Tulip
No-code platform for shop-floor apps: operator work instructions, machine and device data capture, traceability records and OEE dashboards, priced per interface with public numbers.
Overview
Think of it as a layer sitting between the machines and the people running them. You build apps that walk an operator through a work instruction, capture what actually happened, read a value off a torque driver or a scale through an edge device and push the result into Tulip Tables. Out of that come traceability records and OEE dashboards, without the eighteen-month MES implementation project that usually precedes them.
The Composable MES App Suite is the newer answer for teams who want prebuilt rather than build-your-own, covering production, quality, compliance traceability and inventory on a single common data model. Above that sits Frontline Copilot for generative AI inside the platform, and more recently Composable AI Agents intended to act on shop-floor conditions. DMG MORI resells a version of the platform with its machine tools, which says something useful about how well the connectivity layer holds up against real equipment.
Priced per monthly active interface: 100 dollars on Essentials, 250 on Professional, ten interface minimum, billed annually. Enterprise and Regulated Industries are quote-only and add workspaces, approval workflows, multilingual apps, 21 CFR Part 11 signatures and validation packs. Good fit for a plant with 10 to 50 stations and a process engineer willing to own the apps long term. Poor fit if you need scheduling, planning or ERP function, or if you are staring at 200 plus interfaces where the per-interface maths turns against you.
Key Features
- ✓ Drag and drop builder for operator-facing apps running on tablets, desktops or shop-floor terminals, with no code required
- ✓ Edge devices and connectors pull data from machines, PLCs, scales, torque drivers, barcode scanners and USB hardware without custom middleware
- ✓ Composable MES App Suite ships prebuilt apps for production, quality, compliance traceability and inventory on one shared common data model
- ✓ Frontline Copilot brings generative AI into the builder and over Tulip Tables, with Composable AI Agents announced to act on floor conditions rather than only flag them
- ✓ Professional tier adds HTTP and SQL connectors, the Tulip API, SSO over SAML or LDAP, custom widgets and an on-premise host option
- ✓ Regulated Industries tier covers 21 CFR Part 11 electronic signatures, GxP auditable records and validation documentation for pharma, medical device and aerospace plants
Where it holds
- • It publishes real prices. 100 dollars per interface monthly on Essentials, 250 on Professional. Almost nobody else in industrial software will give you a number before a demo
- • A process engineer who cannot code can build a working station app in an afternoon. That claim gets made constantly in this category and here it actually holds
- • The MIT Media Lab origin shows in the data layer. Tables and the common data model are cleaner than most MES schemas you would inherit
- • DMG MORI resells a version for its machine tools, which is a decent independent signal about the connectivity story
Where it breaks
- • Per-interface pricing punishes scale. A hundred stations on Professional runs 300,000 dollars a year before services, which starts to look like a full MES budget
- • No free tier now and a ten interface minimum, so the smallest honest entry is roughly 12,000 dollars a year even for a pilot
- • It is a frontline layer, not ERP and not a scheduler. You will integrate with SAP or whatever runs planning, and that integration tends to become the actual project
- • Composable AI Agents are new. Agentic action on a live production floor needs guardrails the marketing has not yet described in any detail
My Take
A manufacturing engineer with no software background can wire up a station app, connect a torque driver through the edge device and have OEE numbers by the end of the day. That has been true for years and it is still the reason to look. Composable AI Agents, shown at the Operations Calling conference, are meant to act on the floor rather than raise an alert and wait, which deserves scepticism until somebody has run it in a plant for a year. Pricing is public at 100 dollars per interface per month on Essentials with a ten interface minimum, which is rare in factory software. Past roughly fifty stations the per-interface model stops being friendly and a conventional MES deserves a look alongside it.
Quick Info
- Pricing:
- paid
- Openness:
- Proprietary
- Starting at:
- Public pricing, verified August 2026. Essentials is 100 dollars per interface per month, Professional is 250 dollars per interface per month, both billed annually with a ten interface minimum, so the practical entry point is about 12,000 dollars a year. Enterprise and Regulated Industries are quote-only. No free tier is offered on the current pricing page.
- Added:
- Aug 2026
- Updated:
- Aug 2026
Use Cases
Judge it on your own work
The notes above say where Tulip holds and where it breaks. The fastest check is your own workload.
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