6 Best Free Inventory Management Software for 2023
Meaghan has provided content and guidance for indie retailers as the editor for a number of retail publications and a speaker at trade shows. She is Fit Small Business’s authority on retail and ecommerce.
Karina Fabian writes and reviews business software, services, and topics for starting a business, startups, and small businesses. She has more than seven years of business writing experience.
This article is part of a larger series on POS Systems.
The best inventory management software, whether used on its own or with a point-of-sale (POS) system, should make it easy for businesses to track products, tools, and assets. Unlike paid software, free inventory management software usually limits the features you can use.
We considered plans with enough for a small business or solopreneur to get started, forever-free subscriptions with options to upgrade, and cloud-based, easy-to-use systems.
Based on our evaluations, the six best free inventory management software for small businesses are:
- Odoo: Best overall
- Square: Best for retailers
- Zoho Inventory: Best for large inventories
- SalesBinder: Best for small international businesses
- ABC Inventory: Best for manufacturing and repair shops
- Sortly: Best app with mobile barcoding and scanning
Prefer to use a spreadsheet? Download our free inventory management workbook to track on-hand stock, sales, purchase orders, calculate inventory turnover, and set up low stock alerts.
Free Inventory Management Software Compared
Provider | Users | Items/Locations | Paid Plans (Monthly Pricing) | Low Stock Alerts | Multichannel Management | Integrations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Unlimited | Unlimited/Unlimited | $31.10 to $37.40 | ✓ | Paid plans only | ✓ |
 | Unlimited | Unlimited/300 | $60 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
 | 2 | Unlimited/1 + 1 Shopify store | $79 to $399 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
 | 1 | 100/Unlimited | $9 to $99 | ✓ | ✓ | Paid plans only |
 | 1 | Unlimited/Unlimited | $435 to $1,835 (one-time) | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ |
 | 1 | 100/Unlimited | $49 to $149 | Paid plans only | Paid plans only | ✕ |
All the products that made our list had to have a minimum of features that include:
- Real-time tracking
- Inventory counts
- Barcode scanning
- Granular inventory (variants, modifiers)
- Basic reports
- Customer shipping information
- Knowledge base
Odoo: Best Overall Free Inventory Management Software
Overall Score:
4.38 / 5
Pros
- Unlimited products and locations
- Automated purchase orders (POs)
- Inventory forecasting
- Custom reporting, alerts, and automations
Cons
- Limited customer support
- Limited integrations
- Point-of-sale (POS) and ecommerce tools cost extra
What’s Included for Free
- Users: Unlimited
- Locations: Unlimited
- Items/products: Unlimited
- Transactions: Unlimited
- Support: Community and knowledge base
- Integrations: Odoo apps, shipping apps, and application programming interface (API); will connect you to ecommerce apps
Paid plans start at: $31.10 per month to gain access to all free Odoo apps
Odoo, a fully open-source inventory system, takes the top spot for free inventory management software because it does so much―even automated purchase orders (POs) and expiry date tracking. It’s completely unlimited, making it great for small businesses with huge inventories, and for a small fee, you can tie it to Odoo’s dozen other sales and marketing tools. Odoo also integrates with ecommerce systems.
Odoo earned 4.38 out of 5. It had a perfect score on pricing because it offers so much free. The inventory tools are excellent, but a few, such as multichannel management and customer relationship management (CRM), require another Odoo app. It took a big hit for only having email and forum support, but it does offer training videos. Real-world customers liked it, but it did not rate as highly as Square or Zoho, which brought the expert score down.
Odoo Features
- Double-entry inventory for better tracking
- Barcode scanning
- Delivery orders
- Multiple locations
- Repair management
- Stock transfers
- Reports include scrap and waste
- Dropshipping tools
- Custom alerts (from low-stock to product or supplier notifications)
- Customer portal
- Smart scheduler to trigger operations based on product availability
- Automated POs
- Make-to-order tracking
- Real-time valuation
- Serial number tracking
- Product variants, expiry dates, measurements, unlimited custom fields
- First-in, first-out (FIFO), average cost (AVCO) method, and standard price costing
- Multiple valuation methods
- Custom reporting
- Inventory forecasting
When to Upgrade
Odoo does not have paid plans to upgrade. You get the entire inventory module free. However, if you want to add other Odoo apps, it costs $31.10 per user monthly. For $37.40 per user monthly you get on-premise programs, Odoo Studio―to create your own Odoo without knowing code―Testsystems, multicompany apps, and an external API.
Odoo’s other apps are
- CRM
- Sales
- Manufacturing
- Accounting
- Project
- Helpdesk
- Planning
- Website and ecommerce
- POS
- Website builder
- Marketing
- Spreadsheets
- Reporting
- Time sheet
- Recruiting
- Sign
Square: Best for Retailers & Storefronts
Overall Score:
4.35 / 5
Pros
- Unlimited products, including variations
- Free, user-friendly POS system
- Excellent mobile app
- Syncs across online, in-store, and mobile sales
Cons
- No custom reporting
- Only integrates with Square POS and Square Payments
- Cannot create POs
What’s Included for Free
- Users: Unlimited
- Locations: 300
- Items/products: Unlimited
- Transactions: Unlimited
- Support: Phone, knowledge base, email, and tutorials
- Integrations: Shipping, restaurant management, website builders, scheduling, marketing, health management, and service business apps
Paid plans start at: $60 per month
Since our last update:
The review has been amended to reflect that Square offers inventory tools for multiple locations.
Square is best known for its POS capabilities for retailers and restaurants, landing it at the top of our lists of the best POS systems and leading free POS systems. However, it also includes Square’s inventory management tools completely for free for up to 300 locations. Considering all that Square accounts come equipped with—in-store sales, ecommerce integrations, mobile capabilities, POS—it is the best all-in-one solution for retailers looking to manage inventory for free and sell in-store and online as well as via invoice and mobile.
Did you know?
For every Square account, you also get access to Square Online, Square’s ecommerce website builder that you can then integrate seamlessly with your Square account.
This software earned an overall score of 4.35 out of 5 on our evaluation, just below Odoo, which has more features for inventory management itself. Square, however, earned excellent scores for ease of use, pricing, and our expert value score. The only things that kept Square from scoring higher were the lack of kitting abilities; limited customer service hours; and reporting, vendor management, and POs locked behind a paywall. Like Zoho, Square has an excellent mobile app, where you can conduct sales and also scan items and perform inventory counts.
Square Inventory Features
- Create product or item categories
- Create automated low stock alerts
- Add pictures, descriptions, and stock keeping unit (SKU) numbers to each item
- Download reports or export to a printable spreadsheet
- Add and track item modifiers like colors and sizes
- Unlimited products, users, and transactions
- Import and manage products in bulk
- Mobile app: 4.8 out of 5 stars on iOS and Android
- Sell on the go with Square’s mobile app
- Scan inventory barcodes and perform counts with Square mobile app
- Create product variants like size and color
- Fully integrated payment processing
- Process returns
- Create and track customer profiles
- Integrations with shipping, ecommerce, appointment, and industry-specific software (especially for health and service industries)
When to Upgrade
The free version of Square doesn’t include advanced inventory tools like kitting, automatic POs, COGS tracking, or smart stock forecasts. For these features, you’ll need to upgrade to Square for Retail for $60 per month, per location. However, it can integrate with other inventory software if you prefer.
Check out our Square for Retail review.
Zoho: Best for Businesses With Large Inventories (Single Location)
Overall Score:
4.30 / 5
Pros
- Excellent mobile app
- Kitting abilities
- Shipping management tools
- Ecommerce integrations
Cons
- Sale and purchase order limits
- Lacks Bill of Material (BOM), pick lists, or bin ID support
- No forecasting, only supports FIFO costing
What’s Included for Free
- Users: Two
- Locations: One + One Shopify Store
- Items/products: Unlimited
- Transactions: 50 orders per month
- Support: Chat, forum, email, and knowledge base
- Integrations: Ecommerce, shipping, payment gateways, accounting, CRM, API, and others
Paid plans start at: $79 per month with monthly billing
Add-ons
- Users: $3 per month, per user
- Warehouses: $10 per month, per warehouse
- Orders/shipping labels: $6 per month, per 50 orders plus 50 shipping labels
- Advanced autoscans: $8 per month, per 50 scans
Zoho Inventory’s free plan came in third because it allows unlimited inventory, a strong range of integrations, low stock alerts, kitting and bundling options, and shipping tools, allowing you to print packing slips and generate discounted shipping labels from major logistics providers like United States Postal Service (USPS) and UPS right from your dashboard. Zoho is our top-rated inventory software for all small businesses, and its mobile app also makes it the best choice for entrepreneurs who do their work on the go.
We rated Zoho Inventory 4.3 out of 5. Unlike Square, Zoho’s free plan limits users, locations, monthly sales orders, shipping labels, and shipment tracking. Its customer relationship management software surpasses Odoo’s free plan. Plus, it’s easy to use and has high real-world user ratings for its online program and its mobile apps.
Zoho Inventory Features
Since our last update:
Zoho has been busy adding new features to its software. Some of the most notable to come out since June 2022 include:
- Shipments module: Shipments have been moved from Packages for easier access
- Custom tabs in the client portal
- More customization tools
- Creating and assigning tasks
- Separate module of Purchase Receives
- Document attachment to shipments
- More shipping tools
- Ecommerce integrations with Shopify and Zoho ecommerce
- iOS and Android mobile apps
- Serial and batch tracking
- Receive and make payments for orders and purchases via Stripe
- Item grouping and bundling
- Process returns
- Sales order management
- Invoicing
- Add and track customers
- Packaging and shipping
- Add credits to customer accounts and set credit limits
- Track shipments
- Create purchase orders
- Barcode scanning
- Client portal
- Backorders and drop shipments
- Integrates with Shopify, Etsy, eBay, and Amazon
- Purchase order templates
- Mobile app: 4.5 out of 5 on Android; 4.6 out of 5 on iOS
- SKU generator
- Set automated reorder points
When to Upgrade
Zoho Inventory has limits on sales orders, even with its paid plans. If you need to track multiple warehouses, support multiple currencies, and perform custom views for your workflows, then upgrading to its first paid tier will suffice. The base plan starts at $79 a month with a 1,500 monthly order limit, three users, and two warehouses. Additional warehouses cost $10 per month, and additional users are priced at $3 per month. Higher tiers include batch and serial number tracking and automated workflows.
SalesBinder: Best for Small International Businesses
Overall Score:
3.52 / 5
Pros
- Available in over 130 countries
- CRM included
- Barcode documents and items
- Paid plans are affordable
Cons
- No included integrations in free plan
- Limited items
- Low-rated mobile app; iOS only
What’s Included for Free
- Users: One
- Location: Unlimited
- Items/products: 100 active records (includes items, accounts, and orders)
- Transactions: Unlimited
- Support: Phone and email, business hours (Pacific time), and knowledge base
- Integrations: QuickBooks, Xero, WooCommerce, Zapier, and more
Paid plans start at: $9 per month
SalesBinder offers excellent inventory software that works in more than 130 countries and a wide array of currencies. Its intuitive interface also includes lots of room for customization so that you can make it work how you need it to, wherever you are in the world. SalesBinder’s free plan does not allow integrations—look at Zoho or Odoo for that. Its free plan also limits monthly records, which it counts as inventory items, accounts, or orders—no other inventory tracker on our list sets limits this way. However, it has robust features for recording and tracking inventory and strong sales and CRM features.
Overall, SalesBinder scored 3.52 out of 5 in our evaluation. It performed well in the inventory features and expert score categories. SalesBinder could’ve scored better if it had no product or user limits and allowed integrations in its free plan. For large inventories, consider Odoo or Square. Real-world users rate it highly, however.
SalesBinder Features
Since our last update:
SalesBinder has added WooCommerce integrations, improved shipment notifications, and revised some reports.
- 130 languages
- Language customization for documents
- Real-time inventory tracking by location
- Barcode generation and scanning
- Five photos per item description
- Reports (additional fee for profit analysis)
- Unlimited locations
- API access
- CRM
- Kitting/bundling
- Invoicing
- Custom fields
- Place sales orders
- Item variations
- Estimates
- Inventory and sales reports
- Place purchase order
- Vendor management
- Stock transfers
- Create packing lists
- Shipment tracking
- iOS Mobile app: 2.3 out of 5 in the app store
- Set user permissions
- Create and manage prospective customers
When to Upgrade
SalesBinder’s free plan includes all the features of the paid plans, except for integrations and limits to records and users—if you need more, the paid plans are among the most affordable we’ve seen. The paid plans range from $9 per month (for one user, 2,500 records, and no integrations) to $99 per month (for 100,000 records, 50 users, and unlimited integrations). This makes it a great pick for small businesses with limited customers and inventory or those that are just starting out.
ABC Inventory: Best for Repair Shops & Manufacturing
Overall Score:
3.58 / 5
Pros
- Includes repairs, leasing, and asset management
- Multiple languages and currencies
- Supports kitting
- Includes manufacturing functions like machine assembly orders and parts consumption
Cons
- PC-only
- Older interface
- Forum customer assistance only
What’s Included for Free
- Users: One
- Location: Unlimited
- Items/products: Unlimited
- Transactions: Unlimited
- Support: Forum
- Integrations: None
Paid plans start at $435 one-time fee
Since our last update:
Almyta has removed mention of limits on transactions for the free version.
Although a locally installed system with an older interface, ABC Inventory by Almyta Systems offers an excellent choice for budget-conscious manufacturers or repair shops with simple needs. It has features like unlimited custom fields, 10 custom drop-down lists for extra properties, and up to 20 levels in its bill of materials.
ABC Inventory offers dozens of features specifically for manufacturing inventory, such as work orders, approvals, repair and maintenance orders, and special serials for manufacturing or engineering. Neither Zoho nor Square come equipped with these manufacturing-specific tools.
In our evaluation, ABC Inventory earned 3.58 out of 5. It did well in pricing because it lets you track unlimited products by location but took a huge hit in ease of use for its dated interface and lack of live customer support. The software can only be installed on PCs and cannot integrate with any other programs automatically. If you need an option with more included integrations, Square is your best bet.
ABC Inventory Features
- Unlimited companies, warehouses, locations, currencies, logos
- Multiple languages with translations (popup or in-field)
- Export data to Microsoft Excel, Word, HTML, and text
- Purchase orders
- Warehouse appointments, invoicing, shipping
- Positive/negative adjustments
- Barcode scanning
- Inventory repairs
- Inventory leasing
- Forecasting
- Fast browse and advanced search
- Create sales and shipping orders
- Work orders
- Tangible and intangible asset management
- Create and manage warehouse appointments
- Port to port operations
- Manage repairs and leases
- Create and manage work orders
When to Upgrade
ABC Inventory’s free version comes with every tool, making it a great option for a small business with a single workplace. However, you need the paid version if you want to use the software across multiple workstations. You will also need to purchase one of Almyta Systems’ licenses if you want customer support of any kind. Purchased licenses also include free add-ons and lifetime updates. Pricing starts at $435 (one-time fee).
Sortly: Best Mobile Inventory App With Barcoding and Scanning
Overall Score:
3.30 / 5
Pros
- Built-in barcode scanning (supports QR codes)
- Can manage multiple warehouses
- Has offline mode, allowing you to scan incoming and outgoing items even without internet access
Cons
- Low stock alerts only in paid plans
- No kitting capabilities
- No integration capabilities
What’s Included for Free
- Users: One
- Location: Unlimited
- Items/products: 100
- Transactions: Unlimited
- Support: Knowledge base, tutorials, and email
- Integrations: None
Paid plans start at $49 per month
Sortly is a cloud-based inventory management platform that provides activity tracking, multilocation tracking, barcoding, and audit trails. Its noteworthy feature, however, is its built-in barcode and QR scanner mobile app that works even in offline mode. You can scan incoming and outgoing inventory even when your phone app doesn’t have a signal—Sortly will sync automatically as soon as you’re back online. Its offline abilities paired with its multilocation tracking make Sortly ideal for on-the-go inventory management across multiple locations. Note that Zoho also has an offline mode to its mobile app, but Sortly offers inventory for multiple locations.
On our inventory management evaluation, Sortly scored 3.3 out of 5. The absence of low-stock alerts and integrations on its free plan as well as its item limits, prevented it from earning high scores. Like Square, it lacks PO tools. However, its interface is cloud-based and modern, setting it apart from ABC Inventory.
Sortly Features
Since our last update:
Sortly has made some small improvements to features, such as more printer options, a below-minimum-level filter, and reasons for deleting items. It’s also improved its mobile apps.
- Desktop and mobile app access
- Add custom tags and notes
- In-app scanner
- File items into categorical folders
- Barcode auto lookup
- Bulk editing details
- Scan and connect third-party barcodes
- Basic CSV and PDF reports
- Quick action scanner (check in/out items)
- Support: help center, tutorials, and weekly onboarding seminars
- Add custom fields (limited to one)
- Mobile app: 3.6 out of 5 on Android; 4.7 out of 5 on iOS
- Attach up to eight photos per item
When to Upgrade
Sortly provides in-depth access to its barcode scanning system even on its free plan. However, upgrading to its Ultra plan ($99 per month) will allow you to have API integrations, generate custom barcodes, and use external/handheld scanners. The less expensive Advanced Plan ($49 per month) has low-stock alerts and more entries and custom fields. For already established businesses with existing systems and software, I would recommend signing up for one of Sortly’s paid plans.
Read our full review on Sortly.
How We Evaluated Free Inventory Management Software
We only considered forever-free inventory systems that also offer paid versions or add-ons at a price suited for small and midsize businesses (SMBs). In this evaluation, we prioritized those that are cloud-based and easy to use. We sought a range of inventory management software, not just those in a POS system or that work for retail.
Click through the tabs below for a more detailed breakdown of our evaluation criteria.
40%
Pricing
30%
Inventory features
15%
Expert score
15%
Ease of use
40% of Overall Score
We prioritized software that includes pricing plans and add-on options to grow with your business. We also awarded points to systems that provide unlimited users and inventory items in their free plans. Odoo got a perfect score here.
30% of Overall Score
We looked for real-time tracking, low stock and reorder alerts, multilocation and warehouse tracking, mobile apps, and granular inventory management (kitting and assembly, variants, and more). We also considered whether they provide POs, vendor, and centralized multichannel management. Finally, we examined whether each system has CRM functionality or integrates with popular CRM software. Zoho took the lead here, followed by SalesBinder
15% of Overall Score
We gave full points to cloud-based platforms, offer 24/7 customer support, and provide online training, forum, or help documentation. We also considered its integrations with popular accounting, ecommerce, marketplace, and POS software. Square and Zoho tied for first here.
15% of Overall Score
We reviewed the overall quality of each system’s features and standout qualities to determine if it offers a good value for its price point. Then we considered our own experience and those of real-world users. Zoho took the lead, followed closely by Square and Sortly.
*Percentages of overall score
Bottom Line
When deciding which free inventory management platform to use, consider the following:
- Does it integrate with the platforms I currently use in my business?
- Does it offer room for growth, such as plan upgrades?
- What type of support can I get as a free user?
If you are looking for free inventory management tools that work with sales, such as for a retail or storefront business, consider POS software, such as Square. Most include primary inventory functions or have integrations. However, standalone free inventory management software works well for offices, warehouses, dropshippers, or stores that already have sales platforms that they prefer.
Overall, we found Odoo the best inventory management software for small businesses. Its open-source, totally free system works great for large inventories and multiple locations, and it has an excellent set of features. You can even integrate it with your other software. Visit Odoo and sign up today.
