What is Style Arcade?
Style Arcade is a dedicated range planning and assortment optimisation platform built for fashion and apparel brands. Founded in Australia, it has become one of the most well-regarded PLM-adjacent tools in the industry — used by mid-market and enterprise fashion businesses to plan collections, manage product development workflows, and optimise assortments before they reach production.
The platform covers a broad set of capabilities: visual range planning boards where merchandisers can lay out collections spatially, assortment optimisation tools that analyse historical sales data to inform buy decisions, margin analysis and open-to-buy (OTB) planning, and supplier collaboration portals that connect internal teams with manufacturers and vendors.
Who uses Style Arcade?
Style Arcade is typically used by fashion brands doing £10M or more in annual revenue — businesses with dedicated merchandising, buying, and product development teams. The platform is sold through an enterprise sales process, and pricing is not publicly listed. Based on industry benchmarks, plans typically run into thousands of pounds per month, reflecting the depth and sophistication of the tooling.
Style Arcade is a serious, well-built tool for serious fashion businesses. It was designed for teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and need a professional-grade range planning system. The trade-off is enterprise pricing and an enterprise sales cycle.
What is Nuso Range Plan?
Nuso Range Plan is a PLM module built directly into Nuso's Shopify analytics platform. Rather than being a standalone range planning tool, it sits alongside Nuso's revenue analytics, customer cohorts, marketing mix modelling, and AI creative tools — giving brands a single platform for both product development and commercial analysis.
Range Plan is designed around a monthly collection planning workflow. Products are organised into collections with monthly columns, and teams can switch between three views: a plan view for visual collection layout, a table view for spreadsheet-style editing, and a rollup view for aggregated reporting across categories, seasons, or the entire range.
Workflow and tracking
Each product in Range Plan moves through up to 27 configurable workflow stages — from concept through sampling, costing, production, and delivery. Teams can upload files (tech packs, fabric swatches, supplier quotes), leave comments, and track changes through a full changelog. This gives design and buying teams a shared source of truth for where every product sits in the development pipeline.
Who uses Nuso Range Plan?
Range Plan is included in Nuso's per-seat pricing at £12 per seat per month. There is no separate PLM licence, no enterprise sales process, and no GMV-based pricing tier. It is designed for growing Shopify brands doing £500k to £50M in annual revenue — businesses that need structured product development workflows but cannot justify a standalone enterprise PLM tool.
Nuso Range Plan is not trying to replace enterprise PLM. It is trying to make PLM-grade workflows accessible to brands that are currently managing product development in spreadsheets, Notion boards, or email threads — and to do so within the same platform they already use for analytics.
Feature comparison
Both Style Arcade and Nuso Range Plan cover the core territory of collection planning and product development — but they approach it from different directions and at different levels of depth. Here is an honest, area-by-area comparison.
Collection and range planning
Deep assortment planning with visual merchandising boards. Merchandisers can lay out ranges spatially, plan by category/class/sub-class hierarchy, and use historical sales data to inform range width and depth decisions. Purpose-built for fashion buying teams.
Monthly collection columns with plan, table, and rollup views. Products are organised into collections with drag-and-drop layout. Less spatial merchandising depth, but clean and fast for teams that need to plan and track collections without a steep learning curve.
Workflow tracking
More mature workflow tools with supplier collaboration portals, approval chains, and integration with manufacturing processes. Better suited to brands with complex, multi-stage development pipelines involving external partners.
27 configurable workflow stages with file uploads, comments, and a full changelog. Covers the core development pipeline from concept to delivery. No dedicated supplier portal, but sufficient for teams managing development internally or via email/shared links.
Margin and cost analysis
Advanced margin analysis with open-to-buy (OTB) planning tools. Merchandisers can model intake margins, markdown projections, and sell-through rates at category and SKU level. OTB is a significant differentiator for brands managing seasonal buy budgets.
Calculates margins per product and per collection, with automatic sync from Shopify product data (cost price, RRP, sale price). No OTB planning module, but margin data feeds into Nuso's broader financial analytics including P&L and contribution margin reporting.
Bulk editing
Advanced grid editing tools built for merchandising teams working with large ranges. Bulk attribute updates, grid-based size/colour matrix editing, and efficient workflows for managing hundreds of SKUs simultaneously.
Spreadsheet-style bulk editor with CSV import for getting existing product data into the system quickly. Handles core bulk operations (pricing, status, categories, workflow stages) but does not have the same depth of grid editing as a dedicated merchandising tool.
Reporting and rollups
PLM-focused reporting: range summaries, buy plans, option counts, margin analysis by category. Deep within its domain, but does not extend into revenue analytics, customer data, or marketing performance. You will need separate tools for commercial reporting.
Rollup views within Range Plan, plus access to Nuso's full analytics suite: revenue reporting, customer cohorts, marketing mix modelling, product performance, and P&L. The advantage is that product development data lives alongside commercial data in the same platform.
Integration
Integrates with multiple e-commerce platforms including Shopify, as well as ERP systems and other enterprise tools. Designed for multi-channel brands that sell across wholesale, retail, and DTC simultaneously.
Shopify-native. Products, orders, and inventory sync automatically from your Shopify store. No manual data entry or CSV uploads required to get started. The trade-off is that Nuso is Shopify-only — it does not support other platforms or wholesale/retail channels.
Where Style Arcade wins
Style Arcade is the stronger tool in several important areas, and it would be dishonest to suggest otherwise. If your brand fits the profile below, Style Arcade is likely the better choice.
Deeper assortment optimisation
Style Arcade's assortment planning tools are significantly more advanced than Nuso's. The ability to analyse historical sell-through data, model range width and depth by category, and optimise buy quantities based on past performance is a genuine competitive advantage. For brands where getting the assortment right is a multi-million-pound decision, this depth matters.
Visual line planning
Style Arcade's visual merchandising boards allow buying teams to see a range laid out spatially — by colour story, price architecture, or category — in a way that closely mirrors how physical and digital merchandising works. This is a purpose-built feature that Nuso's plan view does not replicate at the same level of sophistication.
Supplier collaboration
Style Arcade includes supplier portals that allow external partners to view specifications, submit costings, and track progress within the platform. For brands managing relationships with multiple manufacturers across different regions, this collaborative layer reduces the need for email-based back-and-forth and keeps supplier communication centralised.
Open-to-buy planning
OTB is a critical planning tool for brands managing seasonal buy budgets, markdown cadences, and stock turn targets. Style Arcade's OTB module is a mature, well-regarded feature that gives merchandising teams confidence in their financial commitments. Nuso does not currently offer OTB planning.
Multi-channel and enterprise scale
Style Arcade was designed for brands that operate across wholesale, retail, and DTC channels simultaneously. If your business sells through department stores, owns retail locations, and runs a Shopify store, Style Arcade's multi-channel architecture is a natural fit. Nuso is Shopify-only, which limits it to DTC-primary brands.
Style Arcade is a more complete range planning tool than Nuso Range Plan. It has been in market longer, serves larger brands, and offers deeper functionality in assortment optimisation, visual merchandising, and supplier management. If PLM is the centre of your operational world and budget is not the primary constraint, Style Arcade is an excellent choice.
Where Nuso wins
Nuso's advantages are less about feature depth in PLM specifically and more about the broader value proposition: what you get alongside range planning, how quickly you can get started, and what it costs.
Price
This is the most significant difference. Nuso Range Plan is included in every Nuso seat at £12 per month. There is no separate PLM licence, no tiered pricing based on GMV or number of products, and no enterprise sales process to navigate. For a team of five, that is £60 per month for PLM plus a full analytics platform. Style Arcade's enterprise pricing is typically orders of magnitude higher — a meaningful consideration for brands in the £500k–£10M revenue range.
Shopify-native integration
Nuso syncs directly with your Shopify store. Products, variants, pricing, cost data, and inventory levels flow in automatically. When you update a product's cost price in Range Plan, it reflects across your analytics. When a product goes live on Shopify, its sales data feeds back into Range Plan's margin calculations. There is no manual data import step and no integration to configure.
Analytics in the same platform
With Style Arcade, you get range planning and assortment tools — but you still need separate platforms for revenue analytics, customer cohort analysis, marketing mix modelling, and financial reporting. Nuso combines all of these in a single platform. Your product development team can see how last season's collection performed at a cohort level, which products drove the highest customer lifetime value, and what the true net margin was after all costs — without leaving the platform.
Speed to value
Nuso Range Plan requires no enterprise sales process, no implementation project, and no training programme. You sign up, connect your Shopify store, and start building collections. For brands that need to start planning their next season now rather than after a three-month procurement cycle, this immediacy is a practical advantage.
Growing brands that need PLM but are not enterprise yet
There is a large population of Shopify brands doing £500k to £10M in revenue that have outgrown spreadsheets for product development but are not yet at the scale where an enterprise PLM tool is justified. Nuso Range Plan exists precisely for this gap. It provides structured workflows, collection planning, and margin tracking at a price point that makes sense for a 5–20 person team.
Which should you choose?
The decision between Style Arcade and Nuso Range Plan comes down to your brand's scale, channel complexity, and what you need alongside range planning.
Choose Style Arcade if…
- Your brand is doing £10M+ in annual revenue and has dedicated merchandising and buying teams
- You sell across multiple channels — wholesale, retail, and DTC — and need a tool that accommodates that complexity
- You need deep assortment optimisation, open-to-buy planning, and visual line planning tools
- You have budget for enterprise tooling and are comfortable with an enterprise sales and implementation process
- Supplier collaboration portals and external partner workflows are a core requirement
Choose Nuso if…
- You are a Shopify-primary brand and want range planning that syncs natively with your store
- You want PLM and analytics in one platform rather than paying for separate tools for product development and commercial reporting
- Your budget is better suited to £12 per seat per month than enterprise PLM pricing
- You need to get started quickly without an enterprise sales process or multi-month implementation
- You are in the £500k–£50M revenue range and have outgrown spreadsheets but are not yet at enterprise scale
The graduation path
It is worth noting that these tools are not necessarily either/or across the lifetime of a brand. Many growing fashion businesses start by managing product development in spreadsheets, graduate to a tool like Nuso Range Plan when they need structured workflows and collection planning, and then move to a dedicated enterprise PLM like Style Arcade as they scale into multi-channel, high-volume operations.
Nuso Range Plan is designed to serve that middle chapter well — the period where your brand has outgrown ad-hoc processes but is not yet ready for the cost and complexity of enterprise tooling. And because Range Plan sits inside a full analytics platform, you get immediate value from the commercial intelligence layer even as your PLM needs continue to evolve.
Style Arcade is the more powerful range planning tool. Nuso is the more accessible one — and it comes with a full analytics platform included. The right choice depends on where your brand is today and what you need beyond PLM.
Try Nuso Range Plan free
Connect your Shopify store in 10 minutes. Start planning your next collection with structured workflows, margin tracking, and rollup views — all included at £12 per seat per month.
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