A business system that
starts 80% done. And talks.
Open Mercato is an MIT-licensed CRM/ERP foundation written in TypeScript on Next.js. Multi-tenancy, roles, audit trail, field-level encryption, workflows and an AI assistant with MCP are already there. We build the 20% that is specific to your company on top, and you own all of it.
- Deal "Warehouse rollout", €48k, stage Proposal, owner Anna
- Order SO-2418 awaiting delivery, due Friday
- Ticket #771 about invoice format, open 2 days
Not a product to configure.
A foundation to build on.
Open Mercato is an open-source "AI-engineering foundation" for CRM, ERP and commerce systems, created by the team behind Vue Storefront. It ships the parts every business system needs and leaves the parts that make yours different to you.
Companies that outgrow an off-the-shelf CRM usually face a bad choice: bend a SaaS product until it almost fits and pay per seat forever, or build from scratch and spend the first six months on log-in screens, permissions and audit logs.
Open Mercato removes that choice. Authentication, role- and feature-based permissions, strict multi-tenancy, audit trail with undo, field-level encryption, event subscribers, workflows, custom entities and an admin UI are built in. CRM, catalogue, orders, shipping and ERP modules come as ready building blocks. What is left is the 20% that is actually your business: your objects, your rules, your integrations.
It is built for the way software is written now. The architecture is modular and explicit, so AI coding agents understand every module's contract and can extend the system without breaking it. Overlays replace behaviour at build time, so your changes never fork the core and upgrades stay clean.
And it has AI inside, not bolted on: an AI assistant with MCP that reads and, with your approval, changes records, plus hybrid full-text and vector search so that RAG works on your own data. The core is MIT-licensed: read it, change it, host it anywhere, and leave any partner, including us, with the system intact.
Open-source licence for the core. No per-user, per-tenant or platform fee.
Of a typical business system is already there on day one. Your budget goes to the rest.
Ready modules: auth, RBAC, multi-tenancy, audit, CRM, catalogue, orders, workflows and more.
Tenant-scoped field-level encryption for personal and sensitive data.
TypeScript end to end: Next.js, PostgreSQL, Redis. A stack any modern team can hire for.
The AI assistant and any MCP client, such as Claude Desktop or ChatGPT, talk to the same, permission-checked API.
The boring 80%,
done properly.
Every module is discovered automatically and can be overridden by yours. Use what you need, replace what you must, leave the rest.
Auth, roles & multi-tenancy
Sign-in, sessions, feature-based RBAC with per-role and per-user flags, and strict organisation and tenant scoping on every query. Nothing leaks between tenants by design.
Audit trail & undo
Every change is recorded with who, when and what. Mistakes can be rolled back. The same log answers auditors and feeds the AI assistant's context.
Field-level encryption
Personal and sensitive fields are encrypted at rest with keys scoped to the tenant. A database dump without the keys is useless, which is what GDPR auditors like to hear.
CRM
Companies, people, deals, activities, notes and tasks, with custom fields and pipelines. The same data model the conversational CRM on this site runs on.
Catalogue, orders & shipping
Products, variants, price lists, B2B ordering, configure-price-quote, orders and shipments. Commerce modules from people who built a storefront used by thousands of shops.
Custom entities & fields
New record types and fields are defined live from the admin UI, with validation, permissions and search applied automatically. No migration for every new column.
Events & workflows
Persistent event subscribers, local or over Redis, and workflow orchestration. "When a deal is won, create the order and notify finance" is configuration, not a project.
AI assistant with MCP
Ask questions, get answers from your records. Ask for changes, approve a diff, and they are applied under your permissions. Exposed over MCP to any client you already use.
Hybrid search
Full-text search through Meilisearch and vector search for meaning. Together they make RAG work on your own data without a separate pipeline.
Admin UI & portals
A ready back-office with lists, forms, filters and dashboards, and the pieces for customer or partner self-service portals on the same API.
APIs & integrations
Typed, documented APIs for every module, validated with Zod. Headless by default, so ERPNext, your web shop, accounting or a mobile app plug in the same way.
Overlays & extensibility
Your code lives in your modules and overlays. They replace core behaviour at build time, so you never patch the framework and every upstream release still applies.
Under the hood: Next.js App Router, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, MikroORM, Redis, dependency injection and schema validation throughout. Open Mercato Core is MIT-licensed; an optional enterprise package with extra features is offered by its makers under a separate subscription.
Custom software,
without the custom-software bill.
A bespoke business system used to mean a year of building the plumbing before the first useful screen. Open Mercato starts where that year ended.
Your process, not a vendor's template
SaaS CRMs are built for the average company. If your deals, orders or service cases do not look average, you fight the tool every day. Here the data model is yours from the start.
No per-seat fees, no platform tax
Give an account to every sales rep, every field technician, every partner. The licence line is zero and stays zero at 10 users or 1,000.
AI that works on your data, on your terms
The assistant, MCP tools and RAG search run inside your tenant, under your permissions, with the model of your choice: a cloud API, or a fully private model you own.
Built for AI-assisted delivery
The architecture is explicit enough for AI coding agents to work in safely. That is why our PoCs take weeks, not quarters, and why the code stays readable for the next developer.
| Compared on | SaaS CRM / platform (Salesforce, HubSpot, Dynamics 365) | Custom build from scratch | Open Mercato |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licence | Per user, per edition, per year; AI features priced extra | None, but everything must be written | None. MIT, unlimited users |
| Time to first useful screen | Days, if your process fits the template | Months of plumbing first | Weeks: plumbing is done, you build the 20% |
| Fit to your process | Configurable within limits; custom objects cost extra | Total | Total, with ready modules to start from |
| AI & data | Vendor's AI, vendor's model, data leaves your tenant | Build search, RAG and tools yourself | Assistant, MCP, hybrid search built in; your model |
| Hosting | Vendor's cloud, vendor's region | Anywhere | Your infrastructure, EU or UK cloud we manage |
| Exit | Export, then the system goes dark | You own it | You own it, and any TypeScript team can take over |
Open source does not mean free of work. It means the money goes into your process, data and AI, instead of into seats and editions.
Best fit: a process that is
genuinely yours.
If a standard CRM or ERP fits, we will say so and point you to ERPNext. Open Mercato pays off when the system is part of how you compete:
A CRM shaped like your business
Agencies, brokers, B2B sales teams, service firms with unusual pipelines, many-to-many relationships or regulated client data.
- Your own objects, stages and rules
- Conversational interface via MCP
- Encrypted personal data per tenant
B2B ordering, CPQ & portals
Distributors and manufacturers who sell through dealers or key accounts and need quoting, configurable products and self-service ordering.
- Catalogue, price lists, orders built in
- Customer and partner portals
- Headless: web shop, app, EDI on one API
Operational back-office systems
Case management, field service, bookings, fleet, production tracking: the system the company runs on, that no SaaS product quite covers.
- Custom entities and workflows
- Audit trail and undo on everything
- Event-driven integrations with ERP
Multi-tenant products & groups
Software companies and groups that serve many clients or entities from one installation and must keep their data strictly apart.
- Tenant isolation by design
- Per-tenant encryption keys
- Feature flags per role and per user
Everything between
"interesting" and "it runs".
Mobinea is an EU-based IT consultancy working with clients across the European Union and the United Kingdom. We design, build and operate business systems on Open Mercato, and we stay after go-live.
- Fit assessment & discoveryWe map your process, data and integrations, then tell you honestly whether a custom system on Open Mercato is the right call, or whether ERPNext or a SaaS tool will do.
- Data model & module designYour entities, relationships, pipelines, permissions and workflows, designed with your key users and built as your own modules on top of the core.
- Conversational interfaceThe AI assistant, MCP tools and approval rules tuned to your vocabulary, so people can say what happened or ask what's next from ChatGPT, Claude Desktop or your own app.
- Private AI modelOptionally, a model that runs on your infrastructure and belongs to you, for companies whose data may not leave the building.
- Data migrationAccounts, contacts, deals, products and history from HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Dynamics, spreadsheets or a home-grown system, cleaned and reconciled.
- IntegrationsERPNext for accounting and stock, web shops, e-mail and calendar, telephony, e-signature, BI and whatever else you already run, over the typed APIs and event subscribers.
- Hosting & operationsOn your servers or in a managed private cloud in the EU or the UK. Backups, monitoring, upgrades and security patches handled, with data residency under your control.
- Training & supportRole-based training, documentation in your language, and an SLA-backed support line with a block of developer hours for the changes that will follow.
Weeks, not quarters.
A working PoC before you commit.
Fit-check call
A short conversation about your process, systems and what a standard tool cannot do. You leave with a clear yes, no, or "yes, but".
30 minutes · freeDiscovery & design
Workshops with your key users. Data model, screens, permissions, integration list, and a fixed-scope offer with a timeline.
1–2 weeksProof of concept
A working system with your objects, your data and the conversational interface. Your team uses it for real and we adjust.
4–8 weeksBuild, integrate, migrate
Remaining modules, integrations, workflows and portals. Data migration rehearsed twice. Role-based training for every team.
2–4 monthsGo-live & growth
Cut-over on a date you choose, hyper-care in the first weeks, then ongoing support, upgrades and new capabilities.
Then: ongoingA focused CRM or back-office scope is typically live within three to four months of the first workshop, with the proof of concept in your team's hands after about six weeks. Larger systems are phased so that each phase delivers something people use.
Four lines on the budget.
One of them is zero.
We quote fixed-scope projects after discovery, so the number you sign is the number you pay. The structure is always the same:
Software licence
Open Mercato Core is MIT-licensed. No per-user, per-tenant or annual fee, ever. The AI model is the only usage-based line, and it can be your own.
Design & build
Discovery, data model, modules, conversational interface, integrations, migration and training. Fixed price per agreed scope; phased for larger projects.
Hosting
Your own infrastructure (no cost from us) or a managed private cloud in the EU or the UK. Sized to your users and data, not per seat.
Support & development
An SLA-backed support retainer with a monthly block of consultant and developer hours for changes, upgrades and new modules.
For a team of 50 on a mid-tier SaaS CRM with AI add-ons, the seats alone usually cost more over three years than building the system you actually wanted. We will show you the comparison for your headcount on the first call.
The questions your CTO
and your CFO will ask.
Is it mature enough to run our business on?
Open Mercato is a young project that moves fast, and we say so openly. It is built by the team behind Vue Storefront, which powers thousands of online shops, on a conservative stack: Next.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL and Redis. The parts that matter most in production, tenancy, permissions, audit and encryption, are the parts it was designed around first.
We run our own company on it and keep client systems pinned to releases we have tested. Where a module is not yet where we need it, we build it in your codebase, which you own either way.
How is this different from ERPNext, which you also offer?
ERPNext is a finished ERP: accounting, stock, manufacturing and HR work on day one and you configure them. Open Mercato is a foundation: it gives you the building blocks of a business system and you shape the rest. If your need is a standard ERP, ERPNext is cheaper and faster. If your need is a system no standard product covers, or a CRM with AI at its core, Open Mercato is the better tool.
They also work well together: Open Mercato as the customer-facing, conversational front, ERPNext for the ledger and the warehouse, connected over their APIs.
Where does our data live, and what about GDPR?
Wherever you decide: on your own servers or in a private cloud in the EU or the UK that we operate for you. Data residency stays inside the jurisdiction you choose, for GDPR and UK GDPR alike. Personal and sensitive fields are encrypted at rest with tenant-scoped keys, and every change is in the audit log.
The AI assistant only sees what the signed-in user is allowed to see. Which model it talks to is your choice: a cloud API under a data-processing agreement, or a private model that runs on your infrastructure and never sends anything out.
Can the AI change records on its own?
Not without a say-so. Reads are free within the user's permissions. Writes go through an approval step: the assistant proposes the exact change, the user confirms, and the change is applied and logged like any other. For routine, low-risk actions you can switch approval off per tool; for anything touching money or personal data we recommend keeping it on.
Which AI model does it use?
Any you choose. The assistant and the MCP tools are model-agnostic. Most clients start with a commercial API from Anthropic or OpenAI under a data-processing agreement, and some move to a private open-weights model hosted on their own GPUs when the volume or the sensitivity justifies it. We set up, tune and operate either.
What if Mobinea disappears, or we want to change partner?
Nothing happens to your system. You own the installation, the database and every line of code, which lives in your own repository as documented modules on top of the MIT-licensed core. Any TypeScript team can take over, and the Open Mercato community and its makers remain available.
That is the whole point of choosing an open foundation, and we would rather earn your business every year than lock it in.
Can we host it ourselves?
Yes. It runs as a standard Node.js application with PostgreSQL and Redis, in containers, on any Linux server, Kubernetes cluster or cloud. We hand over the deployment, backup and upgrade procedures and can train your IT team, or keep operating it for you under an SLA.
Tell us what no tool quite does for you.
We'll tell you if Open Mercato fits.
A 30-minute fit-check call: your process, your current tools, your data. No slides, no commitment. If a standard product would serve you better, you will hear it from us first.
- We reply within one business day
- A live demo of the conversational CRM, on request
- SaaS-seat cost comparison for your headcount, free