If you're looking for a MasterControl alternative, you might be looking to cut costs due to uncertain market conditions, or you might be part of a growing quality team that is looking for a more affordable solution that fits the size of your team.
MasterControl is one of the most recognized names in quality management software. It's built for large, highly regulated organizations with extensive infrastructure and dedicated IT support. For small to midsized teams, however, MasterControl’s cost, complexity, and long rollout timelines might not be the best fit.
In this guide, we’ll walk through three alternative paths that quality leaders are using to build compliant, scalable systems:
We’ll break down when each approach makes sense (and when it doesn’t), so you can confidently choose the right QMS solution for where your team is today and where you're headed in the future.
MasterControl was built to serve global manufacturers and enterprise giants in highly regulated industries: companies with centralized quality departments, dedicated system administrators, and months (or years) to spend on implementation and configuration.
It's depth and legacy position make it a great choice for very large organizations looking to digitize their quality systems.
But not every company in need of a QMS is an enterprise behemoth with enterprise pockets. Companies today are more likely to operate with smaller, decentralized teams, agile product cycles, and a leaner approach to quality. The needs have shifted from building highly customized, heavy systems to finding right-sized platforms that are intuitive, scalable, and fast to deploy.
Additionally, modern software platforms now offer capabilities that used to require custom development:
Lengthy custom builds for deployment are no longer the norm for modern software rollouts.
Most importantly, the people using QMS platforms today are different. They’re often quality professionals who also support regulatory or product development roles. They don’t have time to learn complex systems or chase document versions across disconnected tools.
MasterControl was built for enterprise organizations, not for small and midsized teams trying to scale quickly without sacrificing compliance.
If that sounds like your situation, this guide is for you. We'll cover three affordable Mastercontrol alternatives that will allow you to manage quality at different stages of growth.
For many growing companies, the first attempt at a quality management system (QMS) isn’t a formal platform at all. It's a patchwork of familiar tools: shared drives, spreadsheets, and digital signatures.
For a while, that works just fine. The typical DIY QMS stack includes SharePoint, Box, or Google Drive for storing SOPs and quality records, paired with DocuSign or Adobe Sign for approvals. Training records might live in Excel. CAPAs, if you’re tracking them at all, may be handled in Word docs or simple forms. If you're aiming for 21 CFR Part 11 or ISO 13485 compliance, you might also layer in validation tools or plugins.
This setup is quick, flexible, and inexpensive: perfect for getting the job done in the earliest phases of your quality journey.
This approach comes with some key benefits:
If your team is small, your document volume is low, and formal audits are still a ways off, this approach can offer just enough structure to stay organized.
DIY quality management can work well at first, but it's very unlikely to keep up with your needs long term. As soon as your organization begins to grow, take on regulated work, or prepare for inspections, the weaknesses will begin to surface.
The big, central issue here is that doing all of these things manually is possible when you have a small team, increasingly painful as you scale, and ultimately impossible at the size most teams aspire to reach.
The DIY approach can be a smart starting point when:
Once your team starts managing multiple processes, interacting with external auditors, or bringing new products to market, this stack can start to feel like a duct tape solution that keeps falling apart. The more you grow, the more time and money you’ll eventually spend retrofitting a system that was never built for long-term use.
If you’re already seeing signs of friction — like version confusion, delayed approvals, or missed training assignments — it may be time to consider a more purpose-built QMS solution.
Once companies outgrow spreadsheets and shared drives, the next logical step is often to assemble a stack of specialized QMS tools that each focus on a specific area of quality.
You might use Qualio for document control and SOP management, Trainual or WorkRamp for training tracking, ZenQMS for CAPA workflows, and a tool like Greenlight Guru or AuditBoard for managing audits and supplier oversight. Some teams also manage complaints or deviations in separate ticketing systems like Jira or Zendesk.
This point solution approach offers more structure, automation, and compliance support than a purely DIY setup and lets teams tackle quality problems one piece at a time without having to commit to implementing a big, complex, expensive enterprise QMS.
This approach brings some notable benefits for quality teams with well-defined needs:
This approach can work effectively for teams with clear ownership over each quality function, well-defined internal processes, and the capacity to manage coordination between disconnected systems.
While point solutions are usually a step up from DIY builds, they come with their own downsides.
For the life sciences teams we support here to Kivo, fragmented systems can be especially risky when preparing for FDA, EMA, or ISO inspections. If your CAPAs, SOPs, and training records don’t live in the same ecosystem, it can be difficult to demonstrate compliance in a clear, audit-ready way.
Many teams in this space start with point solutions but eventually outgrow them due to validation requirements and traceability expectations.
The point solution approach can be a good fit when your team has specific, well-defined quality challenges to solve and you’re looking for a quick fix that won’t disrupt your current workflows.
It’s particularly useful when your quality team has the bandwidth and expertise to manage multiple systems and keep them aligned manually.
This setup becomes less effective when you need to connect processes across departments, such as linking SOP changes to training records or tying CAPAs to audit outcomes. It also starts to break down when you’re preparing for external audits or regulatory inspections and need end-to-end traceability.
For fast-growing teams, there’s a real risk of outgrowing this stack within a year or two, which can lead to more rework and operational complexity over time.
If you're already struggling with version control, duplicated documents, or disconnected systems, it may be time to consider a more unified approach. The ideal solution should be easier to implement than a traditional enterprise platform while still being built to scale with your business.
For teams looking to simplify operations, eliminate silos, and avoid cobbling together disconnected tools, a unified platform built for small to midsize organizations will likely offer the strongest long-term fit.
Instead of using one system for documents, another for CAPA, a third for training, and hoping they all work together, unified platforms are designed to manage these workflows under one roof. That means documents, approvals, training records, and audits all live in the same environment, with shared visibility and real-time traceability.
The key is finding a platform designed for your industry. For example, Kivo was purpose-built for the life sciences sector, where compliance isn’t limited to Quality alone but spans Regulatory and Clinical as well. To support that, our system combines QMS, RIM, and TMF into one fully-integrated environment.
While your immediate goal might be to improve your QMS, it’s worth thinking ahead. The right platform will give you a singular foundation for managing quality documentation AND the upstream and downstream processes that depend on it.
The biggest benefit of unified compliance platform is that it brings everything together:
When it comes to long-term costs, compliance, and operations, a scalable unified system is nearly always going to come out ahead.
While we built Kivo to be the best choice for small to midsized life sciences teams, there are still downsides to a unified platform within our industry, just as there will be in every industry.
In other words, if your team is big, hyper niche, or brand new, a unified system may not be the ideal fit for you.
A unified platform is often the right move when:
If you’re working with a small but growing quality team that needs to move fast without compromising compliance, a unified platform designed for non-enterprise teams can offer a better features fit that will grow with you, while being significantly more affordable than a legacy solution like MasterControl at every stage of growth.
If your team is growing and you're starting to feel the friction of disconnected systems, long implementation timelines, or workflows that just weren’t built for smaller quality teams, Kivo might be the right next step.
Kivo was designed to help small and midsized life sciences companies manage quality more effectively, with tools that streamline document control, simplify training and CAPA workflows, and keep cross-functional teams aligned throughout the product lifecycle. Whether you're preparing for your first audit or scaling your QMS across multiple sites, Kivo makes it easy to stay organized, compliant, and inspection-ready.
We’d love to show you how it works. Click below to request a demo and see Kivo in action.