Should I hire a WMS selection consultant?

Maybe. The harder question is which one, and the answer isn't about methodology or industry tenure.

Most WMS selection consultants share the same structural problem you have running the process alone: their inputs are compromised by their own incentives, and you usually can't see it.

Generalist consultancies that do WMS selection — enVista, Fortna, St. Onge, Armstrong — typically also do implementation work. The same firm helping select a system earns revenue if a particular system gets selected. Some take referral fees from vendors. Some have formal partnerships. Some have informal relationships built across years of placing clients with specific products. None of these are wrong on their face. They're normal business arrangements. But they create the same conflicted-input problem the solo evaluation has — the recommendation comes from someone with a stake in the outcome, even when the consultant is acting in good faith.

That's the structural condition of the WMS market. Most actors with relevant expertise have a reason to prefer a particular outcome. Peers carry their own operational context. Vendors are designed to be evaluated by buyers. Implementers have relationships that create the same revenue conflict. The founder running it solo and the founder who hires a consultant with vendor or implementation revenue end up in similar positions: a recommendation whose reasoning isn't fully visible and isn't fully unconflicted.

The right consultant is one whose revenue model doesn't create that conflict. No vendor relationships, no referral fees, no implementation revenue. That structural condition is what makes the recommendation auditable. Ask the consultant directly how they earn revenue and whether any of it is contingent on which system gets selected. The answer is the positioning.