How we compare inventory management software
We list 8 inventory platforms sold into Australia, and a published rate card exists for 7 providers. Where a vendor quotes instead, we show a quote rather than an invented figure. Every figure comes from the vendor's own pricing page, and some are the monthly equivalent of an annual commitment.
The calculator takes the number of users and warehouses you enter and costs each vendor's published plans at those inputs, picking the cheapest plan whose seat block covers you and adding any published per-user or per-location charge. Commission does not change the order.
Four signs you have outgrown the stock tracking in your accounting file and need inventory management software
Accounting files and online stores both count stock. What they do not do is move stock between places, build a finished item out of components, receipt a purchase order that arrived in two deliveries, or hold a landed cost. The usual triggers:
- You sell the same item in more than one place. The moment two systems each hold their own stock number, one of them is wrong, and you find out by overselling.
- You hold stock in more than one location. A garage, a storeroom and a third-party warehouse are three locations even if they are all yours.
- You assemble or manufacture. If a sale should consume components rather than a finished item, you need a bill of materials.
- Your lead times need reorder points. If a container takes eight weeks, eyeballing the shelf is not a strategy.
If none apply, you are not ready for this category yet. Apart from the cheap end, most plans here cost too much to buy speculatively.
Manufacturing, retail or multi-channel: three shapes of inventory management software
Picking the wrong shape costs more than picking the wrong price. Manufacturing means a bill of materials and production orders; assembly only kits a set from parts you already hold. Retail with a counter is priced by the register rather than the seat. Multi-channel selling is about how many places stock has to stay in step, and channel connections and extra warehouses are often gated by plan or sold as an add-on.
| Provider | Manufacturing / BOM | POS integration |
|---|---|---|
| Cin7 Core | Yes (strong) | Cin7 POS, Lightspeed |
| Cin7 Omni | Yes (assembly) | Cin7 POS (add-on) |
| Fishbowl | Yes (strong) | Limited |
| inFlow Inventory | No (separate product) | Limited |
| Katana Cloud Inventory | Yes (strong) | Limited |
| Lightspeed Retail | No | Yes (native) |
| Unleashed | Yes | Lightspeed (Vend), Square |
| Zoho Inventory | No | Limited |
Read the inFlow Inventory row with care: it sells assembly and bill of materials as a separate product, so the plans priced here track stock and do not build it. A row that says no on manufacturing is a deliberate product, and a maker who buys it will be fighting it.
Seats, locations and add-ons: what moves the price of inventory management software
Almost nothing here is priced per user in a straight line. The common shape is a per-business subscription with a block of seats bundled in, and the next seat past the block moves you up a rung or adds a per-user charge. Locations are the second axis, and some vendors charge for each one.
| Provider | Users included | Per-warehouse fee |
|---|---|---|
| Cin7 Core | 5 (Standard), 10 (Pro), 15 (Advanced) | Included |
| Cin7 Omni | 8 | Included |
| Fishbowl | 2 (Essentials), 5 (Growth), 10 (Scale) | Included |
| inFlow Inventory | 2 (Lite), 5 (Core), 10 (Pro), 20 (Max) | $59/mo per extra location |
| Katana Cloud Inventory | Unlimited (Core and free plan) | Per extra location |
| Lightspeed Retail | Unlimited | Per additional register |
| Unleashed | 3 (Core), 5 (Pro) | Included |
| Zoho Inventory | 1 (Free), 2 (Standard/Pro/Premium), 7 (Enterprise) | $15.58/mo per location |
Where a vendor charges per location but does not publish the rate, the estimate here covers one location. A second location can reverse the order of this table. Forecasting and traceability are add-ons on some rows, so read the Stock forecasting and Batch / expiry tracking rows if either is the reason you are shopping. Contracts are mostly monthly here; Fishbowl lists its contract as Annual, which changes what a bad first month costs you.
Free and cheap inventory management software, and where the caps bite
There is a genuine low-cost end here. Free and entry plans in this category are capped on the things that describe a growing business: seats, SKUs, locations and connected sales channels, and on some rows features such as lot tracking are an add-on as well. That is an awkward kind of cap, because you hit it on a good week rather than a bad one.
| Provider | Entry price /mo | SKUs allowed |
|---|---|---|
| Cin7 Core | $486/mo (Standard) | Unlimited |
| Cin7 Omni | Quote | Not stated |
| Fishbowl | A$345/mo (Essentials) | Unlimited |
| inFlow Inventory | $139/mo (Lite) | Unlimited |
| Katana Cloud Inventory | $417/mo (Core) | 30 (free) / Unlimited (Core+) |
| Lightspeed Retail | $129/mo (Basic) | Unlimited |
| Unleashed | $449/mo (Core, 3 users) | Unlimited |
| Zoho Inventory | Free / $43/mo (Standard) | Varies by plan |
Price the plan you will be on in a year, not the one you qualify for today. A free plan that covers a single operator and a small catalogue is a real on-ramp, and also the plan you outgrow first if the business works. Enter your actual headcount and location count into the calculator. The quote-only end of the table is normal for a platform sold on implementation; we do not estimate on its behalf.
Whatever you buy, treat the implementation as the purchase. Barcode scanning and a mobile app are on every row here, so they will not separate anything. What decides whether a non-technical owner can run one is the data: an opening stock count with trading frozen, one SKU code per item including variants, and units of measure and supplier lead times set before go-live.
How inventory management software talks to Xero, MYOB and the ATO
Check the Accounting integration row for the name of your own ledger before you read a price. MYOB is the one that separates this list, because it carries a large share of Australian small business ledgers. If MYOB is your file, that row cuts the table down before any price does. Support hours matter too: the question you have on a Friday afternoon is worth more than the one you have on a Tuesday morning.
| Provider | Accounting integration | Support |
|---|---|---|
| Cin7 Core | Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks, Sage | 24/7 global support; premium support add-on |
| Cin7 Omni | Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks, NetSuite | 24/7 global support; premium support add-on |
| Fishbowl | QuickBooks (deep native), Xero | Business hours + email |
| inFlow Inventory | QuickBooks, Xero | Business hours + email |
| Katana Cloud Inventory | Xero, QuickBooks | Business hours + email |
| Lightspeed Retail | Xero, QuickBooks, MYOB | 24/7 chat, business hours phone |
| Unleashed | Xero, QBO, MYOB | Business hours AU + online |
| Zoho Inventory | Zoho Books (native) | Business hours AU + online |
Depth matters as much as presence. A shallow integration pushes sales invoices across and nothing else; a deep one also syncs purchase orders, stock valuation and cost of goods sold. With a shallow one you reconcile the two systems by hand at the time of year you have least appetite for it.
The valuation has to be right because closing stock value is a tax number in Australia. Under the general trading stock rules an increase in the value of your trading stock across the year is assessable income and a decrease is a deduction, so the figure your system reports lands in your return. Small business entities can use the simplified trading stock rules and skip a formal stocktake where they reasonably estimate the value of their trading stock changed by $5,000 or less over the year. A stock system that produces a defensible, dated valuation is doing tax work as well as trading work.