What actually happened
FrameReady was discontinued effective August 1, 2026. Its website now redirects to LifeSaver, which owns it, and existing customers are being invited to migrate to LifeSaver Cloud. The stated reason is that the old desktop stack — FileMaker, aging Windows and macOS versions — reached end of life.
Nothing about that forces you onto any particular replacement. Your data is yours, and every option below can take a customer list.
The four options, side by side
| LifeSaver Cloud | Virtual Framer | Framing POS | FrameForge | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Tiered; entry around $79/mo, higher tiers not published | $125/mo or $1,375/yr | From $30/mo, 5 users | $39 / $59 / $89 per month |
| Billing terms | Billed annually | Monthly, cancel anytime | Monthly, no contract | Monthly, no contract, 14-day trial with no card |
| Best at | The established option, broad vendor catalogs, the official FrameReady migration path | Photo-realistic visualization with a very large moulding library | Simple and inexpensive; good if you want the basics cheap | Pricing accuracy, workshop paperwork, and customer communication |
| Worth knowing | Migrating framers have reported inventory features weaker than FrameReady's; pricing beyond the entry tier isn't public | The priciest of the four; we found no evidence of QuickBooks export or order-ready texting | Small, young company; thinner on reporting and accounting export | Newest of the four — fewer years in the field than LifeSaver |
| Data export | Contact them | Contact them | Contact them | Built in, self-serve CSV, works even after a trial expires |
Compiled August 2026 from each vendor's public pricing pages and framer-forum discussion. Competitors' features change; check their current pages before deciding. If anything here is out of date, tell us and we'll correct it.
When you should pick someone else
- Choose LifeSaver if you want the vendor with the longest track record and the official FrameReady conversion, and annual billing doesn't bother you.
- Choose Virtual Framer if photo-realistic previews are the centerpiece of how you sell and the price is worth it to you.
- Choose Framing POS if your shop is simple, budget is the deciding factor, and $30 a month for the basics is exactly right.
Choose FrameForge if you want pricing that's identical no matter who's at the counter, work tickets with the cut list already worked out, customers told automatically when their piece is ready, supplier price files that show how fresh they are — and monthly billing you can walk away from.
Moving your shop over
Export your customer list from FrameReady as CSV while you still have it open, then import it into FrameForge in one step — we match names, phones, emails and addresses, and skip duplicates. Your price lists come in the same way: upload the file your supplier emails you, or subscribe to a shared catalog and let updates arrive on their own.
If you'd rather not do it yourself, we'll do the import for you. That's part of the founding-shop deal.
Try it against real work first
Fourteen days, no card. Import your list, price a few real jobs, print a work ticket, and see how it feels at your counter before you commit to anything.
Or see how one order moves through the shop first.