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How Stocksmith compares

Most inventory tools were built either for retailers who buy finished goods, or for factories with a dedicated operations team. If you make things in batches and you're somewhere in between, here's how the options actually stack up.

Popular comparisons

QuickBooks

QuickBooks handles your books brilliantly — it just wasn't built for businesses that make things. No bills of materials, no batch costing, no COGS that calculates itself.

Where QuickBooks stops for manufacturers →

Katana

Katana is capable software built for a shop floor with an ops team. Most small-batch manufacturers pricing it up are looking at $299/mo plus add-on modules for a scheduler they'll never open.

Katana alternatives for small manufacturers →

What Katana users say in reviews

MRPeasy

MRPeasy has real MRP depth, but it bills per user. Once production, purchasing and the books are three different people, you're paying three times for one system.

The per-seat problem, priced out →

Katana vs MRPeasy, head to head

Unleashed

Unleashed is built for distributors with warehouses and B2B price tiers, and priced accordingly. Worth checking whether you'd use the distribution half before paying for it.

The $399/mo question, worked through →

Inventory & multi-channel apps

Shopify Stocky: Shopify retired Stocky on 31 August 2026. If you resell, the built-in tools cover it. If you manufacture, Shopify's replacement has the same gap Stocky did.
What to use now Stocky has shut down →
Zoho Inventory: Strong on orders, warehouses and shipping. Its composite items are a bundling mechanism rather than a costed bill of materials, which is where manufacturers hit the wall.
Where Zoho stops for manufacturers →
Trunk: Trunk syncs stock across channels in real time and does it well. It sits above the layer that knows what your products are made of — which is why some businesses run both.
Sync layer vs system of record →
Sortly: A good visual tracker for assets and supplies — photos, QR codes, offline mode. It tells you what you have, not what it cost to make.
Asset tracking vs manufacturing inventory →
Assemblified: Assemblified covers assembly for Shopify sellers. If you manufacture from raw materials rather than assembling finished components, the gap shows up fast.
Assemblified alternative for manufacturers →
Inventora: The closest thing we have to a direct competitor: real recipes, batch traceability and automatic COGS. The difference is the ceiling on channels, materials and seats.
Same category, different ceilings →
Bake Diary: Bake Diary closed in May 2025. We replace the recipe costing and ingredient side, not the customer order forms, and the page says which is which.
Where to move your bakery →

Accounting & free options

QuickBooks Self-Employed: Closed to new customers and moving to Solopreneur — and neither tracks inventory or COGS. Material purchases get expensed on the day you buy them, which distorts every month.
Why it doesn't fit a product business →
Free & low-cost options: Spreadsheets and free inventory apps genuinely work — right up until you're managing multi-level BOMs and reconciling stock across channels.
Free alternatives, honestly assessed →

What actually separates these tools

Feature tables all start to look the same. In practice, four things decide whether a tool fits a small-batch manufacturer.

Does it understand multi-level BOMs?

Plenty of tools track products. Far fewer track the materials those products are made from — and fewer still handle a component that's itself manufactured from other components.

Does stock move when you manufacture?

Making a batch should deduct the materials and add the finished goods, in one step. If that's a manual adjustment, your numbers drift the moment you get busy.

Is the cost per unit real?

A cost that updates when supplier prices change is a different thing from a number you typed in once. Pricing decisions built on a stale figure are guesses.

What does it cost at your size?

Per-seat pricing scales badly for a small team where several people touch production. Enterprise MRP often means a sales call before you can even see the product.

See it against your own numbers

Comparison pages only get you so far. Load a couple of your real recipes and see what your actual cost per unit looks like.

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