Comparison · prices checked 22 October 2026
BoxHero for a small shop, compared honestly
BoxHero is one of the few products in this category that is both inexpensive and pleasant to use. It is a real alternative, not a straw man — so this page spends as much time on where it wins as on where we do.
The short answer
BoxHero is a good fit for a small team that wants a spreadsheet replacement with barcodes, photos-free item records, custom fields and a low price. Mobile Inventory is the better fit when the count itself is the hard part: a long stockroom, a phone with no signal, and a number that has to be trusted the next morning.
Price and limits
| Mobile Inventory | BoxHero | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 14-day trial, full product, no card on the web | Personal: 1 member, 100 items, 1 location, 30-day transaction history |
| Entry paid | Starter $19/month (or $15 annual): unlimited items, 3 users, 1 location | Business: $24/team/month billed annually ($288/year): 3 members, 1,000 items, 3 locations |
| Users included | 3 (Starter), 10 (Pro) | 3 |
| Items included | Unlimited | 1,000 |
| Locations | 1 (Starter), 3 (Pro) | 3 |
| Adding capacity | Move to Pro for users and locations | Add-ons: $5/member/month, $10 per 1,000 items/month, $10 per 10 locations/month |
| Transaction history | Full history on every plan | 30 days on the free plan; unlimited on Business |
| Stock counting | Included on both plans | Listed as a Business-plan feature |
BoxHero figures come from its public pricing page on 22 October 2026 (Personal and Business plans, annual billing, and the published add-on rates). Its page changes; check it before you buy. Note that BoxHero's annual Business price is $24/team/month, which is more than our $19 Starter and less than our $39 Pro.
Where the price lands
A three-person shop with 700 items and one location pays BoxHero $24 a month annually for 1,000 items and 3 members — a fair price for what it includes. Mobile Inventory Starter costs $19 a month, or $15 annual, with unlimited items and the same three users. At that size the two products are close enough that price should not decide it; the count should.
At 2,000 items BoxHero needs an items add-on while Mobile Inventory does not. At 1,500 items the difference is about $150 a year, which is real but not decisive. The bigger difference appears at the point where a shop adds a fourth person or a second stockroom: BoxHero's add-ons are per member and per block of locations; our Pro plan is a flat step.
Counting stock: the difference that matters
Both products count stock. The question is what happens when the count goes wrong, which is most evenings.
In Mobile Inventory the count is blind by default: the expected quantity is hidden until the review. A line left empty keeps its current stock and the review states it; it never becomes zero. Close the app mid-count and the draft resumes at the next uncounted item. The review shows the variance per line in the item's own unit before you submit. Each submitted line becomes one movement with the actor, device and time, and the submit carries the count's own id, so a retry after a dropped connection is reported as a duplicate instead of writing a second stocktake.
BoxHero documents an inventory count flow with a preview and a separate treatment of uncounted items on its Business plan. It is a competent implementation and its help centre explains it well. What neither product has today is a multi-counter sheet with per-line "counted by" and a second-person approve/reject; a two-person count is split by hand in both.
Offline work
BoxHero's mobile app is marketed for use on the go and it syncs automatically. Mobile Inventory treats offline as a state the person can see: a waiting-to-sync count on the home screen, a durable queue, and a replay that sends each change once. Scanning, counting, movements and sales queue; transfers, invites and billing need a connection.
If you work in a basement or a market with no signal, test the same scenario on both: put the phone in airplane mode, count ten items, kill the app, reopen it, submit twice on reconnect, then read the ledger. That test separates the products faster than any feature list.
Where BoxHero is stronger
- Barcode label design. A label designer and custom barcode printing are part of the Business plan; our web portal does not print per-row labels yet, and the app prints a fixed Code128 sheet.
- Item organisation. Custom attributes, bundles, and a mature set of item fields.
- Sales and purchase records. Purchases, sales, return orders and invoicing on Business.
- Sharing. Inventory links for external partners, and custom role permissions.
- Low-stock alerts and reporting. A broader reporting set than ours.
- Localisation. A wider language and locale footprint.
- A free plan that is genuinely usable for one person and 100 items.
Where Mobile Inventory is stronger
- A count built for trust. Blind, resumable, uncounted-safe, duplicate-safe.
- Unlimited items on the cheapest plan. No items add-on.
- Offline as a visible state. The queue, the badge and the idempotent replay are the product, not a footnote.
- One ledger with actor, device and time. Every number is the sum of movements you can read.
- Export on every plan. CSV, XLSX and JSON, including after a trial ends.
- A published renewal price. No first-year discount that changes the second year.
The five-minute test
Create the same five items in both trials: one with a barcode, one without, one counted in cases, one with a minimum, one that is out of stock. Count them blind with the phone in airplane mode, submit, reconnect, then read the ledger. The product that makes that sequence obvious — with the uncounted line clearly kept and the retry clearly a duplicate — is the one to keep. Feature lists rarely survive that test intact.
Importing and leaving
BoxHero imports and exports Excel, which makes a move in either direction straightforward. Export your items and quantities, import them into Mobile Inventory with name and sku as required columns, check the preview for rejected rows, and run one blind count to confirm the opening quantities. Our export gives you items CSV, items XLSX, history CSV and JSON, so the door is not locked.
The honest verdict
BoxHero is the better buy for a tidy small catalogue that needs labels, sales records and a friendly price. It is also the closer competitor of the two on this site: if our count were equal, its label designer and broader item model would probably win. The count is not equal. If your stockroom is the reason you are reading this, start the trial on a Sunday evening, count twenty items with the phone in airplane mode, and decide from what the review screen tells you.
Prices and product facts were read from BoxHero's public pricing page on 22 October 2026 and can change. We are not affiliated with BoxHero. If a row here is wrong, email[email protected] and we will correct it.