Sortly Review

Sortly is a visual inventory app: every item gets a photo, a folder, a QR or barcode label and a quantity, and the mobile app works offline in a stockroom or a van. For a retailer, the question is not whether it can count boxes. It is what the plan costs after the first-year discount, and whether the item and seat caps fit your catalog.

This review is for shop owners, small warehouses and teams that track equipment or supplies.

Toolradar data: Toolradar, the software directory we run, tracks 176 inventory management tools as of October 17, 2026, and only 27% of them are free, freemium or open source. Sortly sits in the honorable mentions of that ranking, just outside the top 10, as visual inventory tracking for growing businesses.

Toolradar keeps profiles for Sortly and Zoho Inventory.

Methodology: we read the pricing pages of Sortly, Zoho Inventory, inFlow and BoxHero on October 17, 2026, in US dollars, and quote only what each page prints. The renewal figures are our arithmetic on Sortly's printed list prices and discount footnote, labelled as ours.

Sortly is inventory tracking software built around pictures and labels rather than sales orders. You create items with photos, sort them into folders by location, print QR or barcode labels and scan them with a phone to update stock. Low stock alerts, purchase orders and role permissions arrive on the paid tiers.

Sortly is not an order management system. It does not route ecommerce orders from a storefront or reserve stock against them, which is what Zoho Inventory and inFlow do. That makes it a better fit for a stockroom, a tool crib or a small shop that counts what it has than for a store that needs stock to follow every online sale.

Setup starts with an item list. You import a spreadsheet or add items on the phone, attach photos, and create folders for each shelf, room or site. Labels come next: from Advanced, Sortly creates QR code labels you print and stick on bins or products, and scanning one with the app opens the item to adjust its quantity.

The daily routine is scan, adjust and get alerted. Advanced adds low stock alerts so a reorder point triggers a notice, Ultra adds purchase orders to restock from suppliers, and Premium adds role permissions and QuickBooks Online sync.

The plans are capped by unique items, users and custom fields, so a growing catalog pushes you up a tier even if your team does not grow.

Sortly prints five plans on its pricing page. Free covers 1 user and 100 unique items. Advanced lists at $49 a month for 2 users, 500 items and 5 custom fields. Ultra lists at $149 a month for 5 users, 2,000 items and 10 custom fields. Premium lists at $299 a month for 8 users, 5,000 items and 20 custom fields. Enterprise is quoted, from 12 users and 10,000 items, with API and webhooks.

Billed yearly, new customers get 50% off the first year: $288 for Advanced, $888 for Ultra and $1,788 for Premium. The footnote then says a 20% discount applies to yearly plans after the first year, and the FAQ says promotional plans renew at the standard rate. Our arithmetic: Advanced renews at $470.40 a year, Ultra at $1,430.40 and Premium at $2,870.40, so year two costs 60% to 63% more than year one on every tier. Budget for the renewal, not the promotion.

Sortly fits a small team that tracks a few hundred physical items and wants labels and scanning on a phone. Advanced covers 500 items and 2 users, which suits a boutique stockroom, a contractor's equipment or a school's supplies. Free is enough to test the workflow on up to 100 items.

It also fits teams that care more about where an item is than about orders, such as businesses tracking tools, IT assets or event equipment across several sites. Folders by location and photos on every record make audits faster than a spreadsheet.

Skip Sortly if you sell online and need stock to follow each order, or if you need QuickBooks sync on a budget. Order routing is the job of Zoho Inventory or an order management system, and accounting sync only arrives on Sortly's priciest self-serve tier. Stores past 5,000 unique items also hit the Premium cap and move to a quote.