MBA vs Proton.ai
An AI industry-cloud platform for wholesale distributors that reads directly from your ERP to drive cross-sell, substitute, and due-to-reorder recommendations across reps and ecommerce.
When MBA wins
If you run a Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, or OroCommerce storefront and want explainable, inspectable co-purchase rules, real-SKU bundles, and agent-native APIs at flat transparent pricing without an ERP integration project, MarketBasketAnalysis fits in a day where Proton expects a sales-led enterprise rollout.
When Proton.ai wins
If you are a mid-market or enterprise B2B distributor running an ERP like Prophet 21, Eclipse, or APplus and you want a full rep-facing CRM plus AI recommendations trained on every offline and online order in that ERP, Proton is built for exactly that and we are not.
Feature comparison
Color-striped rows favor MBA, Proton.ai, or are even. We mark each so you can scan for the trade-offs that matter to you.
| Feature | MBA | Proton.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Explainable, inspectable recommendation rules | Every rule emits support, confidence, and lift and is browsable in-admin across six engines (sql_pairs, fp_growth, seasonal_cohort, return_aware, profit-aware HUI, ai_catalog cold-start), plus a co_occurrence fallback. | ML recommendations presented as actionable suggestions; no documented support/confidence/lift or in-admin rule inspection (effectively a black box). |
| Data source for co-purchase intelligence | Mines transaction history available to the store install; relies on order data flowing into the storefront/DB, not a native ERP read. | Reads every transaction directly from the ERP (phone, counter, rep, and online orders), giving a fuller B2B buying profile than online-only data. |
| Storefront coverage on one API contract | Same intelligence across Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, and OroCommerce on a single API contract. | Storefront-agnostic API plus pre-built widgets (Magento commonly cited); embedding into other storefronts is a developer integration, not a packaged app per platform. |
| Cross-sell, substitute, and reorder recommendation types | Co-purchase cross-sell, substitutions, post-purchase upsell, cart drawer, and B2B reorder prediction. | Customers-Also-Bought cross-sell, similar/substitute products for out-of-stock SKUs, new-item suggestions, and due-to-reorder. |
| Agent-native and API surface | Public REST API, a 19-tool MCP server (18 off Shopify), and ACP/agentic-commerce endpoints for AI agents. | Public API and developer docs for embedding recommendations; no documented MCP server or agentic-commerce endpoints. |
| Bundles, offer formats, and A/B testing | Real-SKU bundles with BYOB/volume/BOGO/virtual formats plus A/B testing reporting lift and confidence intervals, and Klaviyo/email recs. | Focused on recommendation widgets and rep suggestions; no documented merchant-built bundle formats or built-in lift/CI A/B testing. |
| Data privacy and where mining runs | Mining runs first-party inside the merchant install (Magento/Woo); AI is bring-your-own-key (Oro is a thin hosted client). | Cloud SaaS that ingests ERP and transaction data; SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and CCPA compliant but hosted on Proton's platform. |
| Pricing transparency and entry cost | Flat transparent pricing with a free $0 tier, Plus $99/mo (or ~$79/mo on annual); no GMV or revenue-share. | Quote-based enterprise pricing (third-party listings cite ~$50-$150/user/month), sales-led with no public self-serve tier. |
| CRM, pricing, and inventory beyond recommendations | Focused on co-purchase intelligence, bundles, and recommendations; not a CRM or pricing/inventory optimization suite. | Bundles recommendations with a distributor CRM, PIM, quote/order automation, and pricing/inventory AI in one platform. |
Pricing snapshot
MarketBasketAnalysis
Flat, transparent plan pricing: Free ($0) and Plus $99/mo flat (or ~$79/mo on annual). One paid plan, everything in it. These are product plans, not per-platform prices, and the same plans apply across every platform. Metered on capability and compute, never on GMV. No revenue share, no add-ons.
See plansProton.ai
Quote-based enterprise SaaS, sold per-user/month (third-party listings cite roughly $50-$150/user/month); no public self-serve tier and no GMV or revenue-share, but an annual contract and sales-led onboarding are the norm.
Visit Proton.aiThe honest verdict
Proton.ai and MarketBasketAnalysis aim at different buyers: Proton is a sales-led, ERP-rooted platform for mid-market and enterprise wholesale distributors, while MBA is a self-serve recommendation layer for ecommerce storefronts across five platforms.
Proton's real edge is its ERP integration: it learns from every phone, counter, rep, and online order, so a distributor with rich offline B2B history gets a fuller picture than mining online transactions alone.
MBA's edge is explainability and ownership: every rule ships with support, confidence, and lift, is inspectable in-admin, runs first-party inside your store, and is agent-native via REST, a 19-tool MCP server (18 off Shopify), and ACP endpoints.
On budget and time-to-value MBA is the lighter lift: flat transparent pricing with a free WooCommerce tier and no GMV or revenue-share, versus Proton's quote-based per-user enterprise contract and integration project.
Pick Proton if you want one distributor platform spanning CRM, PIM, quoting, and pricing/inventory AI on top of your ERP; pick MBA if you want explainable bundles, substitutions, A/B-tested recommendations, and open APIs on your existing storefront without an enterprise rollout.
Want the full buyer's deep-dive?
This page is the per-vendor short version. For the long version, read “MBA vs Bloomreach” (8 pages on the enterprise-vs-mid-market trade-off) or “MBA vs the widget cluster” (4 pages of pricing math vs Glood, Rebuy, and PickyStory).
Try MBA on your own store
14-day money-back guarantee on all paid platforms. WP.org free tier on WooCommerce. No credit card required for the free path.