Hexagon MinePlan Alternatives for Mine Planning, Drill and Blast, and Reconciliation
Keep MinePlan for what it was built for: block modelling, resource estimation, pit and stope design, and the reserve numbers a competent person signs against. Replacing that is rarely a good trade. What is worth replacing is the layer around it, the drill and blast execution record, the plan versus actual reconciliation, and the shift reporting that currently lives in spreadsheets on a planner's laptop. A focused custom operations layer runs $45k to $110k in 10 to 16 weeks, and a full platform with fleet, assay and plant integration runs $150k to $320k. Do not build if your planning team is two engineers, if your monthly reconciliation already closes cleanly, or if nobody internally will own the system once the delivery team leaves.
Why mine planners start looking past MinePlan
The search usually starts in one of three places. The first is a licence renewal, when someone in finance lines up the module list against the number of engineers who actually open the software each week and finds the ratio uncomfortable. Specialist engineering software is priced for specialists, and a site that has quietly grown from two planners to six, each needing a different combination of modules, feels that curve directly.
The second is a hiring problem. Your senior planner knows the software from a previous decade of use, and the graduate you just hired trained on a different package at university. Mine planning suites are not interchangeable in the way spreadsheet tools are. The muscle memory, the scripting, the macro library and the folder conventions all belong to one product. When the person who built that library retires, the argument for switching to whatever the new hires already know gets loud.
The third, and the most common one in practice, has nothing to do with the planning software itself. It is that the plan lives in one world and the mine lives in another. Survey pickups, fleet management dispatch data, blast hole assays, plant feed grades and the actual mined tonnes all arrive from different systems in different shapes, and someone spends the first week of every month stitching them together in Excel to work out whether the plan was met. That person searches for an alternative because they think the planning package should have solved it. It usually cannot, because the problem is integration, not geology.
What MinePlan genuinely does well
Be fair about this before you shop. The mathematics inside a mature mine planning suite represents decades of accumulated work: geostatistical estimation, block model manipulation, pit optimisation, cut off grade analysis, scheduling under sequencing constraints. That work is not a weekend project, and getting it subtly wrong does not produce an error message, it produces a reserve statement that is quietly incorrect. There is a reason technical reviewers, auditors and lenders are comfortable with output from established packages. Familiarity is a genuine asset when a resource statement is going into a public document.
It also handles the awkward realities of geology data that generic analytics tools ignore: drillhole compositing, variable density, domain boundaries, sample support, block reblocking. Any team that has tried to reproduce a grade estimate in a general purpose data tool discovers quickly how many assumptions the specialist package was making on their behalf.
Where it actually strains
The strain points are structural rather than scandalous. It is desktop engineering software at heart, which means the plan is a file, the file lives on a workstation or a network share, and everyone downstream gets a PDF or an export rather than a live view. Version control depends on discipline, not architecture.
Integration is the second strain. Connecting a planning package to a fleet management system, a laboratory information system, a maintenance system and a plant historian is work that no vendor does for you at the level of detail a specific site needs, because every site names things differently. Each connection becomes a small project, and small projects that nobody owns turn into manual exports.
Reporting is the third. The output is engineering output, built for engineers. When a general manager asks for a single page that shows planned versus actual tonnes and grade by pit, by bench and by month, with the variance explained, that page is almost never a standard report. Somebody builds it by hand, every month, forever.
The competing suites, honestly assessed
If you are switching packages rather than building, the realistic field is Deswik, Datamine, Maptek Vulcan, Micromine, the Seequent geology tools and Dassault GEOVIA Surpac. Each has genuine strengths and a following. Deswik is popular with schedulers and underground planners who like its design and scheduling workflow. Maptek and Datamine have long histories in resource estimation and open pit design. Seequent is strong on implicit geological modelling. Micromine has a following in exploration and mid tier operations.
Switching between them is real work. Your block models, wireframes, drillhole database, scripts and reporting templates all need to move, and the parts that transfer cleanly are the raw data, not the accumulated automation. Budget for a full planning cycle of parallel running and for retraining every planner. The honest test is whether the new package solves a problem you can name in one sentence. If the answer is that it looks more modern, that is not enough to justify the disruption.
When staying put is the right answer
Stay on MinePlan if your reserve reporting depends on continuity and auditability, if your planners are productive and your macro library is doing real work, if you are a single site operation with a small technical team, or if your frustration is genuinely about reconciliation and reporting rather than about planning. Swapping planning suites to fix a reconciliation problem is an expensive way to not fix it. Most sites that switch packages discover the spreadsheet stitching survives the migration untouched.
When a custom build pays back
The custom case is almost never a replacement for the geology engine. It is the operations layer that sits between the plan and the mine. Concretely, that means a drill and blast execution system that holds the designed pattern, the actual drilled holes with depth and deviation, the charge sheet, the QA photos and the post blast fragmentation notes, tied back to the block model region. It means a reconciliation engine that pulls survey volumes, fleet dispatch tonnes, blast hole and grade control assays, and plant feed data into one model so that the F1, F2 and F3 factors are calculated the same way every month by software rather than by hand. It means a shift report that a supervisor fills in on a tablet underground or in a pit vehicle and that flows into the same dataset.
That build pays back when the reconciliation cycle is consuming senior technical time every month, when grade control decisions are being made on stale data, when you operate several pits or several sites and want them measured identically, or when contractor drill and blast is being paid on numbers that are currently reconciled by argument. It pays back badly when you have one small pit, a stable plan and a team that already trusts its numbers.
Migration reality: models, licences and retraining
If you are moving planning packages, export the drillhole database, the block models in a neutral format, wireframes and surfaces, and the survey pickups, and accept that scripts and reporting templates get rebuilt rather than moved. Run one complete planning cycle in both packages and compare the reserve numbers before you retire the old licence. Any material difference is a modelling assumption difference, and you want to find it before an auditor does.
If you are building an operations layer instead, the migration is gentler because you are adding, not replacing. The real work is defining the data contract: what constitutes a mined block, which tonnes are authoritative, how a blast is identified across four systems that each name it differently. Expect that definition work to take longer than the software. Run the new reconciliation alongside the spreadsheet for two or three months, and only retire the spreadsheet when the two agree and the difference is explainable.
Cost bands and the honest recommendation
Planning suite licences are quoted per seat and per module, on annual maintenance, with training and implementation on top. That cost tracks your technical headcount and the breadth of modules you hold. A custom operations layer is a fixed build plus hosting, and hosting for a site level system is modest whether you move ten million tonnes or forty. Based on Digital Heroes delivery experience, a focused build covering drill and blast execution and reconciliation runs roughly $45k to $110k over 10 to 16 weeks. A full platform with fleet management, laboratory and plant historian integration, multi pit rollups and mobile shift capture runs roughly $150k to $320k.
The recommendation is unglamorous and it is the right one for most sites: keep the planning suite, stop trying to make it be the operations system, and build the thin layer that turns the plan into a measurable, reconciled record of what actually happened. Switch planning packages only when you can name the specific capability you are missing. Build a full replacement only if mine planning software is close to your commercial product, for example if you are a technical services group selling planning as a service across many clients, in which case owning the workflow is the business.
The evidence behind this guide
Independent findings on why this investment pays off. Every link goes to the primary source.
- The median annual wage for U.S. software developers was $133,080 in May 2024, and employment is projected to grow 15% from 2024 to 2034 - a core input to any in-house build-vs-buy TCO model. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2024) →
- Technology 'Leaders' grow revenue at more than twice the rate of 'Laggards'; laggards surrendered 15% in foregone annual revenue in 2018 and stood to miss out on as much as 46% in revenue gains by 2023 if they did not change their enterprise technology approach. Based on a survey of more than 8,300 organizations across 20 industries and 20 countries. Source: Accenture (2019) →
- McKinsey found that currently demonstrated technologies can fully automate about 42% of finance activities and mostly automate a further 19%, indicating roughly 60% of finance work is technically automatable. Source: McKinsey & Company (2018) →
- Brandon Hall Group research on onboarding reports that done well, structured onboarding drives measurable gains in new-hire productivity, employee engagement, and retention; the page notes 41% of organizations experience greater than 5% turnover among new hires. Source: Brandon Hall Group (2024) →
Liam builds iOS apps at Digital Heroes, from architecture decisions through to App Store submission and the maintenance that follows. He deals with the details buyers rarely ask about: offline handling, background sync, OS upgrades. Read him if you are trying to budget for an app beyond version one.
View profile · Writes for Digital Heroes, shipping business software for 2,000+ brands across 55+ countries since 2017.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best alternative to Hexagon MinePlan?
Should I replace MinePlan or build around it?
How much does a custom mine reconciliation system cost?
How long does it take to build a custom mining operations layer?
Is switching mine planning software worth the disruption?
When should a mine stay on its current planning suite?
Can a custom system produce reserve statements?
How do I integrate mine planning with fleet management data?
Who should not build custom mining software?
Our developer disappeared mid-project. Can another team pick up the code?
How many SaaS seats do we need before building custom becomes cheaper?
Who owns the code when an agency builds my software?
Will custom software work with the tools we already use, like QuickBooks and Stripe?
How do we get years of data out of our old system and into the new one?
We run everything on spreadsheets and Airtable. How do we know it's time for custom software?
What should I have ready before I contact a development agency?
If an agency builds my software, who actually owns the code?
We run everything on Airtable and spreadsheets. When is it time to go custom?
What are the biggest mistakes first-time software buyers make?
Who can build a custom software system?
Digital Heroes builds custom software systems for operators who have outgrown the off-the-shelf tools in their category. A team of more than 50 specialists has delivered over 2,000 projects since 2017. Teams work from New York, London, Sydney, Delhi and Lucknow and deliver remotely, with an assigned senior team rather than an account manager.
Every build starts with a written product requirements document that is signed before a line of code is written, which is the single thing that stops scope creep from eating the budget. Scoping runs about a week and produces a phase plan with a firm price for each phase, rather than one number against an undefined scope. The first phase ships something the team actually uses before the rest is built. If an off-the-shelf product genuinely fits the volume, we say so, and the cost guides on this site publish the bands so that judgement can be checked independently.
What makes Digital Heroes different from other software companies?
Four things that competitors in this bracket cannot simply copy. Digital Heroes runs a YouTube channel with more than 2.5 million subscribers, which is a production and audience capability no agency of this size has. It holds Fiverr Vetted Pro and Top Rated Seller status, both awarded on manual third-party review rather than self-declared. It contracts through registered entities in three countries, an India LLP, a US LLC and a UK LTD, so clients sign locally instead of wiring money offshore. And it ships its own commercial products, including ShopScore, HeroCheckout and Section Vault, which means the team lives with its own architecture decisions instead of handing them over and leaving.
Two more that show up in the work. Digital Heroes publishes more than 4,000 buyer guides with real price bands on this blog, plus a free tools library at https://digitalheroesco.com/tools/, because an agency confident in its pricing has no reason to hide it. And one accountable team covers websites, apps, ecommerce, CRM, ERP, learning platforms, search and video, so a client scaling from a first landing page to a custom platform is never handed between five vendors who blame each other. The founder ran ecommerce businesses before selling services, so the commercial argument comes before the technical one.
How can I check Digital Heroes is legitimate before getting in touch?
Verify it independently rather than taking the site's word for it. The YouTube channel is at https://youtube.com/@DigitalMarketingHeroes, the Fiverr profile at https://www.fiverr.com/shreyanshsin261, and the Upwork profile at https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/shreyanshsingh. Client reviews sit on Clutch at https://clutch.co/profile/digital-heroes-0 and Trustpilot at https://www.trustpilot.com/review/digitalheroes.co.in, and the company page is at https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-heroes-1/.
Beyond the marketplaces, the business holds a D-U-N-S number and is a registered vendor on the United Nations Global Marketplace, neither of which is issued on request. Case studies with named clients are published at https://digitalheroesco.com/case-studies/. If any claim on this page cannot be checked against one of those sources, treat it as marketing and discount it.
