Sortly tells you what you have.Not what it cost to make.
Sortly is a genuinely good visual inventory tracker — photos, QR codes, a phone app that works in a storeroom. It's built for knowing where your stuff is. If you buy materials and turn them into products, the question you actually need answered is a different one: what did this batch cost, and how many more can I make?
Heads up: We make Stocksmith, so we're obviously biased. Sortly is well-liked for good reasons and we've said what they are below. There's also a section on when Sortly is the right call and we aren't.
These are two different categories of tool
Worth getting clear on before comparing features, because feature tables hide it.
Sortly is asset and supply tracking
The core idea is a searchable, photographed catalogue of physical things, organised into folders, findable by QR code from your phone. It's used by facilities teams, contractors, medical practices, warehouses and anyone who needs to know where the equipment went.
Everything in Sortly is a thing you have.
Stocksmith is manufacturing inventory
The core idea is a relationship: this product is made of these materials in these quantities. That relationship is what lets the system deduct stock when you make a batch, work out a cost per unit, and tell you how many units your current materials will support.
Everything in Stocksmith is a thing you have or a thing you make from it.
The practical test: if you can describe your product as a list of ingredients or components with quantities, you need the second category, and no amount of photo-tagging in the first one will substitute. If your products arrive finished and you just need to find them, the first category is cheaper and simpler and you should use it.
What Sortly does well
Credit where it's due.
The mobile app is the product
Most inventory software has a web app and a compromised phone version. Sortly is built phone-first, and if your inventory work happens standing up in a storeroom that's a genuine advantage.
Photos and QR codes done properly
Visual catalogues with generated QR labels make finding physical things fast. For a business with lots of similar-looking items in lots of boxes, this solves a real daily annoyance.
Offline mode
You can work without a connection and sync later. If your storage is a basement, a shipping container or a site with no signal, that matters more than any feature list suggests.
It's simple, and stays simple
Sortly doesn't try to be an ERP. You can be set up in an afternoon. That restraint is a feature, and it's why people who need exactly what it does like it so much.
Sortly vs Stocksmith
Where the two overlap, and where they stop.
Sortly
Stocksmith
Item stock levels
✓
✓
Photos & QR labels
✓ Core strength
Photos yes, QR labelling no
Mobile-first app with offline mode
✓ Core strength
— Web app, mobile responsive
Low stock alerts
✓
✓
Bills of materials / recipes
—
✓ Multi-level
Production / batch records
—
✓
Cost per unit & COGS
—
✓ Weighted average
Sales channel sync (Shopify, Etsy, Amazon)
—
✓ Studio and above
Batch & lot traceability
—
✓ Indie and above
Accounting integration
QuickBooks Online on higher tiers
QuickBooks (Xero coming soon)
Best suited to
Tracking assets and supplies you hold
Making and selling products you build
Sortly feature availability varies by plan tier and its published pricing differs between monthly and annual billing — check Sortly's own pricing page for current figures.
Stock that moves by itself when you make something
In Sortly, making 200 units means manually decrementing every material you used. In Stocksmith you record the batch and the deductions happen — because the system holds the recipe. That's the whole difference, and it's the one that stops the counts drifting away from reality by week three.
Manufacture · 120 unitsLavender Body Butter
Shea butter, refined− 9.6 kg
Lavender essential oil− 480 ml
Amber glass jar, 200ml− 120
Lavender Body Butter 200ml+ 120
3 materials deducted · 120 units added to stock
A cost per unit you didn't have to work out
Weighted average costing across your material purchases, rolled up through the recipe. When your supplier raises a price, everything containing that material re-costs itself — so your pricing decisions are made on this month's numbers rather than last year's spreadsheet.
Material price up? Your margin recalculates instantly
When Sortly is the right choice
Four cases where we'd tell you to stay put.
You track assets, not ingredients
Tools, equipment, IT kit, site supplies, props. Things that get used and returned rather than consumed into a product. That's Sortly's home ground and we'd be a poor substitute.
Finding things is the actual problem
If the pain is “which box is it in” rather than “what did it cost”, QR labels and a photo catalogue solve it directly and we don't do that as well.
You need to work offline
Stocksmith is a web application and needs a connection. If your stock lives somewhere without signal, Sortly's offline mode is a hard requirement we can't meet.
You resell finished goods
No recipes means no BOM costing to buy. If products arrive finished and go out finished, you'd be paying for machinery you'll never start up.
Looking at a few tools? The comparison hub covers what small manufacturers usually weigh side by side.
Stocksmith connects everywhere you sell
Import orders automatically and sync stock levels across all your channels — so you never oversell or run out of stock.
No. Sortly is designed around tracking items you hold, with folders, photos and QR codes. There's no concept of a product being composed of quantities of other items, which means no automatic material deduction when you manufacture and no rolled-up cost per unit. People do model this by hand in Sortly with custom fields, but the maths stays manual.
Does Sortly integrate with Shopify or Etsy?
Sortly is not an ecommerce inventory tool and doesn't sync stock with sales channels the way a multi-channel system does — its integration story centres on QuickBooks Online and its API on higher tiers. Stocksmith connects Shopify, Etsy, Amazon, WooCommerce, Square and more, with orders importing automatically and stock adjusting as they land. Unlimited sales channels start on the Studio plan.
Can Stocksmith replace Sortly entirely?
For materials and products, yes — Stocksmith holds stock levels, photos, locations and reorder points. Two things won't carry over: QR code label generation and the offline-capable mobile app. If either is load-bearing in how you work day to day, be honest about that before switching, because they're the two features Sortly users mention most.
Can I run both?
Some businesses do — Sortly for equipment and site assets, Stocksmith for production materials and finished products. There's no integration between them, so it only makes sense when the two sets of things genuinely don't overlap. If they do overlap, running both means reconciling two counts of the same material, which is the problem you were trying to leave behind.
How much does Stocksmith cost?
From $20/mo billed annually on Pro, which connects one sales channel. $41/mo on Studio for unlimited sales channels, and $83/mo on Indie which adds batch and lot tracking, traceability reports and unlimited users. 14-day trial, no card required.
From knowing what you have to knowing what it cost
14 days free, no credit card. Build one recipe and watch a batch deduct its own materials — it's the bit that's hard to picture until you've seen it.
