2023 Sortly Review: Standalone Inventory Software
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.
Brigitte is a retail specialist and staff writer with brick and mortar management experience. She is versed in retail sales analysis, merchandising, and buying with an emphasis in retail sales and marketing across platforms. She has a BA in writing from Washington University, St. Louis.
This article is part of a larger series on POS Systems.
In our review of the best free inventory management software, Sortly landed itself on the list with a 3.3 out of 5 based on 26 data points. It has tons of great features for managing and tracking your inventory across multiple locations and a highly rated app for mobile scanning and reporting. It also has a completely free plan and three other affordable options to support your business as it grows. However, it has limited customer service hours and lacks integration capabilities, something Sortly is working on.
Overall Score:
3.30 / 5
Pros
- Generate custom barcodes and QR labels
- Multilocation management abilities
- Offline mode allows you to scan incoming and outgoing items even without internet
- Highly rated mobile app for iOS and Android
Cons
- Low stock alerts are only in paid plans
- Limited monthly entries
- No integration abilities (API access for Enterprise users only)
- Limited customer service hours
Supported Business Types | Warehouse-based retailers Droppshippers, wholesalers Equipment Medical, automotive, aviation, construction, event, nonprofit, IT, moving companies |
Standout Features |
|
Monthly Software Fees | Average $0–$149 (custom pricing available for enterprise businesses) |
Setup and Installation Fees | $0 DIY installation only |
Contract Length | Month-to-month Save 40% with annual contract |
Customer Support | M–F 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Via form request only |
Best for | Monthly software fee | |
|---|---|---|
 | Ecommerce retailers | $0–$239 |
 | Retailers that also need a POS | $0–$60 |
 | Perishables tracking | $0–$79 |
 | Repair shops and manufacturers | $0–$1,835 (one-time purchase) |
If you are still looking for something different, check out our breakdown of the top POS inventory management systems and the best POS systems for small businesses.
When to Use Sortly
- You operate multiple locations: Sortly can manage multiple locations (such as warehouses) and allow you to perform inventory counts on the go.
- You need mobile capabilities: Sortly offers a top-rated mobile app for on-the-go management and inventory scanning.
- You need to generate product barcodes/QR codes: All of Sortly’s paid plans offer unlimited QR/barcode label generation.
When to Use an Alternative
- You are a traditional retailer: As Sortly lacks a POS integration to track inventory with sales, it would not be the best fit for traditional retailers.
- Ingredient level tracking: Sortly does not have the tools to track menu items at an ingredient level.
- You need to integrate Sortly with other software: At this time, Sortly does not offer any integrations.
Sortly is an incredible tool for businesses needing to manage one or multiple warehouses. It allows you to create barcode labels for your products, use a mobile app with offline mode to scan and manage inventory, and automatically track your stock levels as goods are scanned in and out. Not only that, but it has an easy-to-use interface and tons of customization options so that the software can work for your specific workflow.
While it is a great fit for many types of businesses, Sortly isn’t for everyone—it lacks any integration capabilities, is not ideal for a traditional retailer whose inventory primarily moves with POS transactions, and is also not optimal for restaurants.
See our guides to the best retail POS systems and leading restaurant inventory software for alternatives.
When to Use Sortly
- You operate multiple locations: Sortly can manage multiple locations (such as warehouses) and allow you to perform inventory counts on the go.
- You need mobile capabilities: Sortly offers a top-rated mobile app for on-the-go management and inventory scanning.
- You need to generate product barcodes/QR codes: All of Sortly’s paid plans offer unlimited QR/barcode label generation.
When to Use an Alternative
- You are a traditional retailer: As Sortly lacks a POS integration to track inventory with sales, it would not be the best fit for traditional retailers.
- Ingredient level tracking: Sortly does not have the tools to track menu items at an ingredient level.
- You need to integrate Sortly with other software: At this time, Sortly does not offer any integrations.
Sortly is an incredible tool for businesses needing to manage one or multiple warehouses. It allows you to create barcode labels for your products, use a mobile app with offline mode to scan and manage inventory, and automatically track your stock levels as goods are scanned in and out. Not only that, but it has an easy-to-use interface and tons of customization options so that the software can work for your specific workflow.
While it is a great fit for many types of businesses, Sortly isn’t for everyone—it lacks any integration capabilities, is not ideal for a traditional retailer whose inventory primarily moves with POS transactions, and is also not optimal for restaurants.
See our guides to the best retail POS systems and leading restaurant inventory software for alternatives.
In the pricing category, Sortly earned a 3.25 out of 5 in our evaluation. It offers three different plans at reasonable price points designed to support your business as it grows. It has a 14-day free trial for all plans and room for customization. The biggest drawback is that its free plan is pretty limited, supporting only one user and 100 entries. Additionally, Sortly lost some points because even its paid plans have entry limits.
Since our last update: Sortly increased the monthly rate on its Ultra plan from $119 to $149.
Sortly Pricing Plans
Free | Advanced | Ultra | |
|---|---|---|---|
Monthly Billing* | $0/month | $49/month | $149/month |
Entries | 100 | 2,000 | 10,000 |
User Licenses | 1 | 2 | 5 |
Custom Fields | 1 | 10 | 25 |
Barcode/QR Code Generation | ✕ | Unlimited (QR only) | Unlimited (QR and barcodes) |
Customer Service | Help center and email | Help center and email | Priority email support |
Alerts and Reminders | ✕ | Quantity-based Date-based | Quantity-based Date-based Item updates |
Logo Branding | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
*You can save on your monthly fees by paying annually. Currently, this makes the Advanced plan $29/month and the Ultra plan $59/month.
Sortly earned a 3 out of 5 in our evaluation of its inventory management features. While it does have the tools that we were looking for—tracking, scanning, labeling, and multilocation management—many of these features are locked behind paywalls and excluded from the free plan. Keep that in mind as you scroll through these features, many of them do come with a monthly premium.
As any good inventory management system does, Sortly comes equipped with tools for both adding and tracking your inventory. First, it allows you to either import items in bulk or upload items individually.
It even lets you add all kinds of information to your product pages, including item variants, tags, price, quantities, images, and notes. You can also file your products into different folders. If you opt for one of Sortly’s paid plans, you can add custom barcodes/QR codes to your products that you can print onto product labels for easy scanning. With the paid subscriptions, there are options to add custom fields, like color, size, or weight, and set low stock alerts.
Sortly lets you add lots of information to your product pages.
From there, you can track your products via their barcode/QR code, scanning products in and out as they enter and leave your possession. Sortly also has multilocation tracking capabilities, and it features a visual dashboard that makes the whole system easy to operate.
Sortly offers a highly visual display, making the software nearly foolproof to operate.
Another great free feature from Sortly is its highly-rated mobile app for both iOS and Android. When you open it on your mobile device, your camera becomes a barcode/QR scanner, allowing you to scan items right on the floor and see their details. You can also view your Sortly dashboard, sync items, and set stock alerts. With all this at your fingertips, the Sortly app allows your mobile device to replace clunky scanners or other hardware.
Sortly comes with a robust set of reporting tools to help you better understand your business. It will automatically generate:
- Current status reports (quantities and values)
- Activity reports
- Low stock reports
- Quantity changes by item
- Movement reports
You can also sort and filter inventory to create custom lists and export reports via CSV, PDF, or Dropbox. Sortly also allows you to keep all of your information secure with the ability to set staff permission.
With the tools that Sortly has to offer, it is ready to handle the movement of equipment for businesses that operate in areas like construction, aviation, medical supplies, IT, or the automotive industry. With movement tracking, user activity tracking that can tell you who is using what, multilocation abilities, mobile scanners, and remote access, Sortly can help you manage your equipment more efficiently.
Another industry where Sortly’s inventory tools are apt is warehouse management. With on-the-floor scanning via the mobile app, multilocation tracking, movement reports, user activity reports, and low stock alert tools, Sortly can handle warehouse inventory operations.
Take a look at the full breakdown of Sortly’s top industries on its site or check out our deciding factors table above.
- Visual, easy-to-use interface
- Automated alerts
- Help center
- Email support
- Mobile access
- Mobile app scanner
Sortly earned a 2.75 out of 5 in our ease of use category. Its interface uses tons of visuals to make it easy to operate and understand. Additionally, you can set up automated alerts for low stock items and inventory activity, as well as access and scan items on the go with the Sortly mobile app, essentially replacing the need for hardware.
Where Sortly lost points was its limited customer support hours of M–F, 9 a.m.–5 p.m., email-only support, and lack of any integrations.
In this category, we evaluated Sortly based on the overall performance and quality of its features, how well the software is reviewed among users, its overall popularity, and an ease of use score based on our own usage.
Based on this criteria, the platform earned a 4.56 out of 5. We love Sortly for the quality and number of features it has to offer for managing inventory. It even has glowing reviews from users, and we also thought the program was easy to navigate.
It primarily lost points for its limited features in its free and advanced plans, lack of integration abilities for using Sortly with a POS system or other software, and relatively low popularity due to its new introduction.
While Sortly did not score exceptionally high, the company has a lot in the works, including integration abilites, API access, and new tools and capabilities.
What Users Think of Sortly
Sortly is a highly rated platform among users, earning props for its ease of use and mobile features. In fact, on GetApp, it earned a 4.3 out of 5 from about 80 reviews.
Sortly’s mobile app also has top marks with a 4.7 out of 5 based on over 7,000 reviews on the App Store and a 3.9 out of 5 based on more than 600 reviews on Google Play.
| Users Like | Users Don’t Like |
|---|---|
| Easy to use | Over-priced |
| Lots of ways to organize inventory | Lag between real-time tracking and system notification |
| Responsive customer support | Lack of integrations |
| Barcode and QR labels | Lack of pricing transparency |
Methodology: How We Evaluated Sortly
In our evaluation of the best free inventory management software, we examined over a dozen options and narrowed it down to just six top contenders. The best will offer competitive pricing (with a free option), a rich bank of inventory features, high-quality operations, and top-ranking user and expert reviews.
Click through the tabs below for a more detailed breakdown of our evaluation criteria.
40%
Pricing
30%
Inventory features
15%
Ease of use
15%
Expert score
40% of Overall Score
We prioritized software that includes plans and add-ons to grow with your business. We also awarded points to systems that offer an unlimited number of users and inventory items in their free plans. Sortly lost points here because it has product and user limitations on its plans.
30% of Overall Score
We gave heavier weight to inventory features, such as real-time tracking, low stock and reorder alerts, multilocation and warehouse tracking, mobile apps, and granular inventory management (kitting and assembly, variants, etc.). We also considered whether they provide purchase orders, vendor, and centralized multichannel management. Finally, we examined whether each system has CRM functionality or integrates with popular CRM software. While Sortly has great features, many of them are locked behind paywalls.
15% of Overall Score
We gave full points to platforms that are cloud-based, 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. Sortly lost points here due to limited customer support options and its lack of integration capability with any other small business software.
15% of Overall Score
We reviewed the overall quality of each system’s features—including if there are any standout qualities—and whether or not it offers a good value for its price point. Finally, we accounted for our personal experience using each system and interacting with its customer service representatives, its reviews, and the personal experience of other small business owners. Sortly has great user reviews, though several features being locked behind paywalls prevented it from earning a higher score.
*Percentages of overall score
Sortly Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Sortly is an inventory management software best suited for nontraditional retailers, like wholesalers, suppliers, or other businesses that operate primarily out of warehouses.
Sortly claims that it can work for any type of business. However, Sortly is going to be best for nontraditional retailers, like wholesalers and suppliers.
It even lists the industries that it works best for, such as
- Automotive
- Aviation
- Construction
- Medical supplies
- Events
- Education
- Government
- Hospitals
- Interior design/staging
- IT
- Non-profit
- Warehouses
Because Sortly lacks any integration capabilities, it is not ideal for retailers needing to sync their sales to the inventory system. It is also not suited for restaurants because it cannot track items at an ingredient level. There are also no rental-management capabilities.
See our recommendations for the best inventory management software to find an alternative.
If you are looking for a different inventory management system, Lightspeed is a world class option. There is also Square if you are looking for something more affordable that also has POS functionality.
Inventory management is all the processes involved in having the right products in stock at the right time. You can either manage your inventory manually or use a software that will automatically update quantities, run reports, and help facilitate counts.
Learn more about how to organize your inventory—check out our inventory management guide to get started.
Bottom Line
Sortly is a feature-rich and easy-to-use inventory management system. Its price point, features, and ease of use has made it a top choice among our free inventory management systems. Its mobile app is also ideal for anyone needing to control their inventory on the go—and even offline. It has a completely free plan where you can try out all the features for yourself, as well as paid plans to support your business as it flourishes.
