Best Inventory Management Apps for Small Businesses (Pay Once)
Are you in the market for the best inventory management software to simplify the process of managing, tracking, and controlling inventory for your small business? In this guide, I’ll take you through 6 of the best inventory management apps and help you choose the best one for your small business.
Sortly
inFlow Inventory
Inventory Now
On Shelf
As a small business owner, endless things require your attention – finding customers for your products, managing finances, handling customer inquiries, you name it.
With so much on your plate, it’s easy for things like inventory management to get relegated to the back burner. However, inventory management is a crucial aspect of running any business, and ignoring it will only bring problems further down the line.
Fortunately, it’s possible to track and manage inventory without sacrificing all your time or hiring expensive inventory managers. All you need is a good inventory management app.
Inventory tracker apps are handy tools that help you stay on top of your inventory and give you insights to help you maintain optimal stock levels, optimize your ordering process, and even forecast future demand.
There are lots of inventory management software applications in the market today, but this can make choosing the right one for your small business a bit challenging. To make things easier for you, I tested dozens of inventory management software apps and compiled this list of the 6 best ones for small businesses. My top recommendation is Sortly.
Best Inventory Management Apps
- Sortly – Best overall
- inFlow Inventory – Top choice for B2B brands
- Inventory Now – Best for tracking inventory on the go
- On Shelf – Best for inventory analytics and reporting
- Stock Control– Top choice for warehousing
- Orderhive – Best for automating multiple business processes
1. Sortly
Best Overall Inventory Management App for Small Businesses
What I love about Sortly is that it gives you all the features of a fully-featured inventory tracker app at very reasonable prices – it even has a free plan. I also like its offline mode, which allows you to track incoming and outgoing inventory on mobile devices, even when you’re not connected to the internet.
Sortly is one of the best inventory apps for small businesses. It is a simple and intuitive app that provides small businesses with a robust way of managing their inventory at an affordable price. It’s also a good choice for personal inventory tracking.
It gives you all the features you’d expect in any fully-featured inventory management system, such as warehouse management, low stock alerts, QR code & barcode scanning, inventory control, reporting, and so on. You can use Sortly via the web or through its apps for iOS and Android devices.
Key Features
- Easy inventory import: If you’ve been using another inventory management program, you can quickly import your existing inventory into Sortly with a single click.
- Excellent organization: Sortly makes it very easy to keep your inventory organized. Track inventory items by type, quantity, cost, location, and more. You can also add custom fields to items for more detailed organization and tracking.
- Automatic syncing: Whenever you add or remove items from your inventory, Sortly makes updates to the cloud, allowing you to track your inventory from multiple locations in real time. When you use it in offline mode through the mobile app, all changes automatically sync when you get back online.
- Low stock alerts: Sortly constantly monitors your stock levels and gives you alerts whenever your inventory is running low, so you don’t have to worry about running out of stock at a crucial moment.
- Advanced reporting: Get in-depth data and real-time reporting insights on inventory items, stock levels, demand patterns, and so on. Sortly also allows you to export and share these reports in CSV or PDF format.
Sortly Pros
- Easy-to-use inventory tracker app
- 1-click inventory import
- In-app QR code and barcode scanner
- Rapid inventory scanning
- Offline mode
- Custom reporting
- Free plan
- Lots of features on premium plans
- Free trials on paid plans
- Has mobile apps for iOS and Android devices
Sortly Cons
- Product limits on the free plan
- No integrations with popular third-party apps
- Dedicated customer support is only available on the enterprise plan
- Doesn’t offer disposal tracking
Pricing
Sortly has a free forever plan and two premium plans that cost $29 and $59 per month. Large organizations that require additional users, control, and support can get tailored pricing under the Enterprise plan. You can save up to 60% if you pay annually. Both premium plans come with a 14-day free trial.
2. inFlow Inventory
Best for B2B Companies That Want To Simplify Their Inventory
My favorite thing about inFlow Inventory is its in-built B2B portal, which makes it easy for B2B companies to create and manage custom catalogs for wholesale clients. I also like that you get one-on-one setup assistance on all plans.
inFlow Inventory is a popular inventory management that is an excellent choice for B2B companies, wholesalers, and ecommerce shops. Besides inventory and order management, you can use inFlow Inventory for vendor and customer tracking, team management, asset management, warehouse management, and so much more.
Key Features
- Real-time inventory control: inFlow Inventory tracks your stock movements, reserved items, and orders in real time across multiple locations, allowing you to find the most efficient stock levels. This ensures you don’t tie up too much capital in excessive inventory while at the same time making sure you have enough to meet your orders. inFlow Inventory also lets you track stock by availability, location, and transit status.
- Efficient organization: You can organize and keep track of inventory items by product name, SKUs, serial numbers, category, and so on. You can also add more details to products, such as product photos, dimensions and weight, and units of measurement.
- B2B portal: inFlow Inventory’s B2B portal lets you create custom online showrooms to showcase your products to B2B customers and take online orders. These showrooms allow you to create customized pricing for large wholesale buyers. For businesses registered in the US and Canada, you can even receive purchase orders and accept payments directly through inFlow Pay.
- Integrations: You can connect inFlow Inventory to several popular business tools, including Shopify, QuickBooks, Squarespace, Amazon, and WooCommerce. You can also use Zapier to connect inFlow Inventory to over 3,000 third-party apps.
- Custom reporting: inFlow Inventory gives you access to 38 different reports on the higher-tier plan and 32 reports on its most affordable plan. This means you’ll have tons of insights into what's working for your small business and what isn’t.
- Excellent customer support: inFlow Inventory offers multiple kinds of customer support, including email, chat, and phone support, one-on-one demos, personalized trial sessions, educational videos, and an extensive support knowledge base.
inFlow Inventory Pros
- Easy to use
- Offers 38 different reports
- Great support for integrations
- In-built B2B showrooms
- Mobile app for both iOS and Android devices
- Email, phone, and live chat support
- Intuitive barcode scanner
- Highly customizable
inFlow Inventory Cons
- Expensive compared to some alternatives
- Poor support for QR codes
- Lacks a free plan
Pricing
inFlow Inventory offers three plans – an Entrepreneur, Small Business, and Mid-Size plan starting at $89, $219, and $439 per month, respectively. A 14-day free trial is available on the Small Business plan only. You can save up to 20% on your subscription by paying annually.
3. Inventory Now
Best On-The-Go POS app for iOS
Inventory Now is designed as a simple inventory control and point-of-sale app for small businesses that operate on the move, such as pop-up stores and food trucks. I also like its affordable pricing. However, it’s a bit disappointing that Inventory Now doesn’t have a native mobile app for Windows and Android devices.
Inventory Now is a lightweight app designed for small businesses that want a simple way to maintain their inventory and track sales data. It is a great choice for mobile businesses that want to stay on top of their inventory but don’t have the budget to invest in an expensive POS system. Inventory Now only offers native apps for macOS and iOS, but Windows and Android users can use it via the web.
Key Features
- Inbuilt barcode scanning support: You can easily add products to your inventory by barcode scanning through your smartphone’s camera app. Inventory Now also lets you generate unique SKUs and UPCs. It also has native support for Linea Pro and Infinea hardware barcode scanner devices.
- Summary view: Inventory Now lets you see a high-level summary of your inventory with a single click. The summary shows your inventory value and prices, as well as profits and margins for items sold. You can also filter through the reports to get a more detailed view of specific products, categories, time periods, and so on.
- Item grouping: You can organize similar products into groups and subgroups, making it easier to track each product. You can also place a product within multiple categories. For example, if you run a fashion store, you can have a jacket under the category “men” and “storefront.” This means that the jacket belongs to the men’s fashion category and that it is currently in the storefront, not the warehouse. You can also drag and drop items to move them between different categories.
- Simple import and export: Inventory Now lets you import and export inventory items in batches with a few clicks, saving you from manual data entry. It also lets you generate and export various custom reports in both CSV and PDF format.
Inventory Now Pros
- Mobile POS features for tracking inventory and sales from anywhere
- Detailed tracking throughout the inventory lifecycle
- A user-friendly interface
- Customized quick filters
- Supports batch tracking
- Responsive and knowledgeable customer support
Inventory Now Cons
- The free plan only supports 20 items
- Poorly designed website
- No mobile applications for Windows and Android devices
Pricing
Inventory Now has a free plan that supports up to 20 items. There’re also Personal, Professional, and Enterprise plans starting at $5, $12, and $99 per month, respectively. Unfortunately, Inventory Now doesn’t offer free trials on the paid plans or discounts if you pay annually.
4. On Shelf
Best for Advanced Inventory Analytics and Reporting
What stands out about On Shelf is its advanced inventory reporting and analytics features, which enable small business owners to make informed business decisions. I also like the inbuilt ordering system that lets you order and check in new items directly within the mobile app.
On Shelf is an iOS-based inventory control app that offers up-to-the-minute inventory tracking on your mobile device. What makes On Shelf such a great choice for small businesses is its detailed reports, which are geared toward helping business owners optimize their stock levels based on their best-performing products.
Key Features
- Simple product database management: The product database simplifies the process of adding new products to your inventory and adding and editing product details. You can also capture and attach product photos and delete products that are no longer part of your catalog.
- Stock tracking: On Shelf uses color coding to highlight the stock levels for products, making it easy to identify products that you need to reorder. You can sort and view products by size, color, brand, category, location, and even stock levels.
- Sales tracking: You can generate the current trends reports to see the best and least performing products for different time periods. You can also view graphs showing changes in demand for each product. Insights gained from these reports can help you determine how much of each product you need in stock. The app even recommends optimal levels for each product and helps you come up with your economic order quantity.
- Order creation and management: On Shelf lets you create purchase orders and send them to your suppliers directly from within the mobile app. The app uses its analytics to recommend order quantities so as to maintain optimal inventory levels.
- Customer database: You can create a customer database either by importing customers from your iPhone’s contacts app or by adding them manually. From the database, you can view a customer’s contact information, previous purchase history, and previous invoices. On Shelf even lets you email customers directly from the mobile app, thus simplifying customer relationship management.
- Sales analysis and reports: On Shelf lets you generate various kinds of detailed reports, including current trends reports, sales analysis reports, and revenue summary reports.
On Shelf Pros
- Advanced analytics and reporting
- Automated optimal inventory level recommendations
- Cheap pricing
- Detailed customer history
- Ability to synch data between multiple devices (add-on)
On Shelf Cons
- Only available on iOS mobile devices
- No integration with third-party tools
Pricing
On Shelf charges a $4.99 one-time fee to download the app, after which you can use it without any further charges. However, if you need a cloud data storage and multi-device syncing, On Shelf charges a subscription fee of $2.99 per month for one user and $4.99 per month for multiple users.
5. Stock Control
Best Inventory App for Warehousing
I like Stock Control’s precise location information, which makes it easy to find where exactly each item is stored within a warehouse. You can also link Stock Control with various retail systems and other third-party business tools.
Stock Control is a straightforward inventory management application that is especially suitable for warehousing due to its precise location information. It also comes with other useful inventory management features, such as support for QR code & barcode scanning, product categorization and subcategorization, and shortage alerts. Unfortunately, the app is only available on iOS devices.
Key Features
- Detailed stock tracking: Stock Control lets you know how much of each product you have and where exactly each product is, even when you have inventory across multiple locations. You can add precise location information for products, including branches, warehouses, zones, aisles, and shelves.
- QR code and barcode scanning support: You can either scan barcodes and QR codes to add products to your inventory or generate and print your own codes for products that don’t have any.
- Real-time stock data: Stock Control gives you real-time data about stock levels accompanied by shortage alerts when you reach minimum thresholds. This allows you to maintain the right amount of inventory at all times and avoid panic buying. The app also allows you to request and order stock directly from the app, with automatically-generated purchase orders that you send through the app or manually.
- Easy stock-taking: You can perform stock takes and audits directly within the app to ensure accurate stock levels at all times. The app even supports an offline mode, which is handy when you need to perform stock audits in an offsite warehouse without internet connectivity.
- Returns and write-offs tracking: The Stock Control app also allows you to scan returned items back into the inventory and record write-offs and damaged products. The app requires an e-signature for one to record an item as damaged or written off to prevent fraud.
Stock Control Pros
- User-friendly app interface
- Has a free version with support for up to 15 items
- Precise location information for all products
- In-built search tools
- Automatically generated purchase orders
- Unlimited inventory locations on the paid version
Stock Control Cons
- The app is only available on iOS
- Doesn’t support integrations with third-party tools
Pricing
Stock Control has a free-forever plan, but it’s limited to 15 products. You can unlock more products with an in-app purchase that costs $24.99.
6. OrderHive
All-In-One Inventory Management System
Orderhive is not just a simple inventory management app. It is an all-in-one inventory software that lets small businesses automate their ecommerce business, track inventory data, manage purchase and ordering, automate the shipping process, and so much more.
Key Features
- Simplified product management: Orderhive simplifies the process of creating and managing simple, varied, and bundled products, managing SKUs, and importing and exporting product information in bulk. It also helps in generating and printing unique product barcodes, categorizing products, and tracking products by location.
- Centralized inventory view: The app has a centralized dashboard from where you can keep track of all your inventory across multiple locations and different channels. The dashboard lets you sync online and offline inventory, view inventory from multiple warehouses, and maintain an overview of all available and ordered inventory in real time.
- Automated inventory control: Orderhive helps you maintain optimized inventory levels with features like out-of-stock and low-stock alerts, predetermined reorder levels for different products, automated creation of purchase orders, and so on. You’ll never have to worry about overstock or no-stock situations.
- Real-time inventory reports: Make data-driven decisions and reduce inventory risks by taking advantage of insights gained from Oderhive’s real-time inventory reports. Some of the reports Orderhive provides include inventory audit reports, inventory valuation reports, inventory movement summary reports, purchase history reports, price history reports, and out-of-stock, dead-stock, and low-stock reports.
- Integrations: You can get more out of Orderhive by connecting it to your favorite small business tools, such as Amazon, eBay, Shopify, Stripe, WooCommerce, Etsy, BigCommerce, Magento, and many more.
Oderhive Pros
- Easy to use
- Powerful all-in-one software
- Excellent customer support
- Extensive support for integrations
- Automated order management
Orderhive Cons
- Has too many features, which can make it seem overwhelming for beginners
- Expensive compared to many alternatives
Pricing
Orderhive has 4 paid plans starting at $125, $225, $325, and $500 per month. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a free plan, but it offers a 15-day free trial on all plans. At the time of writing this, it also offered a 50% discount on the Essentials, Pro, and Pro Plus plans.
Best Inventory Management Apps for Small Businesses FAQs
The term inventory tracking system refers to software tools that help businesses monitor the movement, locations, and quantities of inventory they have in stock. It simplifies inventory counts and helps businesses determine whether they have enough inventory to fulfill orders, whether they need to order more inventory, or whether they have money tied up in excess inventory. Inventory software can also be used for asset management.
An inventory management system works by tracking an item from when it is ordered from a supplier to when it’s sold and delivered to a customer. When a business receives inventory items, they are scanned into the inventory system, which keeps a record of the quantity, location, and details of each product.
When a product is sold, it’s deducted from the record, thus maintaining an accurate number of the inventory levels and their status – available, reserved, shipped to the customer, damaged, returned, and so on.
The best way to manage inventory is to use inventory management software. This automates the process and reduces the risk of mistakes and errors. It also allows you to gather data that can help you make better inventory decisions.
Another way of managing stock is spreadsheets, but it can easily become time-consuming and increase the risk of errors, especially when you’re dealing with large quantities of inventory.
The best free inventory app is Sortly. Its free plan supports up to 100 inventory items and one custom field per item. If you need additional users and more features to track your inventory data, you can upgrade to the premium plans, which start at $29 per month.
There are lots of good inventory management systems and apps. Based on our tests, the 5 best inventory tracking apps are:
– Sortly
– inFlow Inventory
– Inventory Now
– On Shelf
– Stock Control
List of Top Inventory Management Apps Revealed
If you own a small business that carries its own inventory, you can’t afford to operate without an inventory management system. Good inventory software increases productivity, boosts your profits, and decreases costs. An inventory scanner also reduces the chances of stock-outs without tying up cash in excessive inventory and prevents inventory inaccuracies, which can be costly.
While there are dozens of inventory tracker apps for small businesses, here are the top 5 recommendations based on my tests:
Sortly
inFlow Inventory
Inventory Now
On Shelf
Stock Control
Image credit: Image by upklyak on Freepik