What Shopify inventory software actually costs (October 2026 price bands)

A store doing $40k/month can run its inventory on software that costs $0, $5, or $349. The difference isn't size — it's which problem you're paying to solve: recording what happened, deciding what to buy next, or syncing stock across channels. This page sorts the October 2026 Shopify app market into five price bands, shows what each band actually buys, and then covers the costs the pricing pages don't list — setup time, data entry, and the money a bad recommendation can burn. Every price was verified from live App Store listings and vendor pages in late October 2026.

The five price bands

(Sources: each app's live App Store listing — Stockroom, Tallyfold, Stockie, Assisty, Prediko, Fabrikatör, Sumtracker; Cin7 pricing page, accessed Oct 2026. InventoryX is in development, has no published price, and is not included in this comparison.)

Two structural facts worth noticing before you pick a band:

1. The price floor collapsed in 2026. Stockroom (free, July) and Tallyfold ($5, September) both launched this year. Before that, the gap between free spreadsheets and $99 planners was nearly empty; now the advice-and-answers band costs less than a coffee.
2. Headline prices hide gating. (Tier and gating details verified from each listing as of October 2026.) Stockie's purchase orders live on the $59.99 tier, not the $4.99 tier. Sumtracker starts at $59 because sync is the product. Prediko is "free to install" but revenue-gated from $49, with sales-assisted pricing above roughly $2M GMV. Always check which tier contains the feature you searched for.

What each band actually buys

Free — recording. Native Shopify handles POs, transfers, counts with approval workflows, and supplier records; Stockroom adds unlimited POs, partial receiving, supplier returns, and QuickBooks/Xero sync at no cost. Neither gives you reorder intelligence: no standing reorder points, no forecast, no answer to "what should I buy next month?" You supply the judgment; the software records it.

$5–10 — answers. Tallyfold turns your order history into an order-by date and quantity per variant, with every number explained in plain language (read-only — you act natively). Stockie at $4.99–9.99 is alert- and calculation-focused; its forecasting starts at $29.99. InventoryX is in development and has no published price; it is intended to attack a different question — a stockout-days ledger per SKU, estimated lost revenue, and a weekly buying list — but it is not available today.

$20–60 — forecasting. Assisty's mid tiers and Stockie Pro add per-SKU/per-location forecasting, lead times, safety stock, and min/max settings. Sumtracker's $59 entry isn't a better forecast — it's real-time sync across Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Walmart, which is worth every cent if you're genuinely multichannel and wasteful if you're not.

$60–200 — demand planning. Prediko (AI agent, raw materials/BOMs, 100+ integrations, 265 reviews at 4.9★) and Fabrikatör (SKU-level forecasts, bundle planning, backorder workflows, 112 reviews at 4.8★) both price by your revenue, both onboard you properly, and both assume your operation is complex enough to need them. At $500k–$2.5M revenue with seasonal catalogs, this band is defensible. Below that, do the math in the ROI section before committing.

$300+ — ERP. Cin7 Core is a different category: landed costs, bill of materials, lot tracking, multi-branch operations. If your problem is still "when do I reorder my 400 SKUs," this band is expensive overkill; if you're manufacturing or wholesaling, no app above solves your problem.

The hidden costs pricing pages don't show

Setup time. Every app in the $20+ bands needs real configuration: lead times per supplier, safety stock policy, location mapping, historical data import. Budget days, not minutes. The free band's setup cost is your own spreadsheet discipline instead.

Ongoing data entry. The more an app computes, the more it needs to know. A planning system is only as good as its supplier lead times and cost fields. One public 1-star App Store review of Prediko (May 2026, from a five-month user) describes hitting a wall setting up raw-materials workflows — the maintenance burden is a real cost even on well-reviewed tools, and it recurs monthly, not once.

Sync maintenance. Multichannel sync removes overselling but adds a new failure surface: mapping errors, partial syncs, marketplace API changes. It's manageable — thousands of Sumtracker users manage it — but it's not zero-effort.

Bad recommendations. This is the least discussed and most expensive: an app that over-orders ties up your cash in slow stock, and one that under-orders keeps you dark. A January 2025 founder reply on Assisty's listing acknowledged that reorder suggestions at the time used the same min/max levels for all products — one-size-fits-all logic is the classic failure here. Whatever you buy, watch the recommended quantities against your own judgment for the first month or two.

The trial, run honestly. Almost every app in this table offers a free trial (14–30 days is typical). Two rules make trials actually informative: run them on your live store with real history, not a demo store — demo data hides exactly the setup burdens described above — and evaluate during a real buying cycle, not the week before one. An annual contract priced to look like a monthly discount is a commitment; make the supplier earn it after a trial month, not before.

An honest ROI framework (estimates, clearly labeled)

Here's how to decide whether a band pays for itself, with a worked example for a store doing $40k/month:

1. Pick your three worst stockout SKUs from last quarter. Say your best seller sells 3.5 units/day at $28.99.
2. Count the days it was out of stock. Shopify's admin doesn't report this; reconstruct it from order history or your notes. Suppose 11 days across the quarter.
3. Estimate the lost revenue. 11 days × 3.5 units/day × $28.99 ≈ $1,116 — but label it an estimate, because some of that demand doesn't vanish, it moves. The 2002 out-of-stock study commissioned by the Grocery Manufacturers of America found roughly 31% of shoppers bought elsewhere, 26% bought a different brand, 19% substituted, 15% delayed, and 9% bought nothing. Apply the fraction you believe is truly lost — at 9% (the most conservative slice), that's ~$100; at ~40% (shop elsewhere or buy nothing), ~$446.
4. Compare against the app's annual cost. A $9.99/mo tool costs $120/yr; the $99–199 planners cost $1,188–2,388. If better reorder timing prevents even two of those 11-day stockout episodes per year, the low bands pay for themselves several times over. The high bands need the rest of their value (forecast quality at scale, onboarding, multichannel) to close the same gap.

Do this arithmetic with your own numbers before choosing a band. If the estimated recovery is smaller than the subscription, you're buying comfort, not ROI — and the free band plus the inventory spreadsheet template may be the correct answer this quarter. For the full loss-estimation method, see what an out-of-stock product actually costs.

The middle-ground gap is real — and mostly closed

The pricing conversation in merchant communities has been blunt. A Reddit thread on Shopify inventory tooling drew over 150 answers, and its recurring request, paraphrased across many of them, was for a middle band: real reorder help between free spreadsheets and $99–199 planners, for stores too small to justify planner pricing and too busy to live in a spreadsheet. That thread predates 2026's launches.

The market has since answered, unevenly: Tallyfold and Stockie's low tiers now occupy $5–10, and Stockroom made purchasing free. What's still scarce at that price: per-SKU forecasting and multi-location support — those remain $20+ features. If your store is 100–1,000 SKUs, Shopify-only, and owner-operated, the honest 2026 conclusion is that you can now get 80% of what the $99–199 planners do for under $12/month; the full app-by-app comparison shows which 80% each budget app delivers. If you're arriving from Stocky, the migration-focused alternatives page covers the same ground with data-rescue specifics.

Common questions

How much should a small store spend on inventory software? Whatever recovers more than it costs. For a Shopify store under $2M GMV, the honest bands are: $0 for recording stock, $5–10/month for reorder answers, $20–60 for forecasting, and $60–200 for full demand planning. Run the loss estimate above on your worst stockout SKU first — if the estimated recovery is smaller than the subscription, the free band plus a spreadsheet is the right answer this quarter.

Are there good free inventory apps for Shopify? Yes, as of October 2026 there are two credible ones: Shopify's own native admin (POs, transfers, counts, supplier records) and Stockroom, a free app covering unlimited POs, partial receiving, and QuickBooks/Xero sync. What neither gives you is reorder intelligence — no forecast, no reorder points, no answer to "what should I buy next month?" You supply the judgment.

Is a $9/month inventory app actually useful, or just a toy? Useful if your problem is a decision, not a record. Apps in the $5–10 band answer specific questions: what to reorder and by when, or what a stockout already cost you. They don't forecast, and they don't sync channels. If you need per-location forecasting or multichannel sync, that lives at $20–60 and up — but plenty of single-channel stores run fine on the cheap band.

Why do some inventory apps cost $100–350 a month? Because they're solving a bigger problem: demand planning at scale (Prediko, Fabrikatör) or ERP operations (Cin7 Core's landed costs, BOMs, lot tracking). They're priced against your revenue or order volume, often with onboarding included. For a store whose question is still "when do I reorder my 400 SKUs," that band is expensive overkill — the ROI math above should come out strongly against it.

What hidden costs should I watch beyond the subscription? Three: setup time (planners need lead times, safety stock policies, and location mapping configured — budget days), ongoing data entry (an app computes only what it knows), and bad recommendations, which tie up cash in slow stock or leave you dark. A 2026 founder reply on Assisty's listing admitted its reorder suggestions then used the same min/max levels for all products — worth checking any tool for one-size-fits-all logic.

The next step

Take your worst stockout SKU, run the four-step estimate above, and write down the annual figure. Then pick the cheapest band whose features could plausibly recover it — and trial it with your messiest real data, not a demo store.