Epicor On-Prem End of Life: Your Options Before Support Ends in 2029

This is the path with the least disruption. You keep the same vendor and a familiar data model, and your consultants and integrations mostly carry over. For a shop that's large enough to use what Kinetic does well, such as MRP, multi-site operations, and a built-in general ledger, it's usually the sensible choice.

The trade-offs are the move from license to subscription, and, for defense work, the cloud compliance question. Kinetic's reported pricing has run around $125–200 per user per month plus a $1,500/month base, with implementations of $75,000–300,000, and the cloud version is a recurring cost from then on. If you hold CUI under DFARS 7012, ask Epicor in writing how its cloud meets the FedRAMP Moderate equivalency rule before you plan around it.

Software doesn't stop working when support ends. You could stay on the last on-prem release past December 2029 and keep running. Some shops will, at least for a while.

The risk builds over time: no security patches, operating system and database versions that age out, and integrations that break as everything else updates. For a defense shop, unpatched software inside your CUI scope is hard to defend against NIST SP 800-171. Treat this as a short bridge, not a plan.

If staying on-prem matters, there are still vendors who sell it. Global Shop Solutions sells perpetual licenses, estimated at about $110,000–200,000 in year one for 15–30 users with roughly 18% annual maintenance. MIE Trak Pro has been reported at about $3,000 per user perpetual, though sources conflict. JobBOSS² still offers on-prem, but ECI describes it as for businesses unable to move to the cloud, so check its roadmap before you count on it for the next decade.

Budget for a full ERP replacement either way: data migration, retraining, and a cutover period. The industry norm of about 18% a year in maintenance also means a perpetual license still has a recurring cost.

Some Kinetic users are smaller than the product. If you're a 2–20 person shop that mainly uses Kinetic for quoting, jobs, travelers, and job costing, and your accountant would be happy with QuickBooks, the sunset is a chance to stop paying for modules you don't use. Our competitive research found Kinetic is generally more than shops under about 30 employees need.

Traveler is being built for that shop: quote to invoice, travelers, floor tracking, and live job costing, with QuickBooks handling the books. It's planned as Traveler Cloud at $109/month flat, or as a Shop Server you own: $4,250 one-time with an optional $59/month continuity plan, or the Shop Server Defense edition at $6,500 one-time with an optional $99/month plan for shops with CUI. To be clear, Traveler isn't a fit if you depend on MRP, multi-site operations, or a built-in general ledger. It's pre-launch, and our comparison at /compare/epicor-kinetic-on-prem-alternative goes into detail.

Late 2026 to 2027: write down what you actually use in Kinetic, export a sample of your data, and price two or three paths with real quotes. Use /tools/cloud-vs-on-prem-cost to compare five-year costs on the same assumptions. Early 2028: decide before the final on-prem release, so you aren't upgrading to a version you're about to leave. 2028–2029: migrate in a slow season, run the old and new systems in parallel for at least one month-end close, and finish well before December 31, 2029.

If you'd like to keep the system on hardware you own, /shop-server explains how Traveler's on-prem appliance is planned to work and has a free reservation form with no deposit.