Comparison · prices checked 22 October 2026

Zoho Inventory, sized for one shop

Zoho Inventory is a broad order-management system with a free tier and a long feature list. The question for a small shop is narrower: does it count stock on a phone better than a tool built for that, at a price that makes sense when you do not need the orders?

The short answer

If you sell across channels, raise sales orders and invoices, and want stock tied to orders, Zoho Inventory is a capable and unusually cheap system for its breadth. If your inventory work is a delivery, a count and a reorder list, Zoho asks you to buy an order-management product and find the count inside it.

Price and plan structure

Zoho figures come from its public pricing page on 22 October 2026: Free (50 orders), Standard $29, Professional $79, Premium $129 and Enterprise $249 per organisation per month billed annually, with the order, user and location limits shown above. Add-on pricing is from the same page. Zoho's plans change; check them before you buy.

The catch in the price

A one-shop count does not generate 500 orders a month. It generates a delivery, a stocktake and a reorder list. Zoho's entry paid plan is cheap, but the stock-counting capability is listed on Premium — $129 a month — which is more than six times Mobile Inventory Starter for a feature you would use once a month. If you already need Zoho's order and invoicing depth, that maths is irrelevant: you are buying the system and the count comes with it. If you do not, you are paying for orders you never raise.

Counting stock

Mobile Inventory's count is built around the three ways a count goes wrong. The expected quantity is hidden until the review, so nobody confirms what the screen says. A line left empty keeps its current stock and the review says so; it never silently becomes zero. Closing the app mid-count resumes at the next uncounted item. The review names the variance per line in the item's own unit, and the submit carries the count's own id, so a retry after a dropped connection is reported as a duplicate rather than writing a second stocktake.

Zoho Inventory's stock counting sits inside its adjustments and order workflows, with warehouse and bin concepts for larger operations. It is more configurable than ours and assumes you have set up items, warehouses and possibly bins first. For a shop with one stockroom, that setup is work with no payoff; for a business with three warehouses and bins, it is exactly what you need.

Neither product presently offers multi-counter sheets with a second-person approve/reject. A two-person count of the same room is a manual split in both.

Offline and the phone

Mobile Inventory is phone-first: scanning, blind counting and recording movements work with no signal, the queue shows how many changes are waiting, and it replays once when the connection returns. A sale typed offline keeps its price and note. Transfers, invites and billing need a connection.

Zoho Inventory has mobile apps and a barcode scanning app in its ecosystem, and its web app is the primary surface. Offline stock work is not the claim its product page leads with. If your stockroom has no signal, make that the first thing you test in the trial — count ten items in airplane mode, submit, reconnect, and check the ledger for duplicates.

What Zoho does that we do not

• Orders and invoicing. Sales orders, invoices, packing slips, shipping and returns.
• Multi-channel selling. Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy, Amazon and more.
• Warehouses and bins. Locations and bin-level storage for larger operations.
• Serial and batch tracking. On Professional and above.
• Accounting links. Zoho Books, Xero and QuickBooks Online integrations.
• Composite items and kits. Bundle definitions and assembly.
• A free tier. 50 orders a month at no cost, which is genuinely useful for a micro-business.

What Mobile Inventory does that Zoho's entry tiers do not

• Unlimited items from $19. No order-volume meter.
• A count designed to be trusted. Blind by default, uncounted is not zero, duplicate-safe submit.
• Offline queue with idempotent replay. Built for a stockroom, not a back office.
• One ledger. Every change is an entry with actor, device and time.
• Export on every plan. CSV, XLSX and JSON, including after a trial ends.
• A published renewal price. No introductory yearly rate that changes in year two.

Questions to ask before you choose

Ask both vendors what the count does when the phone has no signal, and whether a retry can create a second stocktake. Ask what happens to an uncounted line — kept or zeroed — and whether the review states it. Ask which plan contains stock counting at all, because in Zoho's case that answer is not the entry plan. Then price the plan you would actually run in year two, not the introductory one.

Moving your catalogue

1. Export items and quantities from Zoho Inventory as CSV.
2. Open the web trial and import the file; name and sku are required, the rest are optional.
3. Check the preview: every row it cannot read is listed with its line number before anything is written.
4. Run one blind count to set opening quantities you trust.
5. Set minimums on the items you reorder; the reorder list suggests twice the minimum minus what is on hand.

Going the other way, Mobile Inventory exports items CSV, items XLSX, history CSV and a JSON file with everything, so a move to Zoho later is equally possible.

The honest verdict

Zoho Inventory is more software for the money if you need orders, invoices and channels; its free tier is a real option for a micro-business. Mobile Inventory is more software for the money if you need a count you can trust on a phone with no signal, and you would rather not pay for an order system to get it. Neither answer is universal, and a shop that grows into wholesale should expect to outgrow us before Zoho.

Prices and product facts were read from Zoho's public pricing page on 22 October 2026 and can change. We are not affiliated with Zoho. If a row here is wrong, email[email protected] and we will correct it.

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