Looking for a Zoho Inventory alternative? Zoho Inventory prices by orders per month. That works for a big catalog with few orders. It stops working when order volume grows, or when you don't use the rest of Zoho.
Why businesses leave Zoho Inventory
- Order caps. The free plan covers 50 orders a month, 1 user and 1 location. Standard ($29/mo, billed annually) covers 500 orders, 3 users, 2 locations. Premium ($79) 3,000 orders.
- Features on higher tiers. Barcode generation, stock counting, serial number and batch tracking start on Premium.
- Ecosystem. Zoho Inventory is strongest next to Zoho Books and Zoho CRM. Outside that suite, the benefit shrinks.
- Annual-billing prices. Zoho publishes its prices as billed annually; monthly-billing prices are not shown on the pricing page (checked 13 Oct 2026).
Source: https://www.zoho.com/us/inventory/pricing/ (checked 13 Oct 2026).
Quick verdict: the best Zoho Inventory alternative by use case
| Use case | Best pick |
|---|---|
| Growing order volume, small team, outside Zoho | StockFlow: paid plans priced by products, not orders |
| Few orders, huge catalog | Stay on Zoho Inventory free |
| Deep purchasing, B2B portal, bigger budget | inFlow Inventory |
| Simple visual item tracking | Sortly |
| Everything in one ERP | Odoo |
Switch from Zoho, start free
Free for up to 25 products · paid plans from $19/mo
Side-by-side scorecard
Checked 13 Oct 2026 on each vendor's official pricing page.
| StockFlow | Zoho Inventory | inFlow Inventory | Sortly | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 25 products, 1 user, 1 warehouse | 50 orders/mo, 1 user, 1 location | None (14-day trial) | 100 items, 1 user |
| Order cap on paid plans | None (orders from Professional) | 500 – 15,000/mo by tier | None (unlimited sales and purchases) | Not order-based |
| Entry paid price (monthly) | $19/mo | $29/mo billed annually | $129/mo | $49/mo |
| Batch/lot tracking | Product expiry dates on every plan; lot numbers on PO receive and production from Professional | From Premium ($79) | Add-on on Lite–Pro ($39/mo) | Not listed as lot tracking on Sortly pricing |
Sources (checked 13 Oct 2026): stockflowsystems.com/pricing; zoho.com/us/inventory/pricing; inflowinventory.com/software-pricing-inflow; sortly.com/pricing.
StockFlow: paid plans priced by products, not orders
StockFlow plans scale with products, users and warehouses, not order volume.
- Starter (free): 25 products, 1 user, 1 warehouse, phone barcode scanning, low stock alerts, CSV import/export, up to 3 BOMs. Note: no sales or purchase orders on Starter.
- Professional ($19/mo): 2,000 products, 5 users, sales and purchase orders, pick lists, stock counts, reports, production module. Priced by products and users, not by order count.
- Business ($39/mo) and Enterprise ($79/mo): 5,000 and 10,000 products, 8and 15 users.
- Extra users $2/mo, extra warehouses $5/mo.
Why teams choose StockFlow
“Super Kind! Quick replies from their support and very easy fixes, changed the dashboard a bit and customized it. Also gave me 450 items extra on the free plan just for me. Highly recommend and again great service!”
- Free forever Starter plan: 25 products, 1 user, 1 warehouse, no credit card
- Up to 3 bills of materials on the free plan; unlimited from $19/mo
- Barcode and QR scanning with a phone camera, no dedicated scanner needed
- 14-day trial of Professional (2,000 products, 5 users) starts at signup
StockFlow vs Zoho Inventory
| Feature | StockFlow | Zoho Inventory |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 25 products, 1 user, 1 warehouse | 50 orders/mo, 1 user, 1 location |
| Paid plans priced by | Products, users, warehouses | Orders, users, locations |
| Entry paid plan | $19/mo (Professional) | $29/mo billed annually (Standard) |
| Barcode generation, stock counts | Scanning free; stock counts from Professional | From Premium ($79/mo billed annually) |
What you gain by switching
- No order cap: the price does not climb as order volume grows
- Phone barcode scanning on the free plan; Zoho starts barcode generation and stock counts on Premium ($79/mo billed annually)
What you give up vs Zoho Inventory
- Zoho's free plan has no product limit; StockFlow's has 25
- Sales orders on the free plan (up to 50/month); StockFlow starts orders on Professional
- Native ties to Zoho Books, CRM and the rest of the Zoho suite
Zoho figures from zoho.com/us/inventory/pricing, checked 13 Oct 2026.
Other alternatives: short reviews
inFlow Inventory: unlimited products, sales and purchases on every plan, strong receiving and B2B portal. No free plan; Lite is $129/mo with 2 team members and 1 location; the $499 onboarding package is optional on Lite and required from Core.
Sortly: photo-and-QR item tracking, priced by items. Free for 100 items; purchase orders from Ultra ($149/mo).
Odoo: one app free for unlimited users; inventory, accounting, CRM and more on paid per-user plans. More setup than a standalone tool.
Moving off Zoho Inventory
- Export items, stock levels, customers and vendors from Zoho as CSV.
- Import into StockFlow (import guide).
- Recreate open purchase orders in StockFlow (Professional and up).
- Accounting: StockFlow pushes period-end stock valuation natively to Octopus; Exact Online and Yuki are in development. Zoho Books, QuickBooks and Xero work via CSV export. Shopify and Square sync natively. See integrations.
How we compared
We looked at how each tool caps growth (orders, products, users, locations), what's free versus gated, and list prices on the vendors' own pricing pages (checked 13 Oct 2026). If you rely on Zoho Books or CRM, a Zoho plan upgrade may be simpler than switching. Full numbers: Zoho Inventory pricing vs StockFlow.
Switch from Zoho, start free
Free for up to 25 products · paid plans from $19/mo