Free inventory software: an honest comparison of 8 options

Rangee is our product; we compared it on public criteria, checked on 1 November 2026.

Free inventory software does exist, but the word ‘free’ hides very different conditions. Some plans stop at 50 orders, others at 100 items. Others still ask you to install a server. This comparison reviews eight options, with their real limits, their entry price and the kind of business each one suits.

If you currently keep your stock in a workbook, start with our guide to inventory management in Excel: it shows how far a spreadsheet can take you.

What does ‘free’ mean for inventory software?

‘Free’ describes three models. A capped free plan, hosted by the vendor and limited on orders, items or users. Open-source software, free to download, which you install and maintain yourself. A free trial, often 14 days long, which ends in a subscription. Only the first two let you work for the long term without paying.

The capped free plan is the simplest, but watch the threshold. A shop that goes past 50 orders leaves Zoho Inventory’s free plan. A collection that grows from 90 to 120 SKUs leaves Sortly’s. At that point you either pay or migrate.

Open-source software has no cap, but it needs a server, backups and updates. For a small business without IT staff, that time counts as much as a subscription.

Which criteria should you compare before choosing?

Seven criteria decide the right tool. The first four are functional: catalogue size, number of users, mobile barcode scanning and multiple warehouses. The other three are often forgotten: purchase orders, hosting and export. A free plan that falls short on just one of these will sooner or later force you to change tools.

The criterion most often forgotten is the number of users. Two of the free plans below accept only one account. You and your storekeeper therefore can’t each work in them with your own login.

For hosting, the vendor’s country matters as much as the server’s. A vendor subject to US law remains subject to that law, even if its servers are in Europe.

Which 8 free inventory tools are compared?

Here are eight options for managing stock without paying, or nearly. Three hosted free plans: Odoo, Zoho Inventory and Sortly. Two open-source packages: Dolibarr and ERPNext. One paid tool with a trial, inFlow. Then a spreadsheet template and a no-code base, Rangee. Each profile gives the free limits, the entry price and the vendor.

Odoo Inventory: the broadest free plan

Odoo offers a ‘One App Free’ plan: a single app with unlimited users, hosted on Odoo Online. If you choose Inventory, you get real inventory software without paying. The Inventory app page lists a scanner for barcodes, QR codes and GS1 codes that works offline.

• Free: one app, unlimited users, hosted on Odoo Online.
• Entry price: Standard plan listed from €19.90 per user per month, with a discount valid for 12 months. The page doesn’t state the billing period for this price.
• Vendor: Odoo, headquartered in Grand-Rosière, Belgium, according to its About us page.
• Strengths: multiple warehouses, min-max replenishment rules, barcodes.
• Limits: according to Odoo’s pricing page, moving to Standard means installing additional apps. Adding a second app, such as Purchase, therefore means paying per user.

Odoo suits a team that wants real inventory software and is willing to pay to connect it to purchasing or invoicing.

Zoho Inventory: free for low sales volumes

Zoho Inventory’s Free plan allows 50 orders, 1 user and 2 locations. The page doesn’t state the period for this cap, whereas the Standard plan mentions 500 orders per month. The Free plan handles composite items, drop shipping and backorders.

• Free: 50 orders, 1 user, 2 locations.
• Entry price: Standard at $29 per organisation per month, billed annually, for 500 orders per month and 2 users.
• Vendor: Zoho, with European data centres in Amsterdam and Dublin.
• Strengths: priced per organisation, not per user.
• Limits: barcode generation appears in the Premium plan, at $129 per month billed annually; only one user on the free plan.

Sortly: stock on your phone, for a small catalogue

Sortly’s Free plan covers 100 unique items, 1 user licence, 2 active tasks and 1 custom field. The limit applies to distinct items, not quantities. Sortly is aimed at tracking items and equipment rather than sales.

• Free: 100 unique items, 1 user.
• Entry price: Advanced at $49 per month at list price. The first year is discounted by 50%, making $288 billed per year, for 500 items and 2 users.
• Vendor: Sortly Inc., San Francisco; terms of service governed by California law.
• Strengths: a mobile app designed for counting on the shop floor; unlimited QR code label creation from the Advanced plan.
• Limits: according to its terms, Sortly stores and processes the personal information of users outside the United States on servers in the United States.

The pricing page mentions neither barcodes nor QR codes among the Free plan’s features, so test them before you choose.

Dolibarr: the French open-source option

Dolibarr is an open-source ERP and CRM, licensed under GPL version 3 or later, according to its official repository. It handles stock and warehouses, stocktaking, lots and serial numbers, supplier purchase orders and goods receipts. It’s free if you install it yourself.

• Free: no limits, when self-hosted.
• Hosted entry price: varies by provider. The official wiki lists Ma Gestion Cloud at €10 excl. VAT per month after 45 free days, whatever the number of users.
• Vendor: the Dolibarr association, founded in 2009 and registered in France.
• Strengths: purchasing, sales and invoicing in the same tool; several of the listed hosting providers are based in France.
• Limits: a server to manage, or a provider to pick from the 18 offers on the wiki; installation and configuration take time.

ERPNext: the complete open-source ERP

ERPNext, published by Frappe, is open-source software; its pricing page presents it under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its Stock module covers the stock ledger, warehouses, and batch and serial number tracking. Its Buying module handles purchase orders. Self-hosting is free.

• Free: no limits, when self-hosted.
• Hosted entry price: Frappe Cloud lists sites from $5 per month, with a 14-day trial. Billing follows usage, not the number of users.
• Vendor: Frappe; the pricing page doesn’t state the country.
• Strengths: a full ERP, from purchasing to accounting, with no per-user billing.
• Limits: a large tool that takes time to learn; the product page doesn’t mention barcodes.

inFlow: no free plan, but a trial

inFlow has no free plan: it offers a 14-day trial with no credit card required, then a subscription. According to its pricing page, the Lite plan costs $99 per month billed annually, or $129 billed monthly.

• Free: 14-day trial.
• Entry price: Lite at $99 per month billed annually, making $1,188 per year, for 2 team members and 1 location. A $499 onboarding fee applies on most plans.
• Vendor: inFlow, which describes itself as Canadian on its home page, with support in Toronto and Lisbon.
• Strengths: unlimited products, sales and purchases, according to the pricing page.
• Limits: at that price, it only makes sense for businesses where stock is already central.

An Excel or Google Sheets template: the free option you already have

A spreadsheet is still the quickest way to start. Microsoft offers free inventory list templates for Excel. They include a warehouse inventory and an inventory list with highlighting. You stay in a familiar tool, with no new account to create.

• Free: yes, with Excel or Google Sheets.
• Strengths: nothing to learn, native export, complete freedom with formulas.
• Limits: no reliable history of who changed what, version conflicts as soon as two people edit, no automatic alerts.

Our article on inventory management in Excel provides a ready-to-use template and shows where it stops.

Rangee: a no-code base, not inventory software

Rangee isn’t inventory management software. It’s a no-code database that turns a spreadsheet into a shared tool. The Free plan allows 1 base, 500 records per base and unlimited users. Import your stock file: smart import turns it into a base and an interface suited to how you use it.

The interface brings together dashboards, lists and records. A form is all each person needs to record their stock in and out. To build the interface, the AI receives only the file’s profile: column names, types and at most 10 sample values.

• Free: 1 base, 500 records per base, 1 GB of attachments, unlimited users, 10 automations per base and 250 runs per month, 5 interfaces. The Free plan doesn’t expire.
• Entry price: Pro at €5 per editor per month; readers and commenters are free.
• Vendor: a French company, with data hosted in the European Union.
• Strengths: separate roles for editors, readers and commenters, revision history, a 30-day trash, form view, the same features on every plan.
• Limits: no barcode scanning with the camera, no ready-made purchase orders or goods receipts, no stock valuation module. The Free plan’s 500 records are shared across all the tables in the base, items and movements included.

Beyond 500 records, your data stays intact: only new records are blocked, with a warning from 80%.

Free inventory software compared side by side

The table below summarises the eight options, checked on the official pages on 1 November 2026. Three criteria settle most cases: the number of users allowed for free, the cap on orders or items, and whether you need to install a server. Dollar prices are those displayed by the vendors, excluding tax.

Of these eight options, Odoo and Rangee are the only hosted free plans that accept several users. Odoo is complete inventory software; Rangee suits a small catalogue you want to share.

Which free inventory software should you pick for your situation?

The right choice depends less on features than on your volume and your team. If you work alone with few orders, a capped free plan is enough. If the whole team records movements, you need unlimited users. To control everything without a subscription, open source is the answer, provided someone can maintain it.

• If you sell online on your own with few orders, go for Zoho Inventory Free.
• If you track around a hundred equipment SKUs on a phone, go for Sortly Free.
• If several people manage real stock with barcodes and warehouses, go for Odoo Inventory’s free plan. Purchasing will move you to Standard.
• If you want stock, purchasing and invoicing without a subscription, with someone to run the server, go for self-hosted Dolibarr or ERPNext.
• If stock is at the heart of your business and the budget allows, try inFlow for 14 days.
• If you have a few dozen items and only one person entering data, stick with an Excel template.
• If your stock fits in a spreadsheet but you want permissions, history and a shared form, try Rangee.

Do you need inventory software or a more flexible tool? If you scan, receive supplier orders and manage several warehouses, choose dedicated software. If stock is only one part of a broader tracking need, a no-code base gives you more freedom.

An example: a workshop that tracks its spare parts, its jobs and its customers in the same workbook. Inventory software will cover the parts, not the jobs. A base links all three tables, at the cost of less specialised stock features.

Which pitfalls should you avoid with a free plan?

Four pitfalls come up again and again: hitting the cap in peak season, a single-user tool, per-user pricing and no way to export. Before entering your catalogue, check what happens beyond the limit and how to get your data back. These points often cost more than a subscription.

The cap. What does the tool do beyond the limit: block new entries, force an upgrade, switch to read-only? With Rangee, beyond the cap, only new records are blocked; nothing is deleted.

The shared account. A single-user plan encourages password sharing. You then lose track of who took what out of stock.

Per-user pricing. It climbs quickly once the whole team views the stock: compare costs for your actual team, readers included. Our analysis of Airtable pricing shows the same effect on no-code bases.

Export. Before entering 500 items, test CSV or Excel export with three records.

If you’re also comparing no-code bases for uses beyond stock, our overview of Airtable alternatives ranks them on the same pricing and hosting criteria.

Try Rangee for your stock

Does your stock already live in an Excel file? Import it into Rangee: smart import turns it into a base and an interface, with dashboards, lists and records. The Free plan doesn’t expire and accepts unlimited users. Your readers and commenters stay free, even on Pro.

Create a free account or see pricing.