectors (SAP, NetSuite, major POS)
- Priority support, 4-hour response
- 1–2 brands, 5+ source systems
- Multi-channel (retail, DTC, wholesale, marketplaces)
- Custom schema, dedicated infrastructure
- 40 named users, full API access
- Private VPC, SOC 1 included
- Dedicated CSM, quarterly business reviews
- 24/5 support, 1-hour response
- Multiple brands / legal entities
- Cross-entity benchmarking
- Multi-region data residency
- Unlimited users, full API
- SOC 1 & SOC 2 Type II
- Dedicated solutions architect + CSM
- 24/7 support, 30-minute response
What determines your tier.
Revenue is a lazy proxy. The work is what we price on.
A $20M holding group with five brands on three POS systems is harder to run than an $80M single-brand DTC with one warehouse. Four dimensions decide where you land.
How many systems need to talk: POS, ERP, WMS, e-commerce, loyalty, marketing, finance. More systems means more integration, normalization, and reconciliation work.
Single brand vs. multi-brand portfolio vs. holding group with separate legal entities. Each additional entity needs its own schema, auth, and compliance boundary.
Off-the-shelf retail schema vs. custom fields, custom KPIs, industry-specific logic (fresh weights, fashion seasonality, pharmacy compliance, franchise royalties).
Shared tenancy vs. private VPC. Basic SLA vs. SOC 1 / SOC 2 / data residency. Enterprise IT requirements shift both the cost to deliver and the price tolerance.
Stack what you need.
For retailers who already have a data warehouse (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Redshift). Ward connects, evaluates the best LLM for each query, and delivers agentic insights on top of your existing stack. No data lake rebuild.
| Tier | Scope | One-time connect | Annual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Focused Orch | Single warehouse, 5 users, 3 query domains | $5K | $12K/yr |
| Connected Orch | Multi-source orchestration, 15 users, custom prompts | $12K | $36K/yr |
| Networked Orch | Multi-LLM evaluation, agentic workflows, 40 users | $25K | $72K/yr |
| Federated Orch | LLM fine-tuning, private VPC, SOC 1/2, cross-entity | $50K+ | $144K+/yr |
Detect-and-act automations on top of Ward. Triggered insights that route to the right human, approval flows, cross-system writes (ERP, POS, Slack, email) with AI reasoning, not rule-based logic.
| Tier | Scope | Add-on to Ward | Standalone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Focused | 5 workflows, 50K tasks/mo | $6K/yr | $18K/yr |
| Connected | 15 workflows, 250K tasks/mo, premium connectors | $18K/yr | $42K/yr |
| Networked | Unlimited workflows, 2M+ tasks/mo, agent orchestration | $48K/yr | $84K/yr |
| Federated | Dedicated infra, custom connectors, cross-entity, 24/7 SLA | $96K+/yr | $150K+/yr |
Fractional AI strategy for retailers who want our team in the room — LLM evaluation, model selection, retrieval architecture, agentic design, build-vs-buy guidance.
| Engagement | Scope | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Workshop | 2-day onsite, AI readiness audit, roadmap deliverable | $12K–$20K one-time |
| Assessment | 4–6 week build-vs-buy deep dive, written recommendation | $25K–$45K project |
| Retainer | Monthly strategy, vendor review, board prep, team enablement | $3K–$8K/mo (6-mo min) |
What you’re choosing between.
The real question isn’t Ward vs. Palantir. It’s Ward vs. the four alternatives every mid-market retailer actually considers.
| Spreadsheets / DIY | Tableau + analyst | ThoughtSpot Enterprise | Palantir Foundry | Ward Connected | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annual cost | $0 visible | $30K tools + $140K analyst = $170K | $400K–$1M+ | $500K–$5M+ | $60K |
| Setup time | None (you build forever) | 3–6 months | 4–6 months | 6–12 months | 6 weeks |
| AI reasoning layer | None | None | Bolted-on, query-capped | Yes (you engineer it) | Native, multi-LLM |
| Retail-native schema | No | No | No | No (you build it) | Yes, out of box |
| Agentic workflows | No | No | Limited | Yes (engineered) | Yes, ready day 1 |
| Designed for mid-market | n/a | Sort of | No (Fortune 1000) | No (Fortune 100) | Yes |
| Hidden cost | 1–3% of revenue in avoidable stockouts, markdowns, overstaffing | Analyst burnout, dashboards no one uses | $50K–$200K data modeling consultants | 20–50% Y1 services uplift | None |
- Annual cost
- $60K
- Setup time
- 6 weeks
- AI reasoning layer
- Native, multi-LLM
- Retail-native schema
- Yes, out of box
- Agentic workflows
- Yes, ready day 1
- Designed for mid-market
- Yes
- Hidden cost
- None
- Annual cost
- $0 visible
- Setup time
- None (you build forever)
- AI reasoning layer
- None
- Retail-native schema
- No
- Agentic workflows
- No
- Designed for mid-market
- n/a
- Hidden cost
- 1–3% of revenue in avoidable stockouts, markdowns, overstaffing
- Annual cost
- $170K (tools + analyst)
- Setup time
- 3–6 months
- AI reasoning layer
- None
- Retail-native schema
- No
- Agentic workflows
- No
- Designed for mid-market
- Sort of
- Hidden cost
- Analyst burnout, dashboards no one uses
- Annual cost
- $400K–$1M+
- Setup time
- 4–6 months
- AI reasoning layer
- Bolted-on, query-capped
- Retail-native schema
- No
- Agentic workflows
- Limited
- Designed for mid-market
- No (Fortune 1000)
- Hidden cost
- $50K–$200K data modeling consultants
- Annual cost
- $500K–$5M+
- Setup time
- 6–12 months
- AI reasoning layer
- Yes (you engineer it)
- Retail-native schema
- No (you build it)
- Agentic workflows
- Yes (engineered)
- Designed for mid-market
- No (Fortune 100)
- Hidden cost
- 20–50% Y1 services uplift
Spreadsheets look free. They cost the most. The hidden line item — missed insights, slow decisions, drift between stores — is the largest single expense in mid-market retail.
You’re not paying for software. You’re paying for the insights you can’t afford to miss.
Ward Connected runs $60K/year. Here’s what one missed insight typically costs the same retailer.
What you catch
| You catch | First-week impact | Annualized |
|---|---|---|
| One stockout day at one store | $500–$5,000 | $20K–$200K |
| One mispriced promo run | $20K–$80K | $80K–$320K |
| One quarter of staffing inefficiency | $7K–$20K | $30K–$90K |
| One vendor fill-rate dispute | $15K–$50K | $60K–$200K |
| One Category 7 markdown spiral | $30K–$100K | $120K–$400K |
Sources: NRF, IHL Group, RetailNext benchmarks for mid-market multi-location operators.
| Investment | Cost |
|---|---|
| Annual Ward subscription | $60,000 |
| One-time setup | $18,000 |
| Workflow automation add-on | $18,000 |
| Total Year 1 | $96,000 |
| Return | Value |
|---|---|
| Stockout reduction (1.5% recovery on $40M) | $600K |
| Margin optimization (40 bps) | $160K |
| Labor / scheduling efficiency (2%) | $144K |
| Year 1 return (mid-case) | $904K |
The first stockout Ward catches in week three has paid for the quarter.
The first promo conflict Ward flags has paid for the year.
Everything after that is margin you weren’t going to capture without us.
Common questions.
We score your stack on the four complexity dimensions — source systems, brands & entities, schema customization, infra & compliance. The combination determines the tier. Most mid-market retailers land in Focused or Connected. We’ll give you the answer in 24 hours after a 30-minute scoping call.
Yes. Every tier is structured to upgrade cleanly. Tier changes are pro-rated. There is no penalty for starting at Focused and graduating to Connected six months in.
Source system integration, schema configuration, custom KPI setup, user provisioning, team training (2 sessions), and 30 days of guided onboarding with our team. For Networked and Federated tiers, setup also includes private VPC provisioning and security review.
Per-user pricing punishes you for getting more value out of the platform. Ward is priced on the complexity of your stack — once you’re in, every team member who benefits is included. You only pay more if your stack genuinely gets more complex.
Ward is built specifically for mid-market multi-location retail. ThoughtSpot and Palantir are general-purpose enterprise platforms that require you to build the retail layer yourself. We come with retail-native schema, retail-specific KPIs, and an AI agent that already understands stockouts, fill rates, promo conflicts, and shrinkage. Different category, different price point, different fit.
Tell us about your stack.
We’ll score your complexity, quote your tier, and show you the platform — all in 30 minutes. No pressure, no decks.
Or email brian@askotter.ai
Find out what your data has been hiding.
Tell us about your operation. We’ll show you the problems Ward catches — and the ones your current tools miss.