Retool is for developers building internal tools. BackOffice is for ops people who don’t write code — full workspaces with entities, views, AI and automations, no SQL or JavaScript required.
Retool is a powerful builder if you have developers and a database to wire up. BackOffice is a no-code ERP — your ops team models entities, views, forms and automations themselves, with AI and templates, at $29/user/mo. Different audience entirely.
Retool internal-tool builder for developers starts at $10/user/mo (Team). BackOffice Team is $29/user/mo with no seat minimum. Here is what each includes as standard.
| Capability | BackOffice | Retool |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (per user / mo) | $29 · no minimum | $10 · Team |
| Custom data model (your own entities) | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| Table · Kanban · Calendar · Gallery views | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| Roles & granular permissions | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| Audit log | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| SSO / SAML | ✓ Standard | Business+ |
| Public forms with conditional logic | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| AI builds a workspace from a prompt | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| AI ingests CSV / Excel / PDF into your entities | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| Typed API + webhooks on every write | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| MCP server (connect Claude / ChatGPT to your data) | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| Per-tenant Postgres isolation | ✓ Standard | ✓ Standard |
| Templates are full workspaces, not starter kits | ✓ Standard | Templates |
| The rest of the platform — accounting, POS, marketing, calls, scheduling, e-sign, AI agents… | ✓ All included | — Separate tools |
Retool gives your developers a canvas to build tools. BackOffice ships them finished — the same $29 seat runs all of this:
One login, one database, one bill — every app above is part of the same $29 seat, not an add-on.
An honest split — pick the tool that matches the work you actually do.
Most teams don’t run Retool alone. They pay for a CRM, a helpdesk, a project tool and a forms tool on top. BackOffice replaces the stack with one bill.
Choose Retool if you have engineers to spare and the job is a bespoke UI over databases you already run — code-level control is the product. But be honest about the cost: every Retool app is engineering time to build and maintain forever. If the goal is your team running on real software this week — not a development project — BackOffice ships it finished, and your engineers keep the typed API, webhooks and MCP for the genuinely custom parts.
For non-developers, yes. Retool is a developer tool for building UIs on top of your own databases; BackOffice is a no-code ERP that ships its own data model, so ops teams build without code.
No. The whole point is that a non-technical operator can model entities, views, forms and automations in minutes — with AI doing the first draft from a plain-English description.
No. BackOffice provides per-tenant Postgres storage, auth and a data model out of the box. Retool typically connects to a database and APIs you already run.
Yes — every entity has a typed API, webhooks fire on writes, and a built-in MCP server lets any LLM read and write the workspace. No-code first, code when you need it.
Describe your business, let the AI build the workspace, invite your team. Free for 3 users — no credit card, no time limit.
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