Free inventory management software for small business

If you sell from one site, with one person on stock and under 50 sales orders a month, Zoho Inventory Free is the usable free tier as of October 2026. It costs USD 0 and caps you at 50 orders, 50 invoices, 20 purchase orders, 20 bills, one user, and one location. Sortly Free tracks up to 100 unique items for one user, which suits tools and jobs more than sales orders. Square Free suits a store already on Square payments, with purchase orders held on Plus. Odoo One App Free is the free cloud plan with unlimited users, if Inventory is the only app.

Square Plus, the first paid retail step on that path, is USD 49 per location per month in the United States and CAD 79 per location per month in Canada, as of October 2026. Once a cap breaks, put the paid plan beside hours times your own loaded rate. Either number can be the larger one. The sections below use each vendor's own October 2026 page for the cap, the price, and the first paid step.

What each free plan allows as of October 2026

Roundup pages tend to flatten these products into one free row. A seasonal document spike is a Zoho limit: the free plan's 50 orders, 50 invoices, 20 purchase orders, and 20 bills reset monthly, and they are not a SKU cap. Sortly Free counts unique items and active jobs. The Square and Odoo pages used here do not publish an order cap. Prices below are as of October 2026. Zoho prices are USD and exclusive of local taxes. Zoho's Canada pricing page has a CAD selector, but that page still showed USD amounts, so this table does not convert Zoho or Odoo into Canadian dollars. Odoo Standard is not a single list price: the pricing page shows USD 24.90, USD 31.10, and USD 38.90 per user per month, with the discount described as valid for 12 months for the initial users ordered.

• Zoho Inventory Free (Price: USD 0 per organization · Who can log in: 1 user · Places or items: 1 location · Document cap: 50 orders, 50 invoices, 20 purchase orders, 20 bills per month · What stays off the free plan: Serial and batch tracking, barcode generation, and stock counting appear on Premium, not on the free blurb · First paid step: Standard at USD 29 per organization per month billed annually, or USD 39 billed monthly. Documents: 500 orders, 500 invoices, 300 purchase orders, 300 bills. Users: 3. Locations: 2)
• Sortly Free (Price: USD 0 per month · Who can log in: 1 user license · Places or items: 100 unique items, 2 active jobs · Document cap: Order cap not on the pricing page; quantities of one item do not count as extra items · What stays off the free plan: Purchase orders first appear on Ultra · First paid step: Advanced at USD 49 per month, or USD 24 per month in year one on a yearly plan billed at USD 288)
• Square for Retail Free (US) (Price: USD 0 per location per month, plus card fees · Who can log in: User cap not on the pricing page · Places or items: Per location fee · Document cap: Order cap not on the pricing page · What stays off the free plan: Inventory management, stock intake, vendor and purchase order management, and COGS reporting are placed under Plus · First paid step: Plus at USD 49 per location per month)
• Square for Retail Free (Canada) (Price: CAD 0 per month, plus card fees · Who can log in: User cap not on the pricing page · Places or items: Per location once you pay · Document cap: Order cap not on the pricing page · What stays off the free plan: Inventory counting, bulk intake, barcode label printing, purchase orders, vendor management, and COGS are marked not included · First paid step: Plus at CAD 79 per location per month)
• Odoo One App Free (Price: USD 0 · Who can log in: Unlimited users on Odoo Online · Places or items: One app on Odoo Online · Document cap: Order cap not on the pricing page · What stays off the free plan: A second installed app moves the database to Standard. Dependency apps of the one app stay free · First paid step: Standard, per user, all apps, on Odoo Online)
• Odoo Community (Price: USD 0 to download · Who can log in: You host it · Places or items: Your own server · Document cap: No vendor order cap · What stays off the free plan: Hosting, support, and version upgrades are not listed as included. Mobile apps are listed only under Enterprise · First paid step: Odoo Enterprise or Odoo Online Standard)

Zoho's free caps and the free-plan mention of composite items, dropshipment, and backordering are on the pricing comparison. Standard, Premium, and the annual add-ons are on Zoho Inventory pricing. Sortly's item, user, and job caps are on Sortly pricing. US Square fees are on Square retail pricing for the US. Canada's included and excluded inventory tools are on Square retail pricing for Canada. One App Free and the per-user figures are on Odoo pricing. Community downloads are on the Odoo download page.

For a single-site distributor or light manufacturer under those Zoho document caps, with one clerk, the free Zoho plan is enough to leave the spreadsheet. It is the wrong default if two people must post receipts on the same day.

Which free plan matches how you track stock

Owners in this size band rarely start by asking for a warehouse management suite. The request sounds like the post titled "Best Free/Cheap Inventory Software for Keeping Track of Items?": "Looking for a software intended for small companies to help keep track of inventory and its location." A tool crib and a sales counter are two different free products, and the plan limits below follow that split.

Zoho Inventory Free, when orders are the unit of work

Use Zoho Inventory Free when the workflow is sales orders, invoices, purchase orders, and bills, and the whole month fits inside 50, 50, 20, and 20. The free blurb lists composite items, dropshipment, and backordering. Premium, at USD 79 per organization per month billed annually (USD 99 billed monthly), is the plan whose feature list adds serial number tracking, batch tracking, barcode generation, and stock counting. If you need lots or serials this season, free Zoho is the wrong stop even when the order count is tiny.

Standard is the first step past the free caps: 500 orders, 500 invoices, 300 purchase orders, 300 bills, 3 users, and 2 locations. Further up the same price list, Plus is USD 129 per organization per month billed annually (USD 159 monthly) for 7,500 orders, 10 users, and 6 locations, and Enterprise is USD 249 billed annually (USD 299 monthly) for 15,000 orders, 10 users, and 10 locations. Annual add-ons are USD 7.50 per extra user per month, USD 7.50 per extra block of 500 orders per month, and USD 10 per extra location per month.

A company that only breaks the free plan by adding a second and third user can sit on Standard without buying user add-ons, because Standard already includes 3 users. The USD 7.50 annual user add-on starts at the fourth user on Standard, the sixth on Premium, and the eleventh on Plus or Enterprise.

Sortly Free, when the question is where the item is

Sortly Free is a count of unique items, users, and active jobs: 100, 1, and 2. A bin of 40 identical drills is still one unique item. That matches a contractor or a shop tracking deployed gear. It does not match a business whose pain is sales orders and vendor bills, because purchase orders are not on the free plan. Ultra is the first listed plan that includes purchase orders: USD 149 per month, or USD 74 per month in the first-year yearly offer billed at USD 888 per year, with 2,000 unique items and 5 users.

Advanced, the first paid Sortly step, is USD 49 per month, or USD 24 per month for the first year when you pay USD 288 up front, with 500 unique items, 2 users, and 5 active jobs. Sortly says the 50 percent discount applies only to the first year of new subscriptions, and that a 20 percent discount applies to yearly plans after that. The page does not print the year-two dollar amount. Before you choose annual, have the renewal price shown on the order form.

Premium is USD 299 per month, or USD 149 per month in the first-year yearly offer billed at USD 1,788 per year, with 5,000 unique items and 8 users. Read Sortly as an item catalog with jobs, and read Zoho as an order ledger. Treating those as the same job is how teams buy the wrong cap.

Square Free, when the till is already Square

Square Free has no monthly subscription. You pay processing. In the US, in-person card-present pricing on the retail page is 2.6% + 15 cents on Free, 2.5% + 15 cents on Plus, and 2.4% + 15 cents on Premium. Online card payments are 3.3% + 30 cents on Free and 2.9% + 30 cents on Plus and Premium. Plus and Premium each offer a 30-day trial. Premium is USD 149 per location per month, and the US page places cross-location returns and transfer orders under Premium.

In Canada, Free in-person processing for major credit cards is 2.5 percent, plus 0.75% + 7 cents for debit chip-and-PIN or tap, and 2.8% + 30 cents online. Plus lists a 2.45 percent in-person credit-card rate when you are signed in to Square for Retail Plus. Canada's comparison is the clearer inventory matrix: counting, bulk intake, barcode label printing, purchase order management, vendor management, and cost of goods sold are marked not included on Free and included on Plus. The US page is looser. It places inventory management and stock intake, vendor and purchase order management, and cost of goods sold and inventory reporting under the Plus description. Treat purchase orders and cycle counts as Plus features in both countries, and confirm barcode behavior on your own Square account if you only have the US plan text. Shoppers ask the question outright: "Can I use Barcodes with Square Retail Free version". The Canada matrix is the published answer on labels: printing barcode labels is a Plus item.

Square Free is rational for a single counter that lives inside Square payments and can live without purchase orders. It is a weak inventory system for a 20-person wholesaler, because each extra location is its own subscription once you leave Free, and the inventory work sits on Plus.

Odoo One App Free, when several people must touch stock

One App Free is USD 0 for one app and unlimited users on Odoo Online. An app's required dependency apps stay free. Installing additional applications moves the database to Standard. That is the practical line for a product company: Inventory alone can stay on the free cloud plan, and adding Sales, Purchase, or Accounting is the moment the bill becomes per user.

Odoo describes a paying user as someone with backend access to create, view, or edit documents, or an employee record with no linked user. Portal users such as customers and suppliers are not paying users. A light user is listed at USD 8.90, and the capabilities on the pricing page include Inventory Barcode Operator. Standard and Custom include all apps for one fee, including Inventory, plus unlimited support, hosting, and maintenance on the terms of the pricing page. Odoo Online storage is described as unmetered up to 100 GB. Odoo.sh hosting, implementation services, and maintenance of custom code are not included.

On 5 October 2026 the pricing page shows Standard as USD 24.90 alongside USD 31.10 per user per month, and also USD 38.90 per user per month. Custom is shown as USD 49.00 alongside USD 61.00 and USD 76.20 per user per month. Use the figure your quote locks for the initial users, and ask what those users pay in month 13. The same pricing FAQ says the free plan allows multiple companies and that Studio can be the free app, and also says that installing Studio or adding companies switches the database to Custom. Confirm both points with Odoo before you design a second company on a free database. Do not treat that FAQ as settled.

Fit Small Business tells a narrower case in one line worth keeping: "If you only need a spreadsheet for basic stock counts, start with our free inventory workbook. If you need live inventory tracking, low-stock alerts, barcode scanning, integrations, or sales syncing, continue to the software." For a 10 to 40 person product business, the live-tracking case is the usual one.

What a second person or a second building does to the bill

Free fails a team in three documented places, and they often arrive together in the same quarter.

1. A second person needs to receive, pick, or adjust. Zoho Inventory Free and Sortly Free are both one user. The day a buyer and a warehouse lead both need a login, the free plan is finished, even if orders are at 20.
2. A second building, truck stock point, or store ends Zoho Inventory Free, which includes one location. Standard covers that second location, because Standard includes 2 locations. The USD 10 per location per month add-on on annual billing applies from the third location on Standard. A second US store on Square Plus is another USD 49 per month, and a second Canada store on Plus is another CAD 79 per month.
3. The month crosses 50 Zoho orders or 20 Zoho purchase orders. The cap resets monthly. A calm catalog and a loud season still force an upgrade, or a return to the sheet for the overflow.

That third point is the mid-season risk. SKU count is not the Zoho free limit. Order count, bill count, user count, and location count are. A company that is fine in March can be blocked in November without adding a single new product.

When reconciliation hours cost more than the subscription

The subscription is the visible number. The other number is the time spent making the free tool agree with the sheet, the inbox, and the bank. Use your own loaded hourly cost for the person who does the matching. The formula is hours per month times that cost, compared with the cheapest paid plan that removes the reason for the hours.

Assume a wholesaler that has outgrown Zoho Inventory Free only because the month now runs 80 to 120 orders, still in one location, with the owner and one clerk both touching stock. Two users fit inside Standard's 3 included users. The order count does not fit inside 50. The paid floor is Standard at USD 29 per organization per month billed annually, which is USD 348 per year, before taxes and before add-ons. Billed monthly, the same plan is USD 39, or USD 468 per year. If those two people spend 3 hours each per week matching the app to a spreadsheet, a four-week month is 24 hours. Multiply 24 by the loaded hourly cost you pay that person, and compare the product with USD 29. When that product is larger than Standard, the free plan is the expensive option. When it is smaller, and you are still inside the document caps, a tighter spreadsheet can still be the cheaper control, which is the case the Fit Small Business line makes for basic stock counts.

A fourth Zoho user changes the arithmetic. Standard's 3 users plus one annual add-on is USD 29 plus USD 7.50, so USD 36.50 per month before taxes. A third location on that plan is another USD 10, because Standard includes 2 locations and each extra location is USD 10 per month on annual billing.

Five backend users are a separate comparison, for when inventory plus sales, purchasing, or accounting all need full users. Assume those five people have backend access and no light users. At the displayed USD 31.10 per user, 5 users are USD 155.50 per month. At the displayed USD 24.90, the same 5 users are USD 124.50 per month. At the displayed USD 38.90, they are USD 194.50 per month. The discount note on the pricing page is 12 months for the initial users ordered, so a one-year budget should state which of those figures the quote uses, and a second-year budget should not assume the lowest figure survives. Five light users at USD 8.90 would be USD 44.50 per month, but only if their work fits the light-user list, which includes Inventory Barcode Operator and is narrower than full backend access.

Square's comparison is per location plus the processing gap. Assume one US store and USD 40,000 a month of in-person card sales. The Free rate is 2.6% + 15 cents. The Plus rate is 2.5% + 15 cents. The percentage gap is 0.1 point, or USD 40 a month on that volume, before the per-transaction 15 cents, which is the same on both plans in this example. Plus also costs USD 49 per location. On percentage fees alone, Plus does not pay for itself at USD 40,000 of in-person volume: you pay USD 49 to save about USD 40, and you are buying the inventory features that Free does not put on the plan. Run your own mix, including online tickets at 3.3% + 30 cents on Free versus 2.9% + 30 cents on Plus. In Canada, do this in CAD against Plus at CAD 79 per location, using 2.5 percent in-person on major credit cards for Free and the 2.45 percent Plus rate when signed in to Plus. Debit at 0.75% + 7 cents sits on top of the credit-card line for Free and should be in the same worksheet if debit is a large share of tenders.

If purchase orders, inventory, and accounting all have to live together, another free tier is the wrong next search. The comparison is Zoho's paid inventory plan against Odoo Standard's per-user fee, or a phased rollout. Our Odoo implementation for growing product companies is scoped in phases so inventory does not wait on every other app. For license math before that conversation, the Odoo pricing calculator applies the current user prices to the roles you have.

What Odoo Community leaves you to run yourself

Odoo Community and Odoo One App Free are different offers. Community is the open-source edition. Enterprise is the licensed edition. Odoo says Community is the core Enterprise is built on, and that a database can switch versions. Installers for Community 18, 19, and 20 are offered for Windows, Ubuntu/Debian, RPM, and source with no subscription code. The download page lists the mobile application only under Enterprise. You can download Community at no subscription fee. You also take on the server, the backups, and the upgrades, because those are not listed as included with the download.

The editions comparison lists Inventory on both Community and Enterprise, and it lists Barcode as a line under Inventory. Treat barcode scanning, hosting, version upgrades, and support as unconfirmed on Community until you see each one working on a Community database you control. The Odoo Inventory module page on our site is about how inventory is implemented when you are ready for a supported rollout. Odoo's own inventory feature page describes locations, multi-warehouse, reordering rules, lots and serial numbers, FIFO, AVCO, and standard costing, landed costs, and barcode scanning. That page markets Inventory as a product. It does not say which of those features exist in Community, in Enterprise, or in One App Free. Have each one demonstrated on the edition you will run.

Barcode has its own documentation for Odoo 19. The Barcode app documentation describes assigning barcodes to products and packagings and driving receipts, deliveries, and adjustments from a scanner, including GS1 nomenclature. The page does not state the edition. A light user on a paid Odoo Online plan can be an Inventory Barcode Operator at USD 8.90. That is a licensing fact on the pricing page, and it is separate from whether Community includes the Barcode app.

One App Free stays the better default when you want Odoo to host Inventory for an unlimited number of users and you can postpone every other app. Community is the better default when a technical owner wants the code on their own server and accepts that hosting and support are their problem. Neither one is Enterprise. Moving a Community database to a paid Odoo Online plan, or installing a second app on One App Free, is a project with a cutoff date. Schedule that move while order volume is ordinary. A seasonal peak is a poor week to change the database.

What to do if you outgrow the tool in the busy month

The failure mode is specific. The free Zoho counter hits 50 orders on a Thursday in peak week. The second user still has no license. Someone exports a CSV, the sheet becomes the live book, and the app becomes a partial copy. Returns and receipts then land in whichever file was open. That is how on-hand quantity drifts, and how a picker promises stock the shelf does not hold.

Treat the upgrade as a planned cutover, even if the trigger is a cap you hit early.

1. Write down the cap you are about to hit: users, locations, monthly orders, purchase orders, or unique items. Size the next plan for the peak month, with room above that peak.
2. Export products, on-hand quantities, open purchase orders, and open sales orders while you can still log in. Keep a dated file the whole team agrees not to edit after the cutoff hour.
3. Pick the paid tier that removes the cap, and sign it before the peak if you can. For Zoho, that is at least Standard at USD 29 per organization per month on annual billing once orders pass 50. For a second Sortly user or more than 100 unique items, that is at least Advanced. For purchase orders in Sortly, jump to Ultra, because Advanced's published limits are items, users, and jobs. For Square, Plus is the inventory step, at USD 49 per US location or CAD 79 per Canadian location. For Odoo, a second app means Standard at whatever per-user figure your quote locks, times backend users.
4. Freeze adjustments on the old file at a clock time. Receive and ship only in the new plan after that time. Recount the fast movers the same day.
5. If the new plan is Odoo and you also need purchasing and accounting, book the work as a phase. We plan that first inventory phase so a team can receive and ship in 8 to 12 weeks. License fees are a separate line from that phase. Ask for a scope priced from your item master and your open orders.

Companies that need purchasing, receiving, and stock in more than one node should look at supply chain implementation for smaller product businesses at the same time as the license. The license gives you the app. The phase decides which documents move first so receiving and shipping in the busy month land in the new system.

How to choose the paid step without another logo list

Score the options against your own month, on paper, before anyone demos a catalog.

If you sell, count orders, invoices, purchase orders, and bills. Zoho's free plan ends at 50, 50, 20, and 20 per month. If you track assets, count unique items and active jobs. Sortly Free ends at 100 and 2. If you take cards at a counter, start from Square's per-location price plus your processing, and price stock features after that.

One login is how Zoho Free and Sortly Free are built, and it stops a team. Odoo One App Free is the exception on user count, and the stop there is the second app. One location is included on Zoho Free. A second Square location is a second fee once you are on Plus. Multi-warehouse language on a marketing page still has to be shown on your edition.

Serials, batches, and stock counting are on Zoho Premium's feature list, at USD 79 per organization per month billed annually, and they are absent from the free plan. If a recall or an expiry date is part of this year's work, start on the plan that lists them. Use CAD 79 for Square Plus in Canada and USD 49 in the United States. Leave Zoho and Odoo in USD until the vendor's own quote shows a Canadian amount. Taxes are extra on Zoho.

Then compare two yearly totals. First total: the paid plan that clears peak month, plus add-ons, plus your processing if you use Square. Second total: hours you still spend reconciling, times your loaded rate. If the second total is larger, pay for the plan. If you need several apps and several backend users, put Odoo Standard's three displayed rates next to Zoho Premium or Plus and include the price after the 12-month discount window, not only month one.

For a wider shortlist once inventory is no longer the only module, read our guide to the best ERP for a small business and the notes on right-sizing an ERP for a small business. The decision in those pieces is the same one this page keeps narrow: match the system to headcount, sites, and document volume, and buy the phase you can run.

A free plan is the right operating system only while its published cap covers your peak month, your second user, and your second site. The moment one of those three is false, price the paid step from the vendor page, put your own hourly cost beside it, and move before the busy week forces the spreadsheet back into the middle of the process.

How Flectic can help

Flectic implements Odoo one app at a time on a single database, starting with the apps that remove the most manual work. Core operations (four to six apps, a basic data import, up to 25 users) has a planning range of $6,000 to $30,000, not a quote. Read the Odoo implementation scope to see when a paid step makes sense, then Book a free discovery call with Flectic.

Sources

• Inventory Plans and Pricing, Zoho, October 2026
• Pricing Comparison, Zoho, October 2026
• Zoho Inventory pricing (Canada URL), Zoho, October 2026
• Sortly pricing, Sortly, October 2026
• Retail POS Pricing & Plans, Square, October 2026
• Pricing | Retail Point of Sale (Canada), Square, October 2026
• Odoo Pricing, Odoo, October 2026
• Compare Editions, Odoo, October 2026
• Download Odoo, Odoo, October 2026
• Odoo Inventory features, Odoo, October 2026
• Barcode, Odoo 19.0 documentation, Odoo, October 2026
• Best Free Inventory Management Software for 2026, Fit Small Business, June 2026
• Best Free/Cheap Inventory Software for Keeping Track of Items?, Reddit r/smallbusiness, accessed October 2026
• Can I use Barcodes with Square Retail Free version, Square Community, accessed October 2026