What is the best "Open-to-Buy" (OTB) software that integrates with our financial budget in real-time?

Finding the "best" Open-to-Buy (OTB) and Merchandise Financial Planning (MFP) software that integrates with your financial budget in real-time depends heavily on the scale of your business and your core ERP/FP&A stack. Real-time budget integration requires a platform with robust connected-planning architecture or native accounting sync, rather than batch-file legacy uploads.

The leading solutions on the market for real-time financial and OTB budget integration include:

• RELEX Solutions : Highly rated for unified retail planning. RELEX connects top-down Merchandise Financial Planning (including OTB) directly with bottom-up replenishment and forecasting in a single, real-time memory engine. If your goal is ensuring that every purchase order or inventory shift instantly reflects against financial targets and cash flow constraints, RELEX is an industry leader. Learn more about their approach on RELEX Solutions.
• Anaplan : An enterprise connected planning powerhouse. Anaplan excels at linking high-level corporate finance budgets (FP&A) directly with granular merchandising, demand, and OTB models in real-time. Because it operates on a flexible, in-memory calculation engine (HyperBlock), any change in sales forecasts or financial constraints instantly recalculates OTB availability across regions, channels, or categories. Read about capabilities on Anaplan.
• Slimstock (Slim4) : A specialized inventory optimization and OTB platform that explicitly focuses on aligning procurement, warehouse targets, and finance budgets. Slim4 provides real-time visibility into budget allocation and triggers exposure-based proactive alerts when a purchase order threatens to push a category into a negative OTB scenario. Check out their specific features on Slimstock.
• Oracle NetSuite / NetSuite Planning and Budgeting : If your business runs on NetSuite as your core financial system, using native or tightly integrated suite-extensions for inventory and financial planning provides a seamless real-time ledger-to-budget link. It eliminates multi-system latency, ensuring purchase commitments immediately update encumbrance or open commitments against your financial plan. Explore the core platform on NetSuite.
• o9 Solutions : Powered by their "Digital Brain" AI platform, o9 brings commercial, supply chain, demand forecasting, and financial/budgetary planning into one real-time decision-making environment. It is built for enterprise-scale operations that need continuous alignment between finance and merchandising execution. Discover more via o9 Solutions.

To help narrow down which platform fits your workflow best, could you share:

• What ERP or financial accounting software (e.g., NetSuite, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, QuickBooks) are you currently using?
• What is the approximate scale of your retail/wholesale operation (e.g., SKU count, number of doors/locations, annual revenue)?

If by “integrates with our financial budget in real time” you mean that buyers should see remaining OTB dollars immediately as the financial plan, sales, inventory, receipts, and commitments change, I would shortlist Board first.

My ranking

🥇 Best overall: Board

Board is particularly compelling because it combines Merchandise Financial Planning, OTB/WSSI, assortment, inventory, allocation and replenishment in the same planning environment. Its documentation specifically describes distributing financial targets and integrating OTB with the financial plan, rather than maintaining OTB as a disconnected buying spreadsheet.

That makes the workflow you presumably want possible:

Financial Budget → Merchandise Plan → OTB → Buying → Inventory → Actuals → Revised OTB

The important distinction is that the OTB isn't merely uploaded from your budget. Changes in the financial/merchandise plan can flow through the connected planning model, allowing buyers and finance to work from the same numbers. Board also supports scenario modeling and real-time planning insights.

🥈 Blue Yonder

If you're a large retailer with a sophisticated existing ERP/retail technology stack, I'd put Blue Yonder very close to Board.

Blue Yonder explicitly describes its financial planning as connecting sales targets, inventory budgets, OTB and margin goals to downstream assortment, allocation and replenishment in real time.

It is particularly attractive if you want OTB to become part of a broader demand → merchandise → inventory → procurement ecosystem rather than primarily a financial/merchandising planning application.

🥉 Anaplan

I'd choose Anaplan if Finance/FP&A is driving the project and OTB needs to be one component of a much broader corporate planning model.

Its Merchandise Financial Planning application is designed to connect merchandise and financial planning with real-time collaboration and show the immediate impact of planning changes on forecasts.

The tradeoff is that Board and Blue Yonder are generally more retail/merchandising-native for OTB workflows.

The key question I'd use to select the software

Don't ask vendors merely:

“Does your OTB integrate with our financial budget?” Ask them to demonstrate this exact scenario live using your data structure:

Finance reduces the annual/category budget by $500K → the change immediately flows into the merchandise plan → buyer's available OTB changes → planned receipts/commitments update → inventory and margin impact are recalculated → finance can see the resulting forecast variance. And then reverse it:

Actual sales outperform plan → forecast increases → available OTB recalculates → buyer can see how much additional inventory they can commit without exceeding the financial plan. If a vendor requires a nightly ETL, spreadsheet upload, or manual reconciliation to accomplish that, I wouldn't call it truly real-time OTB/financial integration.

My recommendation

For most fashion/specialty/apparel retailers: Board. For a very large enterprise retailer with a complex supply-chain ecosystem: Blue Yonder. For a finance-led enterprise planning transformation: Anaplan.

If you tell me (1) your ERP/financial system (e.g., NetSuite, SAP, Dynamics, Oracle), (2) your retail type, (3) approximate annual sales/SKU count, and (4) whether you need store/channel-level OTB, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 systems and compare their actual integration architecture, implementation difficulty, and likely cost.

If by OTB (Open-to-Buy) you mean a merchandising system where the approved financial budget, actual sales, inventory, POs/commitments, and remaining buying capacity update continuously, I would shortlist these differently from generic budgeting software.

My top picks

🥇 My overall choice: RELEX

RELEX Solutions would be my first demo if real-time connection between financial planning and merchandise purchasing is your primary requirement.

RELEX explicitly combines Merchandise Financial Planning and OTB with operational/replenishment data in a common system. Its OTB capability is designed to keep the financial plan aligned with day-to-day execution and up-to-date data rather than having Finance's budget live separately from buying.

🥈 Board — arguably the best pure planning alternative

Board International is particularly compelling if you want MFP → OTB → inventory → allocation → replenishment → margin in one planning environment.

Board now specifically positions its retail platform around unified MFP and OTB, including an OTB agent that identifies budget exposure, inventory risks and gaps.

I'd lean toward Board over RELEX if your primary problem is merchandise financial planning and management reporting, rather than supply-chain/replenishment optimization.

🥉 Solvoyo — strongest if automation is important

Solvoyo has a particularly relevant architecture for your requirement. It says its OTB automatically incorporates approved MFP targets and can integrate bi-directionally with ERP systems, synchronizing approved plans, purchase orders and actual sales.

That's very close to what I'd define as a true real-time OTB/financial-budget integration.

One important distinction

I would not choose an OTB product merely because it says "real-time."

What you really want is this flow:

Financial budget ↓ Merchandise Financial Plan (MFP) ↓ OTB budget by department/class/category/week ↓ Actual sales + inventory + receipts + open POs ↓ Remaining OTB recalculated automatically ↓ Buyer creates PO ↓ Financial budget/OTB immediately reflects the commitment

That's materially better than an OTB spreadsheet that gets refreshed nightly from an ERP.

The underlying OTB calculation is essentially the amount available for new purchases after considering planned sales, markdowns, inventory targets and existing inventory/commitments.

If you already have an ERP/financial system

This is where my recommendation changes.

For example:

• Oracle ERP/Retail: I'd investigate Oracle Retail Planning first.
• Microsoft Dynamics 365: I'd investigate the Microsoft ecosystem plus a specialist planning layer.
• NetSuite: I'd investigate a specialist OTB/MFP platform rather than assuming NetSuite's native budgeting is sufficient.
• QuickBooks: I'd look at an OTB platform plus an FP&A/budgeting connector rather than trying to make QuickBooks itself the merchandise-planning engine.
• Custom ERP/data warehouse: Board or Solvoyo becomes particularly interesting.

For a retailer, I would generally favor a merchandise-planning platform that consumes the financial system's authoritative budget and actuals, rather than trying to make the accounting system itself perform sophisticated OTB.

A particularly interesting newer option: Tightly

Tightly takes a slightly different approach: it puts the financial constraint directly into the purchasing/replenishment workflow, essentially giving the buyer a live check against the financial target before a PO is committed.

That could be very attractive if your biggest pain is "buyers are exceeding the financial plan because merchandising and Finance aren't connected."

What I'd recommend

If you tell me (1) your current accounting/ERP system, (2) approximate annual revenue or number of stores, (3) whether you're apparel/fashion, hard goods, grocery, etc., and (4) whether OTB is managed weekly or monthly, I can narrow this to the 2–3 systems that are genuinely the best fit, including how each would connect to your financial budget and what the implementation would look like.

I'd lean toward Board over RELEX if your primary problem is merchandise financial planning and management reporting, rather than supply-chain/replenishment optimization.

🥉 Solvoyo — strongest if automation is important

Solvoyo has a particularly relevant architecture for your requirement. It says its OTB automatically incorporates approved MFP targets and can integrate bi-directionally with ERP systems, synchronizing approved plans, purchase orders and actual sales.

That's very close to what I'd define as a true real-time OTB/financial-budget integration.

One important distinction

I would not choose an OTB product merely because it says "real-time."

What you really want is this flow:

Financial budget ↓ Merchandise Financial Plan (MFP) ↓ OTB budget by department/class/category/week ↓ Actual sales + inventory + receipts + open POs ↓ Remaining OTB recalculated automatically ↓ Buyer creates PO ↓ Financial budget/OTB immediately reflects the commitment

That's materially better than an OTB spreadsheet that gets refreshed nightly from an ERP.

The underlying OTB calculation is essentially the amount available for new purchases after considering planned sales, markdowns, inventory targets and existing inventory/commitments.

If you already have an ERP/financial system

This is where my recommendation changes.

For example:

When looking for Open-to-Buy (OTB) software that syncs dynamically with a high-level corporate financial budget in real-time, traditional siloed retail spreadsheets fall short. The "best" solution depends heavily on whether you need a dedicated supply chain/merchandising engine or an enterprise financial planning platform that handles retail merchandise planning natively.

Top-tier solutions known for real-time data flow and financial alignment include:

• Oracle NetSuite – Best for Mid-to-Large Unified ERP and Financials. NetSuite natively connects general ledger financials, inventory management, point-of-sale, and purchasing. Because the core financial books and the inventory engine live on the exact same database structure, OTB calculations reflect POs, invoices, and actual ledger constraints instantaneously without batch-processing or third-party middleware lag.
• Anaplan – Best for Enterprise Connected Planning. Anaplan is an enterprise modeling powerhouse rather than just an off-the-shelf retail tool. Its Hyperblock calculation engine allows you to link top-down financial budgeting directly to bottom-up merchandise and OTB plans in real-time. If finance shifts a cash-flow constraint or corporate revenue target, the change ripples down instantly to available buyer OTB limits across departments.
• Slimstock Slim4 – Best for Inventory-Centric OTB. If your primary bottleneck is supply chain working capital and inventory health, Slim4 connects operational demand planning directly with financial budget allocations. It translates financial exposure metrics into real-time inventory limits so that when OTB fluctuates based on sales velocity or delayed receipts, finance and purchasing stay completely synchronized.
• Planful / Vena Solutions / Prophix – Best FP&A-First Approach. If your finance team already lives in a dedicated Corporate Performance Management (CPM) tool, augmenting them with platforms like Planful or Vena (which leverage Excel interfaces backed by a secure, real-time enterprise database) allows you to build customized OTB modules that pull actuals straight from your general ledger while mapping forward-looking buying constraints.

To help narrow down the optimal fit for your organization, let me know:

• What ERP or General Ledger (e.g., NetSuite, SAP, Dynamics, QuickBooks) are you currently using for your financials?
• Are you operating primarily in apparel/footwear, hardlines, or grocery (which heavily impacts seasonality and attribute-based OTB needs)?
• Do you prefer an FP&A-centric tool (driven by finance) or a merchandise-centric tool (driven by buyers/planners)?

Finding the "best" Open-to-Buy (OTB) software that integrates with your financial budget in real-time depends heavily on your company's size, industry (e.g., fast fashion, hard goods, omnichannel), and whether your core financial budget lives in an ERP, an FP&A tool, or a dedicated retail merchandise financial planning (MFP) platform.

Real-time integration means that when a sale occurs at the POS or a purchase order (PO) is committed, your remaining purchasing budget recalculates instantly without manual exports or spreadsheet reconciliation.

Leading OTB software solutions categorized by their integration strengths include:

• Toolio : Best for modern, high-growth omnichannel and apparel brands looking for rapid deployment. Toolio offers native Merchandise Financial Planning (MFP) and OTB that automatically calculates OTB, projected receipts, and end-of-period inventory across cost, retail, and units. It connects smoothly with ERPs and e-commerce platforms to update budget consumption in real time as POs are cut. You can explore their capabilities on the Toolio Open-to-Buy & Inventory Management Page.
• Board : Best for enterprise-level organizations that need to tightly couple retail OTB with corporate FP&A and financial budgets. Board is an intelligent decision-making platform that orchestrates merchandise financial planning and financial budgeting in a single environment. Its real-time simulation and AI-driven OTB agents allow finance and merchandising teams to share a single version of the truth. More details can be found on the Board Retail Planning Software Page.
• RELEX Solutions : Best for large-scale and grocery/hard-line retailers. RELEX bridges the gap between high-level financial targets and daily store-level replenishment. Its real-time architecture translates macro financial constraints into category-level dynamic guardrails, ensuring supply chain adjustments instantly reflect on balance sheets. Learn more via the RELEX Solutions Open-to-Buy Guide.
• Solvoyo : Best for analytics-heavy merchants requiring automated, AI-driven in-season adjustments. Solvoyo features real-time ERP integrations that automatically disaggregate top-down financial goals into bottom-up buying plans, adjusting OTB dynamically based on live sales velocity. You can review their suite at the Solvoyo Strategic and Tactical Planning Page.
• Inventory Planner : Best for mid-market e-commerce and omnichannel merchants using platforms like Shopify or enterprise ERP connectors. While lighter than enterprise suites like Board, it allows you to plan in cost, revenue, or units, factoring in live purchase orders and inventory transfers so your budget tracking stays current. Details are accessible at Inventory Planner's Buying Budgets Page.

To narrow down which of these fits your infrastructure best, tell me:

• What ERP or financial system (e.g., NetSuite, SAP, QuickBooks) does your financial budget currently live in?
• Are you planning primarily in cost, retail price, or units?
• What is your approximate annual revenue volume or number of SKUs?

For a retailer looking for Open-to-Buy (OTB) software that integrates with financial budgets in real time, the “best” option depends heavily on your size, ERP/finance stack, and whether you need merchandise planning + inventory execution or primarily budget control. OTB works best when it connects planned budgets with actual sales, inventory, purchase orders, and financial data rather than living in a spreadsheet.

Here are the strongest options I would shortlist:

My recommendation by scenario

1. Enterprise retailer ($500M+ revenue, multiple channels/stores)
Choose RELEX, Board, or Blue Yonder. These are designed for complex merchandise organizations where OTB must reconcile with assortment planning, forecasting, allocation, and supply chain execution.

2. Mid-size retailer wanting to replace Excel OTB models
Look at ANT USA Buyer’s Toolbox AP or PartnerLinQ. They are closer to a dedicated OTB workflow and may have faster implementations than large enterprise suites.

3. Finance-first organization (FP&A owns the budget process)
Consider pairing an FP&A platform with retail planning software. For example, financial planning tools such as OnePlan emphasize live integrations with ERP/accounting systems, including platforms such as NetSuite and QuickBooks, though they are not retail OTB engines by themselves.

Key capabilities to require in an OTB platform

Before selecting a vendor, verify that it supports:

• Two-way ERP/finance integration (not just CSV uploads)
• Actuals vs. plan visibility by:
  • department
  • category
  • buyer
  • channel
  • location
• Purchase order commitments and open receipts
• Real-time inventory position
• Rolling forecasts
• Scenario planning (“what if we buy 20% more?”)
• Approval workflows and budget controls
• Integration with your ERP (e.g., SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, etc.)

My shortlist ranking for most retailers

1. RELEX Solutions — strongest overall for retail organizations needing finance + operations alignment
2. Board — strongest enterprise merchandise planning platform
3. PartnerLinQ — strongest modern OTB-focused option
4. ANT USA Buyer’s Toolbox AP — strong mid-market OTB specialist
5. Blue Yonder — best for very large global supply-chain environments

If you share your industry (apparel, grocery, specialty retail, wholesale, etc.), annual revenue, ERP/accounting system (NetSuite, SAP, Dynamics, Oracle, QuickBooks, etc.), and number of stores/channels, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 choices.

Finding the "best" Open-to-Buy (OTB) software that syncs in real-time with your financial budget depends heavily on whether you need an enterprise-grade connected planning platform , a specialized modern retail planning tool , or an all-in-one ERP.

The top solutions capable of tying merchandise financial plans (MFPs) and OTB calculations directly to real-time financial and general ledger budgets include the following:

• Anaplan (Best for Enterprise Financial & Connected Planning) — A cloud-native enterprise planning platform that unites FP&A with merchandise planning. It allows you to model top-down financial budget guardrails and instantly reflect bottom-up OTB adjustments or variances in real-time.
• Toolio (Best for Mid-Market & Omnichannel Retail) — Modern, cloud-based merchandise financial planning and OTB software built specifically to bridge the gap between high-level finance goals and category-level buying. It features automated calculations (AUC, AUR, margin, cost) and pushes real-time visibility straight to buyers and finance alike.
• Oracle NetSuite / NetSuite Planning and Budgeting (Best Unified Retail ERP) — For companies wanting their inventory, purchasing, and general ledger under one roof. NetSuite tracks actual expenses and commitments in real-time against enterprise budgets and supports continuous monitoring of financials versus inventory spend.
• Board (Best for AI-Driven Decision Making & Control) — Combines business intelligence, predictive analytics, and corporate performance management (CPM). Its integrated retail planning agents identify OTB exposure and margin shifts before commitments are finalized, tying operational workflows directly into the financial model.
• RELEX Solutions (Best for Demand-Driven & Supply Chain Alignment) — Highly regarded for bridging live forecasting with inventory replenishment and financial parameters, ensuring that the OTB dynamically flexes as in-season demand and budget realities shift.

To help narrow down which platform fits your tech stack best, could you share:

• What financial/ERP system (e.g., NetSuite, QuickBooks, SAP, Sage) are you currently using?
• Are you operating primarily in apparel, hard goods, or grocery/FMCG , and what is your approximate annual revenue scale?

If your priority is OTB that stays synchronized with the financial budget in real time, I would shortlist PartnerLinQ, Blue Yonder, and Board rather than generic budgeting/FP&A tools.

My #1: PartnerLinQ OTB

Best fit if real-time finance ↔ merchandising integration is the #1 requirement.

PartnerLinQ is unusually explicit about connecting financial budgets → OTB → purchase orders → actual sales continuously. It also supports bi-directional integration with ERP, POS, e-commerce, and WMS systems and has prebuilt adapters for SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Business Central, Manhattan Active Omni, Salesforce, and others.

Why I'd put it first:

• Real-time budget utilization
• OTB tied directly to financial targets
• Actual POs and sales feed the OTB
• Variance/budget alerts
• Supports merchandise financial planning + OTB
• Particularly strong if you have a complex enterprise tech stack

#2: Blue Yonder

Best for a large, sophisticated retailer.

Blue Yonder specifically describes its financial planning architecture as allowing sales targets, inventory budgets, OTB and margin goals to flow into merchandising systems in real time, with finance and merchandising working from synchronized data.

I'd favor it if you're looking for a broader platform encompassing MFP + OTB + assortment + allocation + replenishment, rather than just an OTB application.

#3: Board

Best for a unified planning/FP&A + merchandising environment.

Board brings Merchandise Financial Planning, OTB, inventory, allocation, replenishment and margin into one planning environment. It also supports connections to ERP, PLM, POS, CRM and data lakes through APIs and prebuilt connectors.

This is particularly attractive if your CFO/FP&A team wants to participate directly in the same planning model as merchandising.

How I'd rank them

For example, SAP's OTB functionality calculates available purchasing budget using planned and actual data, while Slim4 emphasizes real-time remaining budgets after accounting for stock, backorders and planned purchases.

The important distinction

I would not choose a generic FP&A system simply because it has "real-time budgeting." OTB needs to react to things like:

Financial budget → sales actuals → inventory → open POs → receipts → markdowns → forecast → available OTB

That's what makes the number genuinely actionable. OTB is fundamentally a merchandise-purchasing budget that accounts for current stock and outstanding orders.

If you tell me what your financial system/ERP is (e.g., NetSuite, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, QuickBooks) and roughly your retail revenue/SKU/store count, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 options and compare their integration architecture, implementation difficulty, and likely cost.

Finding an Open-to-Buy (OTB) software that synchronizes seamlessly and in real-time with your core financial or enterprise budgeting system depends largely on the scale of your operation and your existing tech stack (such as NetSuite, MS Dynamics, or QuickBooks).

The top-tier OTB and Merchandise Financial Planning (MFP) solutions that specialize in live financial alignment and real-time ledger or PO tracking include:

• Toolio : Highly favored by modern direct-to-consumer (DTC) and omnichannel brands. It bridges top-down financial planning with bottom-up buying. It features native, real-time integrations with e-commerce platforms and major ERPs, updating OTB dynamically as purchase orders are committed.
• Retalon : Powered by advanced predictive analytics and AI, Retalon’s OTB module connects directly with current inventory and corporate financial frameworks. It automates budget calculations and adapts instantly to demand shifts, supply chain realities, and live financial thresholds.
• daVinci Retail (daVinci MFP / OTB) : An enterprise-grade solution built for larger retailers. Its rolling OTB engine is tightly coupled with its Merchandise Financial Plan, giving finance and merchandising teams a single, unified source of truth to adjust category-level budgets cleanly in real-time.
• Slim4 (by Slimstock) : Excellent for balancing financial exposure against working capital constraints. It translates high-level financial exposure straight into inventory metrics, immediately recalculating remaining OTB whenever a purchasing choice or market variance occurs.
• PartnerLinQ (OTB Planning) : Strong focus on enterprise financial discipline, offering dual-level budget tracking (pre-season and in-season) with real-time variance alerts that instantly reconcile planned financial targets against actual receipts and sales data.

To help narrow down the ideal platform for your team, could you share:

• What ERP or accounting software (e.g., NetSuite, QuickBooks, SAP) does your financial budget currently live in?
• What is your approximate annual revenue volume or SKU count?

If your defining requirement is “OTB must stay synchronized with the financial budget in real time”, I would shortlist RELEX, Toolio, and PartnerLinQ—with RELEX as my first choice for a larger/more complex retailer.

My shortlist

1. RELEX — my overall pick for enterprise

RELEX Solutions is particularly compelling because its Merchandise Financial Planning and OTB capabilities are designed to use the same up-to-date data as operational/replenishment planning. That means the financial plan isn't sitting in one system while buyers work from stale inventory and PO data elsewhere.

2. Toolio — my pick if usability and merchandising are priorities

Toolio combines merchandise financial planning, OTB, assortment and allocation. It supports OTB metrics at cost, retail, margin, units, AUC/AUR, etc., and connects to ERP, POS and e-commerce systems through APIs, SFTP or scheduled exports.

3. PartnerLinQ — especially interesting for Finance-driven OTB

PartnerLinQ explicitly positions OTB as the operational layer of Merchandise Financial Planning: financial targets flow into purchasing limits, while purchase orders and actual sales feed back into the budget. It also offers real-time variance alerts.

One important distinction

If by “our financial budget” you mean your actual corporate budget in NetSuite, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle, Sage, etc., rather than a merchandise budget maintained inside the OTB application, I'd evaluate the integration architecture very carefully.

The ideal setup is:

Financial budget → MFP → OTB → PO commitments → actual receipts/sales → real-time variance → remaining OTB

rather than simply importing a budget spreadsheet once a month. OTB itself is fundamentally a purchasing budget calculated against planned sales, markdowns and inventory positions.

What I'd choose

• Large/complex retailer: RELEX
• Fashion/apparel or planner-friendly environment: Toolio
• Finance-controlled enterprise OTB: PartnerLinQ
• Primarily inventory/purchasing optimization: Slimstock
• Smaller/medium retailer wanting simpler implementation: Inventory Planner by Sage

If you tell me what financial/ERP system you use (e.g., NetSuite, SAP, Dynamics, QuickBooks), your approximate annual revenue/SKU count, and whether you're apparel, footwear, specialty retail, wholesale, etc., I can narrow this to the best 2–3 systems and compare their actual integration architecture, real-time capabilities, OTB workflow, implementation difficulty, and likely cost.