6 Best Free Inventory Management Software Options for 2019

Free inventory management software lets business owners easily organize and classify products, track stock counts, manage vendor data, and make manual or real-time adjustments for sold, received, damaged, and obsolete goods. The best free inventory software does not restrict the number of products you can manage and is easy to use.

Free inventory software is fine if you’re just starting out, but you’ll outgrow it quickly as you add more employees, inventory, and suppliers. ShopKeep’s iPad-based point-of-sale (POS) system comes with preset reports that track inventory, sales, customer interactions, and employees without lifting a finger. It also makes it easy to add variants to items (like size and color), get low-stock alerts, make barcode labels, and automatically create purchase orders.

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Top 6 Free Inventory Management Software for 2019

How We Evaluated Free Inventory Management Software

Small business inventory management can look different for every business. Some need to track stock movements in real-time in response to rapid sales, like for ecommerce. Others need a free inventory system to track products on a retail sales floor and support barcode-scan checkouts. Manufacturing businesses need to track parts for assemblies, while service businesses need to connect inventoried goods to sales orders and invoices.

We considered a wide range of criteria to determine the best free inventory software, including:

• Price: A few free inventory management software systems on the list have no cost-based limitations. Others limit the features available or the number of products tracked and charge fees to extend functionality.
• Accessibility: Cloud-based systems are widely accessible via desktop and mobile devices, and often include POS system features.
• Number of users: Some free inventory software solutions support unlimited users, while others limit access to one or just a few users.
• Number of products: Some free inventory management software support unlimited products, others limit the number of products in the free version.
• Product data: Most free inventory software options, including our top picks, let you track item SKUs, names, prices, and support barcode data.
• Product counts: Tracking stock counts is the heart of any inventory system—free or paid. Manual adjustments, automated reductions per sales, and low-level alert thresholds are key stock count features that any small business needs.
• Barcode scanning: Barcode scanning is supported by all of our top picks, but not all print barcode labels directly from the system.
• Number of locations: Multilocation features help businesses with multiple manufacturing or storage locations track and move stock within and among warehouse locations.
• Supplier data: Free inventory management software can track supplier contact information, purchase quantities, and wholesale prices for fast and accurate purchasing.
• Purchasing and receiving: Purchase order and automated receiving are features offered by some free inventory management solutions.
• Assemblies, bundling, and kitting: Manufacturing business and subscription box shippers can benefit from software that tracks the individual parts or items in a complete unit—which is typically called kitting or bundling.
• Integrations, import, and export: Connecting ecommerce and accounting software automates count adjustments in real-time. CSV file import and export make it easy to set up your inventory software and download data for other needs.

Based on these criteria, we found that the free Square point-of-sale (POS) inventory software delivers a solid set of inventory management tools that can benefit all types of small businesses. Retailers, ecommerce sellers, service businesses—even mobile retailers and pop-up shops—can use Square inventory tools to track unlimited goods across unlimited locations and allow access to unlimited users. Plus, you can complete all types of sales and payments within its streamlined system if you wish.

Square POS: Best Overall Free Inventory Management Software

Square POS is the best free inventory management software for small businesses because it delivers a free point-of-sale (POS) with a complete set of inventory tracking tools for unlimited products and users. Square is the best fit for small businesses looking to manage inventory for free and sell in-store, online, via invoice, or mobile.

Learning to navigate Square’s item inventory dashboard takes just minutes and you can include or exclude elements in your master list as needed.

Square POS Pricing

The Square POS system and base set of inventory features are completely free to use.

Square does offer an upgraded inventory and retail store management package, called Square for Retail, for a monthly fee, listed below. This optional add-on expands Square’s basic inventory features to include things like vendor management and built-in purchase orders.

The only other potential cost of using Square is credit card processing fees, listed below. These fees only apply if you decide to accept credit cards for in-store, online, or invoice sales. If you don’t accept credit cards, you can use Square’s inventory features and even record cash and check sales within Square’s POS system at absolutely no cost.

Note: Square has recently changed its flat-rate fee of 2.75% to 2.6% + 10 cents per transaction. We will update the pricing and our ranking of providers in the next update of this article.

If you decide to accept credit cards, it’s a snap since your business data and products are already set up in your Square POS system. You can easily sell online for free too, with Square’s free online store, or connect to WooCommerce for free.

Square POS Features

Square POS offers a sound set of basic inventory management tools that benefit all types of retail, ecommerce, and service business. Square supports unlimited products, users, and locations and tracks product data details, including SKUs, quantities, and variables like size and colors.

Square’s inventory management features are very intuitive, but they aren’t considered “advanced” in terms of inventory logistics. For example, Square doesn’t support bundling or kitting, which connects several unique parts or items under a single SKU. The free inventory system doesn’t include vendor management and purchase orders, either—but those features are available in the Square for Retail upgrade, noted above.

Here are the features available with Square’s free POS and inventory system:

Square POS Inventory Management Features

What Square POS Inventory Is Missing

Square’s free inventory management tools fall short of advanced inventory packages in two important areas:

1. Purchasing and vendor management: Square’s basic inventory tools don’t track supplier data or support purchase orders. For this, you need the Square for Retail package, which runs $60 per month.
2. Product bundling, kitting, and assembly: These features aren’t available in Square at all, so you can’t attach several unique items or parts under a single inventory unit.

If you need free inventory management software with product kitting or purchasing features, others on our list, like SalesBinder and ABC Inventory, covered below, might be better choices.

Square POS Reviews

Square POS is one of the most popular small business systems on the market today. With such a huge user base, it has plenty of fans—plus some that aren’t completely satisfied. Square user reviews show that overall, users are pleased with the basic inventory management tools. Ease of use, unlimited access, and built-in payments for multichannel sales are noted as top reasons for satisfaction.

SalesBinder: Free Inventory Management Software for Limited Products

SalesBinder is a free, cloud-based inventory management solution that delivers advanced features, but is limited to tracking just 100 unique items. SalesBinder is a good fit for businesses with under 100 unique SKUs, but that move stock in and out at a high velocity, and need features like purchase order management and product kitting.

Like Square, SalesBinder supports unlimited locations and warehouses, detailed inventory data, and multiple integrations. Unlike Square, you get vendor management and purchase order features along with product kitting functions in the free version. As you grow, you can expand your account to track more than 100 products for a monthly fee.

SalesBinder is the only cloud-based free inventory management software solution we found that supports purchase orders and drop-ship purchase orders.

SalesBinder Pricing

SalesBinder bases its pricing on the number of records stored in your SalesBinder account. For a small business needing just inventory management, this means you can track 100 unique products for free since each tracked product counts as one record. However, SalesBinder’s free software does more than just track inventory.

You can create accounts for customers and suppliers, as well as track purchase orders, customer orders, and invoices. However, each of these accounts and transactions entered counts as a record too. So you’ll need to keep these to a minimum to stay on the free plan.

Here’s a look at SalesBinder’s complete fee structure in case you outgrow the 100 free record limit:

SalesBinder Pricing & Features

If you use SalesBinder as a complete business management solution to track products, purchasing, and customer sales, you’ll quickly top the 100 free records threshold. However, the monthly fees to expand capacity are quite reasonable—especially considering all of the advanced inventory, purchasing, sales, and customer management features that SalesBinder delivers.

SalesBinder Features

SalesBinder’s free inventory management software includes advanced tools that Square and a few others on our list don’t offer for free—like purchase orders and kitting features. Remember, you’re limited to 100 products—or fewer if you also track purchase orders or sales in SalesBinder.

In contrast, Square and some others on our list have no limits on the number of users, products, and transactions you can have. However, SalesBinder’s free system includes very robust purchasing and receiving capabilities—including drop-ship management—unlike Square and BoxStorm. This can tip the scale if you need inventory software that also supports vendor data, purchase orders, and receipts.

Here’s how SalesBinder’s free inventory management software meets our review criteria:

SalesBinder Forever Free Inventory Features

What SalesBinder Is Missing

The free plan’s single-user access and 100 product limit are SalesBinder’s only real shortcomings. A growing business can quickly exceed this number and wind up having to pay a monthly fee. However, those monthly costs are very reasonable and far lower than many competing advanced inventory management systems.

SalesBinder Reviews

Across the internet, users give SalesBinder high ratings. Its purchasing system, drop-ship purchase order feature, and detailed item tracking are the top reasons that users applaud SalesBinder. Some note that they quickly outgrew the free version, but the reasonable fees were not a source of complaint. A few users comment that it’s hard to customize to industry-specific needs, like construction management.

BoxStorm: Free Inventory Management Software for QuickBooks Users

BoxStorm is a free inventory management software system that integrates with QuickBooks Online. BoxStorm is similar to SalesBinder in that it has both free and paid levels. BoxStorm’s Forever Free plan has basic product tracking and syncs stock counts with QuickBooks, making it a good fit for small businesses that use QuickBooks for accounting.

BoxStorm Pricing

BoxStorm has two pricing levels: a free version and a paid plan. The free plan is very basic and only includes up to 25 products. The paid plan offers unlimited products and locations.

BoxStorm Pricing & Features

BoxStorm Features

BoxStorm lets you track basic product data for unlimited items, including stock counts and adjustments, and sync that data to QuickBooks Online. However, unlike SalesBinder and some others on this list, purchasing, customer management, and sales features are only available with paid plans. BoxStorm’s free plan also only includes 25 products, which really limits the kinds of businesses that can use the free plan.

Feature-wise, BoxStorm’s free version doesn’t really exceed the others on our list in any notable way. What it does, it does well, like inventory tracking for unlimited products, including stock counts, adjustments, and locations. However, there are user limits. The free version supports five users, and paid versions are priced per-user. You can add as many users as you wish with the paid plans—but your costs increase with every user you add.

Here’s how BoxStorm’s free inventory management software meets our review criteria:

BoxStorm Features

What BoxStorm Is Missing

There are a few inventory data details that BoxStorm doesn’t seem to support. We were unable to set up variants like color and size in free and paid levels, plus we couldn’t find a way to connect multiple kitted or bundled products under one SKU. Also, the free version lacks many of the features that others include for free—like SalesBinder’s purchasing functions and Square’s built-in sales management and payment processing. To match these capabilities, you need BoxStorm’s paid plans.

BoxStorm Reviews

BoxStorm is a newer system so there aren’t many user reviews yet. However, it’s from the reputable Fishbowl Inventory enterprise management system, so it’s no surprise that BoxStorm delivers a tight, intuitive interface and seamless QuickBooks integration.

StockPile by Canvus: Free Spreadsheet Inventory Management

StockPile is a free cloud-based inventory management system that includes unlimited products and unlimited users. StockPile doesn’t support item variations, purchase orders, customer, or sales data. It’s strictly a stock tracking system that’s a step up from using Excel spreadsheets, making it a good fit for Excel users or businesses needing simple inventory management.

StockPile’s reporting features include five detailed inventory reports for current counts and values, transaction history, and daily transactions and adjustments.

StockPile Pricing

StockPile is completely free. Currently, there are no paid tiers or feature add-ons available. On the StockPile website, the developers state that paid optional modules, such as barcode support and customer management, are in the works, but nothing is released as of this writing.

StockPile Features

In terms of overall features, StockPile is the most limited on our list. You can enter basic product details and supplier names, track stock counts, make stock adjustments for sales, receiving, returns, and damages, create low-level alerts, and pull a variety of inventory reports, all for free. The fact that you can do this with unlimited products, in unlimited locations, and with unlimited users is why StockPile made our list.

StockPile is more of a hands-on, manual adjustment inventory management system and isn’t as automated as others on this list. That’s why we recommend it for businesses that handle adjustments manually but want to step up from Excel for better reporting, easier location management, and cloud-based access.

Here’s how StockPile’s free small business inventory management system meets our review criteria:

StockPile Features

What StockPile Is Missing

Unlike the others on our list, purchasing, customer tracking, and automated updates via integrations with ecommerce platforms aren’t included in StockPile at all. All other small business inventory management systems on our list offer this in some way—free or paid. Also, you can’t use StockPile to process payments and complete sales, as you can with Square and some of the other options on our list.

StockPile Reviews

StockPile gets mixed reviews, mainly because most users expect some type of ecommerce or sales integration in modern inventory software. However, users do like that it is easy to use.

inFlow On-Premise: Free Locally-installed Inventory Management for PCs

inFlow On-Premise is one of the only solutions on our list that is not cloud-based. This inventory management system is downloaded onto a Windows computer, meaning it can’t work on mobile devices or Macs, but can be used offline. inFlow can track up to 100 products and customers for free and includes purchasing and reporting features.

The free inFlow On-Premise version includes the handy Inventory Count Sheet report that you can use for cycle counts and spot-checks.

inFlow On-Premise Pricing

inFlow On-Premise is free to track up to 100 products under one user login. To track unlimited products and access more advanced features, you can purchase licenses for a one-time fee. These licenses are per-computer, and each paid license lets you create unique user logins for each staff member.

inFlow On-Premise Pricing

It’s important to note that inFlow offers a cloud-based version of its software too, called inFlow Cloud. There is no free option in the cloud-based version. It starts at $69 per month, which is more expensive than the paid versions of the other cloud-based systems on our list.

inFlow On-Premise Features

If you don’t want to rely on the internet to operate (for example, if you work in a remote location or don’t have a consistent connection), a local data storage system like inFlow On-Premise is your best solution. It’s similar to SalesBinder in terms of features and limitations. You can track 100 products—or 100 combined products and customers—for free, plus access key inventory reporting, purchasing, and sales features too.

inFlow On-Premise delivers a nice set of product detail and stock tracking tools as well as location management features. You also get purchase order and receiving functionality in the free version, like SalesBinder. However, SalesBinder counts each purchase order you create against the free 100-record limit—inFlow does not. So, if you want to track stock for up to 100 products, on a local system, and create unlimited purchase orders, inFlow is the free small business inventory management system for you.

Here’s how inFlow On-Premise’s PC-based free inventory management system meets our review criteria:

inFlow On-Premise Features

What inFlow On-Premise Is Missing

The 100-product limit in the free plan is probably the biggest shortcoming for inFlow On-Premise. For businesses that sell products in various sizes and colors, the lack of product variations is a real issue. Plus, there’s no kitting function or ready integrations to other popular ecommerce platforms like WooCommerce, which can be game-changers for online sellers.

InFlow On-Premise Reviews

inFlow On-Premise user reviews are very positive, and that’s no surprise. It delivers clean, intuitive small business inventory management software that you can get up and running in no time. It has excellent online support tools with a knowledge base that walks you through any setup and usage issue, step-by-step. The purchasing functions are a particular favorite among users, and those busy enough to use Shopify or Magento integrations typically opt for the paid plan to enable unlimited products, user logins, and customers.

ABC Inventory: Free Inventory Management Software for Manufacturers

ABC Inventory is another locally installed system, and it’s also the most feature-filled solution on our list. However, there’s one big limitation: it’s a single-user system that’s only accessible from one PC. Otherwise, you can manage unlimited products, locations, and companies in ABC for free, making it a good fit for large or manufacturing businesses.

ABC Inventory delivers a ton of advanced inventory tracking, purchasing, and order management features in a PC-based, locally installed system that doesn’t rely on internet connectivity to function.

ABC Inventory Pricing

ABC Inventory is free for a single-user download and system installation. Businesses can download ABC as many times as they want, including on different computers. However, there is no way to connect workstations using the free version. There is also no live support included with the free version. Businesses can upgrade to the paid, multi-user licenses at any time. Multi-user licenses start at $435 through the developer, Almyta Systems.

ABC Inventory Features

ABC Inventory is an enterprise-level inventory management system that delivers every inventory tracking, purchasing management, and workflow automation feature that distribution, manufacturing, and wholesale companies need. Its extensive feature set can be customized to suit the needs of any industry. However, the learning curve is far greater. As a whole, it can be overkill for a small operation needing basic stock management, sales tracking, and purchasing features.

Also, its interface is not very modern, and you’re limited to PC-based computer systems. There are no cloud-based access nor sleek iPhone or Android mobile apps like you get with Square, SalesBinder, and a few others on our list.

ABC Inventory Features

What ABC Inventory Is Missing

Simplicity is the word that comes to mind here. ABC Inventory does it all, but its PC-based system is missing the access-from-anywhere benefits of a cloud-based application. Nor does it have a modern interface or the plug-and-play ecommerce and accounting program connectivity that’s inherent in Square, SalesBinder, and others on our list.

However, this may not matter for high-velocity wholesale and manufacturing operations that value detailed kitting, purchasing, and materials tracking features over platform connectivity. For these businesses, ABC’s free inventory management software delivers incredible value.

ABC Inventory Reviews

ABC Inventory has good ratings from online reviewers. The most satisfied users need, and appreciate, the array of detailed stock tracking, purchasing, and workflow automation tools built into ABC Inventory. Small business looking for a sleek, modern, and highly connected solution would prefer Square, SalesBinder, or other free small business inventory software on our list.

Bottom Line

The best free inventory management software for your business depends on how many items you stock, where you prefer to do business—in a single location or on the go—and how you purchase and sell your goods.

If the options we reviewed don’t have the features you’re looking for, check out ShopKeep. It comes with pre-made reports that give you a clear picture of your inventory at a glance without having to be a data expert. You also get low-stock alerts, easy ordering and receiving, unlimited inventory items, bulk inventory management, and more.

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