Retail Scan & Stock vs Sortly: Which Inventory App Fits Your Small Business?

What each product is designed to do

Retail Scan & Stock starts at the shelf. A small retailer, workshop or service business can build a catalog, scan barcodes, count physical quantities, record write-offs, make a purchase order and record receiving from a phone. The native v1 app keeps operational records on-device and offers spreadsheet import and export. That narrow scope can reduce setup work when the immediate problem is keeping a countable stock list and a simple reorder trail.

Sortly starts with a broader inventory record. Its folders, tags, photos, custom fields, locations and team access can describe not only saleable units but equipment that moves among jobs or people. Its web app matters when a manager needs a full-size screen, team administration or reporting. Sortly also offers stock counts, pick lists and purchase orders, but features and allowances vary sharply by plan. A broader feature set can be valuable if those workflows will actually be used.

Free plans: what the limits mean

Retail Scan & Stock Free is a permanent $0 tier, not a time-limited trial. It supports up to 1,000 SKU, one device, five open documents and one supplier, with 30 days of visible history. It includes the scan, count, order, receiving and export path, CSV and Excel import/export, local backup and a local activity log. Cloud synchronization is not included. Sign-in is requested after 15 completed documents. Older records are hidden by the history window rather than described as deleted.

Sortly Free is also $0, with 100 Unique Items, 1 User License and 2 Active Jobs on the pricing page checked for this article. A Unique Item is a distinct Sortly ID or product line; ten physical units of that entry do not consume ten Unique Items. Variants with distinct IDs can consume separate entries. Jobs are a separate workflow quota, and closed jobs do not count toward the active limit. This makes the item limit a catalog-design question rather than a simple count of boxes on a shelf.

The access limits measure different things. One Retail Scan & Stock device means one device can use the Free account. One Sortly User License means one person can sign in; Sortly says its mobile app can be installed on multiple devices. Do not compare those numbers as though they are identical seats. Sortly Free can suit a small, photo-rich or location-organized catalog with one operator and web access. Retail Scan & Stock Free can suit a larger simple SKU list and a phone-based counting and PO routine. Test the actual export and upgrade trigger before moving a live business catalog.

Paid pricing and billing basis

Retail Scan & Stock's native-v1 USD list prices are Store at $4.99/month or $53.99/year, Multi-Store at $9.99/month or $107.99/year, and Business at $14.99/month or $161.99/year. Store adds unlimited SKU, one year of visible history, cloud sync, up to 3 devices, unlimited suppliers and open documents, bulk actions and branded exports. Multi-Store raises history to three years and devices to 5. Business adds unlimited history, up to 20 devices and priority support. The Multi-Store plan name does not mean native v1 includes multi-location management.

Sortly shows Advanced at $49/month, Ultra at $149/month and Premium at $299/month on monthly billing. On September 28, 2026, the pricing page displayed first-year annual promotions of $288/year ($24/month equivalent), $888/year ($74/month equivalent) and $1,788/year ($149/month equivalent), respectively, for new subscriptions. Those are promotional first-year annual prices, not permanent monthly prices. Sortly says a 50% first-year annual discount gives way to its standard yearly discount of 20% after the first year, while its support page directs customers to support for exact post-promotion pricing. Confirm the checkout and renewal amount before subscribing. Enterprise is quote-based.

Plan allowances also differ: Advanced includes 500 Unique Items, 2 User Licenses and 5 Active Jobs; Ultra includes 2,000, 5 and 10; Premium includes 5,000, 8 and 15; Enterprise advertises 10,000+ Unique Items, 12+ User Licenses and unlimited Active Jobs. The paid-plan trial is 14 days, subject to Sortly's trial and promotion conditions. Comparing only the lowest displayed monthly-equivalent figures would obscure the annual upfront charge, the first-year offer and the later renewal.

Physical inventory counting at the shelf

A useful trial starts with one real aisle, not a demo catalog. In Retail Scan & Stock, scan or select an item, enter the observed quantity, finish the count document and export the result. Completed counts update stock levels; an open draft is a working record, not a final adjustment. The app also has receiving and write-off documents, so a business can distinguish a count correction from incoming stock or shrinkage.

Sortly provides mobile scanning, quantity Quick Actions and a dedicated Stock Counts workflow. Its folders, locations and photos can help a dispersed team find the right item. Check the plan's stock-count and permission details in your own account. For either product, test an item with two variants, an unrecognized barcode and a count interrupted halfway through. Those edge cases reveal more about daily fit than a feature list does.

Barcode, QR and label workflows

Retail Scan & Stock's present native workflow uses phone-camera barcode scanning to find or add catalog items and count them. The product documentation does not establish a current native label designer or printer workflow, so businesses that must produce labels should treat that as a gap to test rather than assume it exists. A shared barcode lookup can suggest data where available, but a scan still needs a verified local catalog match or a deliberate item-creation step.

Sortly documents barcode and QR scanning on iOS and Android, including linking existing printed codes to items. It also documents QR label creation on Advanced and QR plus barcode label creation on Ultra and above. Its mobile Quick Actions can adjust quantities after scans. Bluetooth scanning is documented for Ultra, Premium and Enterprise. Label type and external-scanner support are practical reasons to test the target plan with your own printed codes. Avoid assuming every scanner or label stock works identically.

Offline inventory counting: preparation and reconnect

Retail Scan & Stock is local-first. Its catalog, counts, purchase orders, receiving and exports are designed around on-device records; Free has no cloud sync. On paid tiers, local work can synchronize later. A count in a basement can continue without a network round trip for each quantity. Its current architecture is not intended for two devices simultaneously editing the same active document offline. Arrange separate assignments and reconcile after connectivity returns rather than relying on an undocumented conflict merge.

Sortly also supports offline work. Its current help article says offline mode is available in the iOS and Android apps, not the web app. Before disconnecting, perform a full sync so the device has current inventory; disabling sync leaves the device showing the inventory as of that moment. The article says changes made while sync is disabled remain on the device and push to the server when sync is enabled and a connection returns. Sortly's product page says mobile users can view and edit inventory offline. It does not specify every combination of new-item creation, photos, exports or simultaneous edits, so those should be tested rather than promised.

For a fair field test, sync and sign in while connected, go into airplane mode, open the exact folder, scan three existing codes, change quantities, close and reopen the app, then reconnect and inspect both mobile and web records. Do not log out or reset an app with unsynced changes: Sortly warns that resetting deletes local data not uploaded to the cloud. If multiple people edit the same item while disconnected, ask each vendor how that scenario is handled; neither a marketing claim of 'offline' nor a single successful scan proves the result.

Purchase orders and replenishment

Retail Scan & Stock's current native app includes a straightforward PO document workflow on Free: choose a supplier, add catalog lines, quantities and costs, prepare an order, and record receiving. The Free supplier and open-document caps still apply. This is suited to a small operator who needs a usable reorder trail close to the physical count. The native v1 scope does not advertise approval routing or accounting integration, so do not treat the PO as a procurement suite.

Sortly's pricing page places Purchase Orders at Ultra and above, not on Free or Advanced. Its help center documents a deeper workflow: create from inventory details, save vendors, move a draft through Ready to Review, Approved and Ordered, receive all or part of a shipment, update quantities and export a PDF. The PO can be closed after full or partial receipt. On mobile, staff can create a draft and manually receive against an ordered or partially received PO; Sortly explicitly says scanning items to receive against a PO is not currently supported on mobile. QuickBooks Online PO export is reserved for Premium and Enterprise.

If orders need a second person's approval, partial deliveries or a QuickBooks handoff, Sortly's higher tiers may solve a real operational problem. If the need is a simple phone-based supplier order and receipt at a low subscription cost, Retail Scan & Stock's workflow merits a trial. Create a PO with a price change and a partial delivery in both systems before deciding; the details of what becomes a stock adjustment matter more than the presence of a PO checkbox.

Data export and portability

Retail Scan & Stock supports CSV and Excel import/export through the phone's share sheet, plus local backup and restore. That is useful for sending a count to an accountant or continuing spreadsheet analysis. Check the layout and columns of an actual export, including supplier and document data, before assuming it maps to another system. The visible history window depends on plan, so a free-plan export should be checked against the records the plan exposes.

Sortly documents CSV and Excel inventory-summary exports, PDF reports and a Dropbox export containing data and original image files. Its CSV or Excel report contains item details, quantities, pricing, tags, custom fields and folder/location structure, but image URLs rather than the original photo files. This is a substantial portability advantage for photo-heavy catalogs if the correct export path is used. Confirm export permissions, format and size in the plan you intend to buy. Neither vendor's export proves that every custom workflow will import automatically into the other.

Cloud sync, devices and desktop work

Retail Scan & Stock Free stores operational data locally. Paid tiers add cloud sync and a device allowance of 3, 5 or 20. Those are devices, not user seats or promises of team invitations. The native v1 app remains centered on iOS and Android; a web cabinet or desktop dashboard is not a current shipping benefit. If a manager must administer inventory in a browser, that is a material product boundary today.

Sortly has a browser application as well as iOS and Android apps. Its User Licenses limit people who can log in, with roles and permissions varying by plan. A person may use more than one device, so the price comparison should be based on actual people, the desired permissions and the relevant item quota. For a distributed operation, web review and cloud access can be decisive. For one phone at one shelf, the extra administrative surface may be less important.

Photos, organization, reporting and history

Sortly lets teams attach item photos, organize items in folders and tags, track locations and run inventory and activity reports. Photos are useful when similar-looking parts have different names, or when an asset's condition matters. Its pricing table shows activity and transaction history windows of one month on Free, one year on Advanced, three years on Ultra and unlimited on Premium and Enterprise. Some saved or subscribed reports depend on higher plans; verify the exact report required.

Retail Scan & Stock native v1 has a local activity log, document history and exports, with plan-based visible history of 30 days, one year, three years or unlimited. It does not currently advertise native product photos, advanced analytics or custom fields. A small business that chiefly needs reliable quantities may not need these. A business that visually identifies tools or needs richer reporting should weigh Sortly's capabilities directly, not infer parity from the word 'inventory'.

Physical stock versus equipment and asset tracking

Physical stock is usually consumed, sold, received or written off. A count asks how many units are on hand now; a purchase order replenishes them. Retail Scan & Stock is shaped around that operational loop for products, parts, supplies and consumables. It can record items, but its current native description does not make a claim to asset check-in/check-out, maintenance or custody workflows.

A reusable drill, camera, ladder or vehicle has a different life cycle: who has it, where it is, its condition and when it should return. Sortly explicitly markets equipment and asset tracking, photos, locations and check-in/check-out. A contractor with a large tool fleet may get more value from those records than from a simple stock-count document. A shop with both categories should trial representative examples of each rather than force one workflow onto all items.

Integrations, API and accounting

Retail Scan & Stock native v1 should be evaluated as a mobile operational app with spreadsheet exchange. The current product evidence does not establish POS integrations, a public API, webhooks or direct accounting sync as shipped benefits. CSV and Excel files can bridge a separate process, but that adds manual review.

Sortly advertises integrations including QuickBooks Online, Slack and Microsoft Teams; its current pricing and help pages place QuickBooks PO export at Premium and Enterprise and API/webhooks at Enterprise. The availability and exact data exchanged vary by integration. If accounting automation is a requirement, test the specific event and document type, rather than treating an integration logo as proof that a full ledger or POS sync exists.

Setup effort and operational fit

The simpler first week for a small stockroom may be importing a spreadsheet into Retail Scan & Stock, scanning a few shelf codes, completing a count, and exporting it. It is still worth checking barcode quality, duplicate SKUs and who will back up a Free device. A local-first workflow puts more responsibility on the operator to protect a single-device Free record.

Sortly's first week may involve importing items, choosing folders and locations, attaching photos, assigning User Licenses and deciding who can edit or approve. That setup can repay itself when many people or jobs need shared context. It can also be excessive if the only goal is to record a periodic physical count. Run a short pilot with ordinary staff, not just the purchaser, and time the work that happens most often.

Which product may fit your business?

Choose the scenario closest to your operating day. A conditional fit is more useful than a universal winner. Pricing and feature availability can change, so recheck the plan at checkout.

Moving from a spreadsheet or another app

Before migration, export a complete backup and keep an untouched copy. Clean duplicate identifiers, standardize units and decide whether variants are distinct items. Map supplier names, quantity, cost and location fields explicitly. Import a small sample first, count physical stock, and reconcile totals before moving the whole catalog. Preserve historical purchase orders or photos separately if a destination import does not carry them.

For a move out of Sortly, an inventory-summary CSV or Excel file contains structured fields and image URLs; use its photo-file export path if original images matter. For a move out of Retail Scan & Stock, use CSV or Excel and make a local backup while the device is available. Neither path guarantees that approvals, activity history or document relationships will transfer. Plan a cutover time and a final stock count rather than running two authoritative inventories indefinitely.

What to test before deciding

Use your own products, labels, permissions and weak-signal space. Start on the Free tier where appropriate, then trial the exact paid tier that includes your required workflow. Save screenshots or exports of the results so a colleague can verify them. The checklist below targets the points most likely to surprise a buyer.

• Import a representative spreadsheet and verify SKU, units, variants and cost fields.
• Scan an existing barcode and an unfamiliar code; check lookup and correction steps.
• Complete a real count, reopen it, and compare stock before and after finalization.
• Go offline after syncing, scan and change quantities, restart the app, then reconnect.
• Create a PO, receive only part of it, and inspect stock and document status.
• Export CSV, Excel and any required PDF or photo backup; open the files elsewhere.
• Check the exact people, devices, permissions, history window and renewal price needed.