Best Inventory Software for Solo Makers in 2027: 6 Picks

Key Takeaways

• The first decision is whether you build from materials or resell finished goods. Building means bills of materials (BOMs) and work orders, which narrows the list fast.

• On our criteria, Katana fits makers who also sell online best. Its free plan is capped by SKU count, and its paid plan is quote-based.

• Fishbowl's pricing page spells out manufacturing features by tier, while MRPeasy charges per user. Fishbowl's entry tiers have fixed user counts.

• Sortly is the simplest way to track parts and tools by item with labels, but its pricing page does not describe BOMs or work orders.

• Zoho Inventory and inFlow suit sellers who count and scan more than they build. Confirm inFlow's BOM depth with the vendor before you buy.

• Automation can draft reorders and flag count variances, but a person should approve every purchase and stock adjustment.

TL;DR: Match the tool to how you make things, compare the billing basis in the pricing table, and confirm manufacturing features on the vendor's own page before you sign.

Who this is for, and what inventory software has to do

Inventory software records what stock you have, where it sits, what it cost, and when to reorder, so buying and building decisions rest on counts you can trust.

For a solo maker, that means three jobs: know the on-hand quantity of each part and finished good, know what each order consumes, and know when a reorder is due.

Who this is for: an owner or operations lead at a very small manufacturer who has outgrown spreadsheets and has to choose within the next few weeks.

Red flags: you need production scheduling and multi-level costing on day one, nobody will own the count routine, or you expect software alone to fix purchasing habits.

If you want a broader list that includes non-manufacturing tools, read our small-business inventory guide. This page focuses on tools a maker can use for materials and finished goods.

How we evaluated these tools

This is a buyer's comparison built from public pages. We did not use these products, and nothing here describes hands-on testing. We read each vendor's pricing page and the plan details it publishes, plus independent comparison pages for context.

We started from a third-party roundup. Roundup ranking: ten products, updated February 25, 2026 according to Software Connect (2026). We kept six products whose vendors publish plan details we could read on their own sites, then weighted the criteria below for a shop of one to a few people.

Weights are our judgment for this buyer, not scores from any vendor or review site.

Pricing as published

Pricing checked October 29, 2026.

Each price below is copied from the vendor's own pricing page and cited in its row. Where a vendor does not publish a figure, the table says Quote-based. We did not use third-party price listings, because the ones we found disagree with vendor pages.

Katana's paid Advantage tier is Quote-based and sold on an annual contract, so get that figure in writing before you compare it with the free plan.

MRPeasy publishes monthly per-user rates, but its annual pricing is Quote-based even though annual billing is offered. Sortly's Advanced figure is a first-year price, and its footnote says the discount applies only to the first year of new subscriptions, so compare year-two costs before you commit. Zoho's page shows only annual-billing rates, so compare it on that basis. Fishbowl's first three tiers are billed annually on its page, and its advanced tiers are priced by users and deployment, so they cannot be compared on a flat basis.

inFlow's page lists separate Manufacturing and Stockroom plan families, each with monthly and annual rates. The Stockroom plan has no reordering, costing or sales, so it is for scanning and counting only.

Roundup last updated February 25, 2026 according to Software Connect (2026). Its starting prices are secondhand, so this guide prints none of them.

Feature matrix

This matrix normalizes what each vendor's pricing page or API documentation says. "Not listed" means the item does not appear on the pages we read, not that the product lacks it.

Three gaps matter most. Katana's free plan names Shopify as its only e-commerce integration. inFlow lists no serial or batch features on the page we read. Sortly's pricing page lists no BOM features. Ask each vendor those questions in writing before you buy.

Six tools, profiled

Katana

Best fit: makers who also sell online. Katana's pricing page says both of its plans include manufacturing management, sales order management and warehouse management. Katana pricing page

Limitations: the paid Advantage tier is quote-based and annual, and the free tier's SKU cap pushes a growing catalog toward a sales conversation.

Implementation: Katana publishes an API reference with an inventory object. Its fields include quantity_in_stock, quantity_committed and quantity_missing_or_excess, and the reference says a negative quantity_missing_or_excess means you need to buy materials or make products. Read those definitions against your own count process before you rely on them. Katana inventory object reference

MRPeasy

Best fit: shops that want production, purchasing and inventory in one per-user subscription. The pricing page's FAQ says the product is built for manufacturers and distributors. MRPeasy pricing page

Limitations: cost rises with every added person, and the annual price is quote-based. Ask for it in writing.

Implementation: the top tier has a minimum team size, so check it before you commit. Start on the entry tier you can justify per person, and get the annual quote before you compare totals.

Fishbowl

Best fit: makers who keep books in QuickBooks or Xero and want a shop-floor tier. The Essentials plan syncs with QuickBooks Online and Xero, and Advanced Manufacturing adds full BOMs, MRP, production scheduling, job and landed costing, and an open API. Fishbowl pricing page

Limitations: entry tiers have fixed user counts, the advanced tiers depend on users and deployment, and lot traceability appears only from Scale and Advanced Manufacturing up. Ask which hosting you are buying.

Implementation: the Advanced tiers include cloud hosting and offer flexible deployment. Confirm which QuickBooks version connects to your company file before you sign. The ownership history is covered below.

Sortly

Best fit: solo makers who track parts, tools and finished goods by item, and who want QR labels and a simple team view. The Advanced plan includes unlimited QR code label creation, and Ultra adds barcode labels and purchase orders. Sortly pricing page

Limitations: the plan table counts items, users and active jobs, but the page describes no bill-of-materials or work-order features. Treat it as an item tracker first.

Implementation: Premium adds QuickBooks Online integration and customizable role permissions. Enterprise adds an API with webhooks and a dedicated customer success manager, and its pricing is quote-based. Start on the free plan to see whether your catalog fits its item limit.

Zoho Inventory

Best fit: makers who need serial and batch tracking, barcode generation and stock counting at a per-organization price. Those features appear on the Premium tier. Zoho pricing page

Limitations: the page shows annual-billing rates only, and the Standard tier's composite items are bundles, not production records. Check the Premium tier against your needs before you assume it covers manufacturing.

Implementation: Zoho publishes an Inventory API, and its documentation says every request must carry an organization_id. If you already use other Zoho products, check the integration list before you assume a connection. Zoho Inventory API documentation

inFlow

Best fit: product-based shops that want a Manufacturing plan family and a free trial with no card. The pricing page lists unlimited products, sales, purchases and integrations, with add-on options for some integrations. inFlow pricing page

Limitations: there is no free plan, the Stockroom tier lacks reordering, costing and sales, and the page is unclear whether API access is included or sold as an add-on. Third-party listings show different tiers, so check the official page before you budget.

Implementation: start with the free trial, load a small catalog, and ask the vendor to walk you through the Manufacturing tier's BOM features before the trial ends.

Ownership and vendor stability

Ownership affects how long a vendor keeps a product and what happens to your data. Fishbowl sale announced: 13 December 2021 according to Private Equity International (2021). The announcement names Diversis Capital Management as the buyer. That sale is the most recent Fishbowl ownership change we found, and we did not check a current corporate filing.

Katana's pricing page carries a copyright line naming Katana Technologies OÜ. We did not trace its ownership beyond that line.

For every vendor on this list, ask in writing who owns the product, where your data is hosted, and how you export your full count and transaction history if you leave.

Where an automation layer fits, and where a DIY build fits

US Tech Automations builds and supports custom AI automation workflows. Its site describes an Approval Queue where a person approves, edits or rejects each draft before it sends, and an Escalation Routing step that flags problem items to a lead. Those two review points are the ones we would build around inventory.

A proposed reorder workflow would need to be configured, not assumed to exist. The trigger is a scheduled export or API pull from the inventory tool that shows a component with a negative quantity_missing_or_excess, using the Katana field as an example. The action drafts one purchase email per supplier in Gmail and logs it to Google Sheets. The output is a set of drafts waiting in the Approval Queue. The prerequisites are API access or a CSV export, a Gmail connection and a Google Sheets log. The site names Gmail and Google Sheets among its integrations but no inventory system, so confirming the inventory connection comes first. A person reviews each supplier, quantity and price before anything sends.

A second proposed design handles count variances. The trigger is a count export that shows a variance above a threshold the owner sets. The action adapts the Escalation Routing pattern: the item is flagged to the owner with a holding note for the team. The output is a discrepancy log. The workflow should not change stock on its own, and the owner decides whether to adjust. The prerequisite is a count export with item, expected and counted quantities.

The alternative is to build these handoffs yourself in Zapier, Make or n8n. Zapier's help page says Autoreplay, which reruns failed steps, is available on Professional plans and higher, and that Company plans can override whether a Zap turns off or keeps running after repeated errors, according to Zapier. Those tools can keep run records, retry steps and branch on errors when they are configured. The buyer still owns the design: idempotency, so a retried step does not create a second purchase order; escalation when a step fails; access controls on supplier and cost data; and upkeep when an inventory API changes. We did not open Make's or n8n's documentation for this guide, so we make no claim about their settings.

A design like this helps when the handoff repeats and the owner wants review points built in. It does not replace the inventory system of record, and it does not fix a count routine that nobody runs.

A worked example for a two-person shop

Take an illustrative two-person shop with 400 SKUs that spends 3 hours a week on physical counts, with owner time valued at an assumed $30 an hour. Over 52 weeks that is 156 hours (3 × 52), or $4,680 a year (156 × $30) of counting labor. A tool earns its place only if it removes a meaningful share of that cost, so test each candidate on the count it must replace. A Katana integration that reads quantity_in_stock for each variant_id could cut manual reconciliation, but the shop still needs a count schedule, because a system figure is only as accurate as the receipts and adjustments entered into it. Then take the entry-plan row from the pricing table, multiply its monthly figure by 12, add setup hours at your own rate, and compare totals.

Choosing by situation

Match the row to how you work this month, not how you hope to work in two years. If two rows fit, pick the one whose billing basis you can read most clearly on its own page.

Common mistakes

• Comparing per-user prices with per-organization prices as if they were the same unit.

• Assuming a free plan covers production. Katana's free tier is capped by SKU count and names Shopify as its only e-commerce integration.

• Buying an item tracker when you need bills of materials, or buying MRP when you only count and scan.

• Missing the first-year terms on a discounted plan.

• Skipping the export test. Confirm you can take your full history out in a usable format before you commit.

• Letting automation approve purchases or stock adjustments without a human check.

Decision checklist

1. Do you build from bills of materials, or resell finished goods?

2. How many people edit stock, and does the price rise with each one?

3. Which accounting and sales systems must connect, and does the vendor's page list them?

4. Does the vendor publish the figure you need, or is it quote-based?

5. Can you export your full count and transaction history if you leave?

6. Who runs the count each month, and who approves adjustments?

Frequently asked questions

Is inventory software worth it for one person who makes products?

Yes, once stock counts drive your buying decisions; if you make only a few products and buy most components finished, a simple item tracker is usually enough.

Which paid plan in the table has the lowest price?

Among paid plans in the table, Sortly's Advanced plan shows the lowest figure, but only in year one, so compare year-two costs before you choose.

Can Katana's free plan run production?

Only if your catalog fits under its SKU cap and your sales run through Shopify, the only e-commerce integration the page names for that plan.

Do I need an MRP tool or an item tracker?

If you build from materials, you need bills of materials and work orders; if you resell finished goods, an item tracker with purchase orders is usually enough.

Should I automate reorders?

Automate the drafts and alerts, but keep purchase approval and stock adjustments with a person.

When NOT to use US Tech Automations: skip it if one inventory tool already sends the reorder alerts you need, if your catalog is small enough to count on one sheet, or if your real bottleneck is production scheduling rather than data handoffs. In those cases, a simpler tracker or the inventory tool's own alerts will do the job without another system to maintain.

Picking one this week

Start with the pricing table and the feature matrix, then read the manufacturing section of the one or two vendors you shortlisted before any sales call. Ask for quote-based figures in writing. If you want the approval and alert steps configured instead of built from scratch, see how US Tech Automations configures this and list what it would need from your current tools.