You have chosen Odoo. Now comes the question that shapes the whole project: who is going to set it up? This guide compares Odoo Direct and working with an official Odoo partner, so you can pick the route that fits your business.
There are three realistic routes. You can do it yourself, buy implementation hours directly from Odoo, or work with an official Odoo partner. All three can work. They simply fit different kinds of companies.
This guide explains how each route works, what you actually get, and where projects usually go smoothly or get stuck.
Your own team reads the documentation, sets up the apps and trains colleagues. You pay the least in fees and the most in internal time.
You buy a Success Pack from Odoo: a prepaid block of consulting hours, from 4 to 200 hours. An Odoo consultant uses those hours in planned online or phone sessions to configure your apps and coach your team.
An independent company, certified by Odoo, takes ownership of the project. It plans the scope, configures the system, builds what is missing, moves your data, trains your people and supports you after go-live.
Odoo Direct works well when your business runs close to how Odoo works out of the box. It is usually a sensible choice when:
Odoo Direct is built for speed and standard setups. That is its strength. As a project grows, a few of its built-in limits start to matter.
A Success Pack is a set number of hours: 4, 25, 50, 100 or 200. The pack size is suggested from the apps you choose, not from a written analysis of how your business works. Odoo commits to its best efforts within those hours, but there is no guarantee the project finishes inside them. When the hours run out, the work continues only if you buy another pack.
Odoo Direct focuses on the standard apps. Changes are usually made with Odoo Studio, which lets you add fields, adjust screens and build simple automations without code. Larger development is only available in the bigger packs, and Odoo adds a monthly charge to maintain extra code. For advanced needs, Odoo’s own pricing page points customers toward official partners.
Studio is useful for small tweaks. Used heavily, it can make the system cluttered and harder to upgrade later.
Odoo is growing fast, so it hires and trains new consultants all the time. Because of that, your project may be assigned to a recent hire who has been working with Odoo for weeks or months rather than years. They are trained on Odoo’s method and know the standard apps, but they may not yet have seen a business like yours. Consultants can also move between projects, so the person who starts your project may not be the one who finishes it.
Odoo’s consultants work with Odoo’s own apps. Outside those apps sits a large open-source ecosystem: the Odoo Community Association (OCA), a non-profit that maintains more than 20,000 tested modules across 15+ Odoo versions.
This matters when you need something the standard apps do not cover. If nobody on the project knows the community modules, you may pay for many hours of development to build a feature that already exists, free and tested.
Odoo Direct sessions happen online or by phone. On-site visits are only available in the larger packs, with travel billed on top. Local rules, such as social security contributions, end-of-service calculations or reporting in two currencies, often need someone who has set them up many times in your country.
Odoo’s included support is there for issues in standard Odoo. It is not designed to know your specific setup, your workflows or any custom work added to your system.
Example: a distribution company wants employees to raise internal purchase requests that a manager approves before any order goes to a supplier. Built from scratch, that could take dozens of development hours. A community module already covers this flow. A partner who knows the ecosystem can install, test and configure it in a fraction of the time.
A good partner does more than add hours. It takes ownership of the result, from the first workshop to the support call a year after go-live. In practice, that covers six areas.
Before touching Odoo, the partner runs workshops with each department. It looks at how orders, approvals, stock and the month-end close happen today, including the spreadsheets and workarounds people rely on.
Each need is compared with standard Odoo. Some are covered as they are, some need settings, and a few need extra work. The result is a scope both sides agree on, with a total estimate rather than a block of hours.
Access rights, approval levels and who can see what are designed role by role. These are easy to skip in a fast setup, and hard to fix once people are used to working without them.
Customers, products, stock and opening balances are cleaned, test-loaded and checked with your team before go-live, so the first month-end close matches reality.
When standard Odoo falls short, the partner looks at configuration first, then community modules, and only then custom code. Connections to other systems are designed and tested as part of the project.
Training is done by role, and the same team that set up the system supports it, improves it and plans its upgrades.
The examples below show what this looks like in real situations.
A clothing retailer with four branches goes live on Odoo Point of Sale. In the rush to launch, every cashier logs in with the same access. A month later, the owner finds discounts on receipts that nobody approved.
Odoo’s Point of Sale does have minimal, basic and advanced rights per employee, but if nobody fills them in, every employee can log in. A partner maps who does what in each store before go-live. Cashiers sell and process returns. Shift leaders approve discounts above a set limit. Only the branch manager can change prices. The settings that already exist get configured properly, and anything missing, such as a discount cap with manager approval, is added as a small extension.
A contracting company runs projects on several sites. Site engineers can request materials. Orders above $5,000 need the procurement manager. Orders above $20,000 need the general manager.
A partner sets up the approval levels and access rules, so each site sees only its own purchases and nothing large goes out without sign-off.
Working with a partner is not a ticket to change everything. A good partner starts with standard Odoo and asks whether your process can adapt first. If not, it looks at configuration, then an existing community module, and only then at custom code. Every custom line has to be maintained at every upgrade, so the best partners write as little of it as possible.
Every Odoo project goes through the same stages. What changes is who does the work, and how thoroughly. Some steps get shortened or merged on simple projects, and some customers arrive with their requirements already clear.
✓ included · ◐ partly included · ✗ not included
| Stage | Odoo Direct | Odoo Partner |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Scoping and app validation | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| 2. Process design and requirements gathering | ✗ No formal workshops | ✓ Included where needed |
| 3. System configuration | ✓ Guided by Odoo | ✓ Done by the partner |
| 4. Development and extensions | ✗ Mostly limited to Studio | ✓ Scoped and built |
| 5. Data migration and validation | ◐ Basic assistance | ✓ Fully handled |
| 6. Testing and team feedback | ◐ Minimal | ✓ Structured test rounds |
| 7. Training and go-live | ✓ Included, ownership varies | ✓ Led by the partner |
| 8. Support after go-live | ◐ Limited online support | ✓ From managed services to a dedicated helpdesk |
| Odoo Direct | Odoo Partner | |
|---|---|---|
| Who owns the project | Shared | The partner |
| How you pay | Prepaid hour packs | Scoped project or support plan |
| Changes to Odoo | Mostly Studio | Configuration, community modules or custom code, as justified |
| Community (OCA) modules | Not part of the service | Used where they fit |
| Connecting other systems | Ready-made connectors | Designed, built and tested |
| Local rules (payroll, tax, currencies) | General Odoo knowledge | Local experience |
| Access rights and approvals | Basic setup | Mapped role by role |
| Support after go-live | Standard Odoo support | A team that knows your setup |
Choosing a partner is a decision you will live with for years, long after go-live. Ask every partner these questions:
If you have read this far, you know a partner is only as good as the people behind it. Here is how we work.
We have a whole team that works on Odoo and nothing else, and we were the first in the Middle East to build a team this way. Many partners sell Odoo alongside a long list of other software. Our consultants and developers spend every day on Odoo, so they know both the official apps and the community modules.
Our support team works 24/7. When something stops on a Sunday night or on payroll day, you reach people who already know your system.
AzkaTech is the first and largest Official Odoo Gold Partner in Lebanon, with more than 100 businesses served and live operations in 23+ countries across Lebanon, the GCC, Africa and Europe.
Lebanese payroll, local accounting and tax rules, reporting in more than one currency, and the realities of doing business in the region are part of our daily work, not something we learn on your project.
| AzkaTech | Many other partners | |
|---|---|---|
| Team dedicated 100% to Odoo | ✓ | ✗ Odoo is one product among many |
| 24/7 support team | ✓ | ✗ Usually office hours |
| Official Odoo Gold Partner | ✓ | Varies |
| Community modules checked before custom code | ✓ | Varies |
| Local payroll and multi-currency experience | ✓ | Varies |
| Structured testing before go-live | ✓ | Often shortened to lower the price |
| The same team stays after go-live | ✓ | Often handed over to a separate desk |
Odoo Direct means buying implementation help straight from Odoo, through a Success Pack of prepaid consulting hours. It suits small, standard projects best.
Odoo offers packs of 4, 25, 50, 100 and 200 hours. The right size depends on your data, your processes and how much needs to change, not only on the apps you pick.
The upfront fee is often higher, because the scope is wider. The license price is the same either way. What matters is the total cost over a few years, including rework, workarounds and support.
Yes, many companies do. Keep in mind that early choices about data structure, access rights and customization are harder to undo once the system is live.
No. A good partner keeps Odoo as standard as possible and only builds what the business truly needs.
Tell us about your business and the apps you need. An AzkaTech consultant will look at your processes and tell you honestly whether Odoo Direct is enough, or whether your project needs a partner.
