Inventory Management Software for Small Business in 2026: Free, Open-Source and Paid Tools

The right inventory management software for a small business depends on what you count and where the stock moves. Zoho Inventory suits online sellers who want orders, purchasing and sales channels in one product with a free plan. Sortly suits teams that mainly need counts, photos and barcode scans, and Katana suits small makers who track materials as well as finished goods. InvenTree and ERPNext are the open-source routes for owners willing to host their own system.

This guide leaves out enterprise ERP suites and groups the picks by job: simple counts, selling in person, orders and purchasing, making things, and free or open-source tools. It flags which options have a free plan and which are free to self-host, since that is often the first filter. For the categories nearby, see the ERP category and the guides for retail, ecommerce and manufacturing.

What a small business should check before buying inventory software

Two questions decide the shortlist faster than any feature grid.

What are you counting, and does it get assembled or only resold?

If you buy and resell, you need stock levels, purchase orders and reorder alerts. If you assemble, brew, sew or build, you also need bills of materials, so selling one item removes its parts. inFlow splits its plans for this reason: Inventory for stock and orders, Manufacturing for assembly and bills of materials, and Stockroom for scan-in and scan-out control. Katana describes production alongside stock, and inFlow's Manufacturing tier adds it. Zoho Inventory lists composite items, and Sortly tracks parts, raw materials and tools without a production workflow in its description.

Where does stock change: a shop till, an online store or a supplier?

Counts go stale when sales happen somewhere the tool cannot see. Zoho Inventory lists Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce and accounting links to Zoho Books, QuickBooks Online and Xero. Katana lists Shopify, Amazon and QuickBooks Online. Fishbowl integrates closely with QuickBooks and Xero. Square keeps inventory inside the register for in-person sales, which removes the sync question if the till is your main channel.

If you already use accounting software, see the free accounting software and QuickBooks alternatives guides for what each connects to.

How Enlisted picked these tools

Each tool tracks stock for a business of modest size, according to its own description in Enlisted, and has a published pricing model or a way to try it. Tools aimed at large enterprises, IT asset tracking or logistics providers were left out. The list mixes hosted products with open-source tools you run yourself. For how listings are scored, see how Enlisted ranks tools.

Best inventory tracking software for simple counts and barcodes

Sortly: best visual stock counts for small teams

Sortly is hosted inventory tracking software built around photos and folders, so each item has a picture and sits in a folder that mirrors a physical location. Its site lists an in-app barcode and QR code scanner, low-stock and date-based alerts, custom fields and a mobile app that works offline.

It is aimed at small businesses, contractors, facilities and teams that need to know what they have and where, without an ERP. It also covers supplies, parts, raw materials and tools.

• Best for: contractors, small retailers and facilities teams counting stock by location.
• Watch out for: its pages describe counting and alerts, not purchase orders or sales channels, so confirm those if you sell online. The free plan is capped by items and users. See Sortly on Enlisted.

Best inventory software for small businesses that sell in person

Square Point of Sale: best when the register should hold the stock

Square Point of Sale is the register and payments product from Square, with tailored setups for food and beverage, retail and service businesses. Its software covers payments, orders, inventory tracking, appointments, invoices, an online store and staff scheduling, and Square sells matching hardware.

Square Free has no monthly fee, and card processing fees apply on top. Its paid tiers are priced per location.

• Best for: shops and cafes that want stock levels updated as sales are rung up.
• Watch out for: the inventory sits inside a POS, so deeper needs such as purchase orders, bills of materials or warehouse bins should be checked against its pricing and feature pages. See Square Point of Sale on Enlisted, and the POS system for small business guide.

TinyPOS: best offline stock and sales for stalls and pop-ups

TinyPOS is an offline-first point-of-sale app for iPhone, iPad and Android that turns a phone into a register for kiosks, market stalls, pop-up shops and coffee carts. It scans barcodes and QR codes with the camera, keeps prices, photos, codes and quantities in stock, flags low items and prints or shares receipts.

An end-of-day report summarizes totals, payment methods and top sellers, and no account is required to start. Enlisted lists it as freemium.

• Best for: solo sellers who track daily stock and sales on a phone.
• Watch out for: its description covers a single selling point, with no mention of purchase orders, suppliers or several locations. See TinyPOS on Enlisted.

Best inventory software for orders, purchasing and online selling

Zoho Inventory: best free plan for small online sellers

Zoho Inventory is cloud inventory and order management software from Zoho for small businesses, retailers, ecommerce sellers, manufacturers and dropshippers. It tracks stock across locations and links purchasing, sales and shipping in one workflow.

Its listed features include purchase orders, multi-warehouse management with transfers and bin locations, backorders and dropshipping, item groups and composite items, serial and batch tracking, barcode generation and scanning, low-stock alerts with reorder points and multichannel sales orders. It lists Shopify, Etsy and WooCommerce, accounting links, iOS and Android apps and a free plan.

• Best for: small online sellers and retailers who want orders, purchasing and stock together.
• Watch out for: the free plan is limited by orders, users and locations, and paid tiers are priced per organization, so check which plan includes the features you need. See Zoho Inventory on Enlisted.

inFlow Inventory: best step up from spreadsheets with optional manufacturing

inFlow Inventory is a commercial inventory and order management product for small businesses, particularly those relying on spreadsheets or stuck on an expensive ERP. It is a Canadian company, and its plans are available in Canadian dollars.

Features include barcoding, fulfillment, sales and invoicing, purchasing and receiving, mobile access, reporting and a B2B portal, and hardware such as a smartphone scanner and a portable label printer is sold alongside. Its use cases include wholesale, asset tracking, field service and warehouses.

• Best for: small wholesalers and installers leaving spreadsheets who may later add assembly.
• Watch out for: there is no free plan, only a free trial, and a one-time onboarding package may be required. See inFlow Inventory on Enlisted.

Fishbowl: best for QuickBooks and Xero users who need stronger stock control

Fishbowl is commercial inventory and manufacturing software whose products integrate closely with accounting packages such as QuickBooks and Xero. It targets small and mid-sized businesses that need stronger stock control, warehousing and production than their accounting software provides.

Its lineup includes Fishbowl Manufacturing, Fishbowl Inventory and a Commerce Suite with ecommerce capabilities, plus AI analytics and integrated payments.

• Best for: businesses already on QuickBooks or Xero that have outgrown basic inventory features.
• Watch out for: Enlisted lists no free plan or trial, and its separate Advanced platform is quoted by users and deployment, so confirm which product you are pricing. See Fishbowl on Enlisted.

Best inventory software for small makers and wholesalers

Katana: best for makers selling through Shopify

Katana is hosted inventory and manufacturing software for small makers and product businesses, giving a real-time view of available stock, items in production and materials to buy.

It covers inventory, manufacturing with work orders and costs, purchasing, order management with channel syncing and warehousing, plus batch and serial tracking with expiry dates. It lists Shopify, Amazon, QuickBooks Online and HubSpot integrations. A free plan exists with a cap on SKUs and unlimited users.

• Best for: small product makers who track materials, production and orders together.
• Watch out for: the free plan is limited by SKUs, and unlimited SKUs need a paid plan. If you only resell finished goods, the manufacturing side may go unused. See Katana on Enlisted.

Cin7: best for wholesalers and brands selling across channels and warehouses

Cin7 is a commercial cloud inventory management product positioned as a small business ERP. It brings stock control, purchasing, warehouse management, EDI and third-party logistics connections together for businesses that sell across several channels and warehouses.

There are two main products, Cin7 Core and the more customizable Cin7 Omni, and add-ons include demand forecasting, embedded payments and a B2B portal for wholesale buyers. Integrations cover QuickBooks Online, Xero, Shopify, Amazon, WooCommerce and ShipStation.

• Best for: wholesalers, brands using several warehouses and retailers moving off spreadsheets.
• Watch out for: Enlisted lists no free plan, only a free trial, with a set number of users on each plan and Omni quoted on request. A shop with a short product list may find it more than it needs. See Cin7 on Enlisted.

Best free and open-source inventory management software for small business

Free to self-host does not mean free to run. You need a server or a hosted plan, someone to apply updates and a plan for backups. In return, there is no per-user licence and you keep the data.

InvenTree: best open-source stock control for workshops and makers

InvenTree is an open-source inventory management system for low-level stock control and part tracking, under the MIT licence. Its backend is Python and Django with a web admin interface and a REST API, and a plugin system supports custom extensions.

It targets makers, electronics teams and small manufacturers that need to know which parts they have and where they are stored. The server supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB and SQLite databases with Redis for caching.

• Best for: workshops and small manufacturers tracking components and storage locations.
• Watch out for: it is a parts and stock system, not a sales or invoicing tool, and you will host it yourself. See InvenTree on Enlisted.

ERPNext: best open-source ERP when stock is one part of the business

ERPNext is a free, open-source ERP built on the Frappe framework under GPL-3.0, with modules for accounting, inventory and order management, manufacturing, assets and projects.

The software is free to self-host, and Frappe Cloud offers hosted plans that are not charged per user. That suits a business that wants invoices, stock and accounts in one place.

• Best for: small businesses that want one system for stock, sales and accounting.
• Watch out for: an ERP has more to configure than a stock tracker, so budget setup time. See ERPNext on Enlisted, or the NetSuite alternatives guide if you are weighing larger systems.

Odoo: best modular open-source suite that starts with one app

Odoo is a bundle of browser-based, open-source business applications covering sales, eCommerce, inventory and manufacturing, point of sale, accounting, projects and HR. Each app can be used alone, or several can be combined as an ERP.

One app is free for unlimited users, and hosted plans are priced per user per month. Odoo can be self-hosted, and the Custom plan allows on-premise hosting.

• Best for: businesses that want to begin with inventory and add sales or accounting later.
• Watch out for: GitHub lists the licence as "Other", so read the repository for exact terms before you build on it. See Odoo on Enlisted.

Dolibarr: best self-hosted ERP and CRM with simple installers

Dolibarr is an open-source ERP and CRM web application under GPL-3.0 for contacts, suppliers, quotes, invoices, orders, stock, accounting, human resources and manufacturing. It targets small and medium companies, foundations and freelancers.

Installation options include DoliWamp for Windows, DoliDeb for Debian and Ubuntu, a Docker image and a manual setup on Apache or Nginx. Commercial support is available from partners.

• Best for: small businesses that want invoicing and stock control in one self-hosted package.
• Watch out for: stock is one module among many, so depth is lighter than a dedicated inventory product. See Dolibarr on Enlisted.

Open Source POS: best free register with stock for a small shop

Open Source Point of Sale is a web-based register written in PHP that stores data in MySQL or MariaDB. Its features include stock management for items and kits, a sale register with transaction logging, quotations and invoicing, VAT and GST support, barcode generation, customer and supplier databases and reports on sales and inventory.

• Best for: small shops that want a free self-hosted till with stock reporting.
• Watch out for: GitHub lists the licence as "Other", so check the terms, and expect to host it yourself. See Open Source POS on Enlisted.

Tools that look like inventory software but track something else

Some results turn up for "inventory" and solve a different problem. Snipe-IT tracks IT assets and software licences. Shelf.nu tracks equipment and assets with QR tags and bookings. Pallet gives each one-of-a-kind item a QR code, photo and shelf location, which suits resellers of unique pieces rather than stocked lines.

Which inventory software should a small business choose?

• You count stock and need a free start: Sortly or Zoho Inventory, each with a capped free plan.
• You sell in person: Square Point of Sale, or TinyPOS for a stall.
• You sell online or wholesale: Zoho Inventory, inFlow, Fishbowl or Cin7, depending on your accounting package and channels.
• You make what you sell: Katana.
• You want free software and have hosting skills: InvenTree for parts, ERPNext, Odoo or Dolibarr for a whole back office.
• You already use a shop platform: read the best ecommerce platforms guide for what inventory is built in.