Primentra vs Stibo Systems STEP — Do you need PIM, or just MDM?

What is Stibo Systems STEP?

Stibo Systems is a Danish software company that has been in the data management space since the 1990s. Their flagship product, STEP (Single Truth for Enterprise Products), started as a product information management platform and expanded into multi-domain MDM over the past decade. Today it covers products, suppliers, customers, and locations in a single unified data model.

STEP has genuine strength in industries where product data is the center of everything — retail, consumer packaged goods, manufacturing. Companies use it to manage tens of thousands of SKUs, maintain product hierarchies, enrich product content, and push clean data out to e-commerce platforms, ERP systems, and retailer portals. For that specific problem, it is a capable and mature platform.

Stibo also offers domain-specific cloud services — Supplier MDM, Location MDM, and Customer MDM — as bolt-ons to the core platform. Implementation is typically handled by certified partners and takes several months. Pricing is enterprise — custom quotes, but publicly available information suggests annual costs starting at around €19,200 before implementation.

What is Primentra?

Primentra is a master data management platform built for teams that manage reference and entity data — cost centers, materials, locations, country codes, organizational hierarchies — and need a structured, governed place to own that data without a six-figure implementation project. It was designed as a modern replacement for Microsoft Master Data Services (MDS), which was removed from SQL Server 2025.

Primentra runs on your own SQL Server. You manage the infrastructure, the data stays on your network, and there's no cloud dependency to worry about. The pricing is a flat €7,500/year with unlimited users — no per-seat scaling, no usage tiers. A built-in MDS migration wizard lets existing MDS users import their models in minutes.

Side-by-side comparison

PIM vs MDM — do you actually need product information management?

This is the most important question to answer before evaluating either platform. PIM and MDM sound related — they both manage data — but they address fundamentally different problems.

Product Information Management (PIM) is for organizations managing large product catalogs: thousands of SKUs with rich content — descriptions, images, specifications, variant matrices — that need to be published to e-commerce sites, retailer portals, and print catalogs. The core workflow is enriching product data and syndicating it downstream. If you sell products and your problem is keeping product data consistent across channels, PIM is what you need.

Master Data Management (MDM) is for organizations that need a governed, authoritative source for reference and entity data shared across systems: cost centers, chart of accounts, materials, locations, customers, employees. The core workflow is defining, approving, and distributing entity data to downstream systems like ERP, CRM, and data warehouses. No product catalogs involved.

Stibo Systems STEP does both, which is a real advantage if your organization actually needs both. But a large share of teams evaluating STEP are in the MDM camp — they need a place to manage reference data, and STEP appeared in their shortlist because it's well-marketed and well-known. If that's you, you're about to buy a platform that's 60% PIM features you'll never touch.

Setup and time to value

Stibo Systems STEP implementations are measured in months. The platform's flexibility is also its complexity — configuring the data model, workflow rules, user roles, and integrations requires a certified implementation partner. A typical engagement runs 3 to 9 months before the system is live and users are trained. For organizations with complex product data hierarchies, that timeline is acceptable. For a team trying to get reference data under control before a fiscal year-end, it is not.

Primentra is designed to deploy in under a day. Install the application, point it at your SQL Server, create your first model, and start building entities. The interface is deliberate about being familiar — the grid editing experience works the way Excel works, which means most users are productive within an hour rather than needing a week of training. If you were previously on Microsoft MDS, the built-in migration wizard imports your existing models, entities, and attributes in a few minutes.

Daily data editing experience

STEP's editing interface is built around its data model: hierarchical object trees, attribute panels, and workflow-gated editing. It is powerful for product catalog management, where structured workflows around content enrichment and approval are part of the job. For reference data management — where a data steward needs to add a new cost center, update a description, or bulk-load a list of materials from Excel — the overhead can feel heavy.

Primentra's grid is the primary editing interface. Inline editing, paste from clipboard (Excel-compatible), keyboard navigation, and column sorting. Changes that need approval go through changesets — a lightweight approval flow that records what changed, who approved it, and when. For teams whose daily work involves loading reference data from spreadsheets or making targeted updates to entity attributes, this is a better fit than a form-based workflow tool optimized for product enrichment.

Pricing and total cost of ownership

Stibo Systems does not publish a standard price list. Based on publicly available sources, annual licensing starts at around €19,200 and scales from there depending on domains, users, and features. That number does not include the implementation partner costs, which for a standard STEP deployment add anywhere from €50,000 to several hundred thousand euros over the first year. Ongoing support contracts and upgrade costs add to the total.

Primentra is €7,500/year. That is the full price — no per-user fee, no implementation services required, no consulting engagement to get started. The 60-day free trial lets you validate the platform against your actual data before committing. Most teams are live within a day of downloading the installer.

For a team of 20 data stewards, the three-year cost comparison looks roughly like this: Stibo STEP at conservative estimates — €57,600 in licensing plus €100,000–200,000 in implementation — versus Primentra at €22,500 in licensing with no professional services. The gap widens if STEP's implementation runs long, which they often do.

Deployment model

Stibo Systems STEP is available cloud-hosted or on-premise. The cloud option moves the infrastructure management burden to Stibo, which some teams prefer — though it also means your master data lives on vendor-managed infrastructure.

Primentra is on-premise only. It runs on SQL Server — the same SQL Server instance your organization likely already runs. Your data never leaves your network. There is no cloud dependency, no SLA conversation with a vendor about uptime, and no data residency questions to answer. For organizations in regulated industries or with strict data sovereignty requirements, this is often the deciding factor.

MDS migration path

Microsoft removed Master Data Services from SQL Server 2025, and mainstream support for SQL Server 2022 (the last version to include MDS) ends July 9, 2028. Many organizations evaluating MDM platforms right now are doing so because of this deadline. Our full MDS alternatives comparison covers all the main options.

Stibo Systems STEP has no built-in MDS migration tooling. Moving your MDS models, entities, attributes, and data values into STEP requires a custom migration project — typically done by the implementation partner as part of the broader engagement.

Primentra ships with a built-in MDS migration wizard. Run one SQL query against your existing MDS database to export your models, entities, attributes, and domain values as JSON. Upload the file into Primentra and your entire structure — including hierarchy definitions and member data — is imported in minutes. You can run Primentra in parallel with your existing MDS instance until you're ready to cut over. See How to Migrate from Microsoft MDS for the full walkthrough.

Choose Stibo Systems STEP if

• Your core problem is managing a large product catalog with rich content and channel syndication requirements — retailer portals, e-commerce feeds, print catalogs
• You operate in retail, CPG, or manufacturing where PIM and MDM actually overlap and you need both in a single platform
• You have budget for a multi-month implementation and an ongoing relationship with a certified STEP partner
• Your organization has the headcount and technical maturity to operate and maintain a complex enterprise platform long-term

Choose Primentra if

• Your problem is reference data and entity management — cost centers, materials, locations, organizational hierarchies — not product catalog syndication
• You need to be live in days rather than months, without an implementation partner in the critical path
• You are already running SQL Server and want your master data on the same infrastructure your team already manages
• You are migrating from Microsoft MDS and want a platform that imports your existing models rather than rebuilding them from scratch

Verdict

Stibo Systems STEP is a legitimate enterprise platform with real strengths in PIM and multi-domain MDM for product-heavy industries. We are not going to pretend otherwise. If you manage a product catalog with thousands of SKUs and need to push clean product data to retail channels, STEP is a credible choice — and so are a handful of other enterprise PIM vendors worth evaluating alongside it.

But if your organization does not manage product catalogs — if your master data challenge is reference tables, entity hierarchies, and governed code lists — then STEP is solving a problem you do not have. You would be paying enterprise PIM prices for MDM capability, inheriting implementation complexity that adds months before you see value, and managing a platform with far more surface area than the job requires.

That is the case where Primentra is a better fit. Focused MDM, on your own SQL Server, operational in a day, at a price that does not require board approval. If you are not certain which category your organization falls into, the 60-day trial will tell you quickly.

Frequently asked questions

Common questions about Stibo Systems STEP and Primentra.

Primentra is a self-hosted MDM platform built for mid-market teams on SQL Server. If your master data challenge is reference data, entity hierarchies, or replacing Microsoft MDS — not managing a product catalog — it's worth a look. Try it free →

• No cloud migration — stays on your own SQL Server
• No professional services required — self-service from day one
• No credit card for the trial