Comparison
The Best Free Inventory Tracker
Most stock sheets keep a quantity field and edit it — which is why the shelf and the screen stop agreeing. Here every delivery, sale, return, write-off and stock-take is a row, and the count is replayed from them. A number that is derived cannot drift from the history that produced it.
CalculatorAI
Inventory Tracker
AIPro
The quantity is never typed, so it cannot be typed wrong.
Landed cost is in the average, which most small sellers leave out and overstate their margin by.
A stock-take is treated as an absolute count and the difference is recorded as shrinkage, so counting the shelf is worth something.
ABC, turnover, days of cover and dead stock are on the page, not in a paid tier.
SpreadsheetInventory apps
A spreadsheet can tell you a count. It cannot tell you a margin, because margin is a question about which units left and what those particular units had cost you — and a mutable quantity field has thrown that away. Weighted average cost, computed from the movements, is the difference between a stock list and a stock system.
The dedicated apps do compute it, and then ask for a monthly fee, a shop connection and a setup afternoon before you have entered your first delivery. This one opens, seeds a demo shelf so you can see what it does, and lets you type a product in about fifteen seconds.
What it does that a spreadsheet cannot
The count is the history
Six kinds of movement — received, sold, customer return, return to supplier, written off, stock-take. On hand is replayed from them in date order, every load. Nothing to edit, nothing to drift.
Landed cost, not sticker cost
Twenty mugs at 4.00 with 20.00 of shipping cost 5.00 each, not 4.00. Freight entered on the delivery moves the average, so the margin you read is the margin you got.
The date it runs out
Sales velocity over the period you pick, applied to what is on the shelf, gives days of cover and a run-out date per product — not a reorder flag that fires when it is already too late.
A restock list you can order from
Everything at or below its reorder point, rounded up to your order size, grouped by supplier, with the money it will take. Export it as its own CSV and send it.
Analytics that name the problem
Turnover and days of inventory, ABC by the 80/15/5 rule, who actually earns by profit rather than revenue, dead stock as money asleep, and category-by-month as a heat map.
Two people, one shelf
Invite someone into a shared stock space and you both see the same movements as they happen. Multi-currency throughout, CSV in and CSV out, free on every plan.
AI copilot
Ask about your shelf in plain words
The site assistant reads your stock — what is on hand, what it cost, what sold, what has not moved — and answers with your own numbers. It explains the method too: why an average moved, why a write-off is not a sale, why C-class is most of your rows and almost none of your money.
What it can do from here
01
Explain any figure on the page — where the average cost came from, what the turnover number counted.
02
Compare periods: what sold in the last quarter against the one before, by category or channel.
03
Point at the products that will run out first and the ones that have stopped moving.
CalculatorAI Copilot
Reads your shelf
What should I reorder this week, and what is tying up money?
Four products are at or below their reorder point; the tightest is Linen napkins, 6 left and 11 days of cover at the last 30 days' pace. Rounded to your order sizes the list comes to 248.00 across two suppliers. Separately, 1,340.00 is sitting in stock that has not moved in 90 days — the ceramic vases are most of it.
Below reorder
4 products
Restock cost
248.00
Dead stock
1,340.00
It never invents a number. If your movements do not say it, the answer says so instead of guessing — and it will tell you when an assumption, like the run-out date, is arithmetic rather than a forecast.
Inside the tracker
The numbers a spreadsheet cannot give you
Stock at cost and at your prices, cost of goods, margin, turnover and days of cover — all derived from the movements, so none of them can drift from the history that produced them.
Comparison Table
| CalculatorAI | Spreadsheet | Inventory apps | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Trial | ||
| Count derived from movements | |||
| Weighted average cost | By hand | ||
| Freight folded into unit cost | By hand | Sometimes | |
| Cost of goods and gross margin | By hand | ||
| Run-out date per product | Sometimes | ||
| Restock list by supplier | |||
| ABC analysis | Paid tier | ||
| Dead stock in money | Sometimes | ||
| Shared with another person | Per seat | ||
| AI that reads your stock | |||
| CSV export of everything | Paid tier |
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Where it wins
- The quantity is never typed, so it cannot be typed wrong.
- Landed cost is in the average, which most small sellers leave out and overstate their margin by.
- A stock-take is treated as an absolute count and the difference is recorded as shrinkage, so counting the shelf is worth something.
- ABC, turnover, days of cover and dead stock are on the page, not in a paid tier.
- Shared stock spaces and full CSV export cost nothing on any plan.
- It opens with a demo shelf, so you can judge it before typing anything.
Where it does not fit
- It does not connect to a shop, a till or a marketplace. What is in it is what you put there, by hand or by import.
- Weighted average only — no FIFO, no LIFO, no per-unit serial numbers. Wrong tool for serialised, perishable or batch-traced goods.
- Variants are not a structure: a t-shirt in three sizes is three products with three SKUs.
- It is not accounting. It values your stock and costs your sales; it does not post entries or handle tax.
- The run-out date assumes the last period repeats. It does not know that December is different.
FAQ
Questions people actually ask
The things worth knowing before you move a shelf into anything — including what this one is not for.
01Is it really free?
02Why can't I just edit the quantity?
03What happens if I count the shelf and it disagrees?
04Does it handle more than one currency?
05Can I move my spreadsheet in?
06What does it not do?
Start with the demo shelf, keep your own
Eight products are already there — one out of stock, two running low, one that has not moved in months. Delete them whenever you like; they also disappear by themselves the moment you add anything of your own.
Guides
How-to guides that use this tool