Things kept going missing. Or no one could remember what the business actually had. Tools, equipment, supplies, samples. Whatever the business tracked, it lived in someone's head or a spreadsheet that was never quite current.

You needed a list. Something with locations and quantities that stayed up to date. You searched for an inventory app. Sortly came up. Clean interface. Good reviews. You signed up.

The item list worked. The quantity field worked. Then the plan tier changed, or a second location came into scope, or you hit a user limit. Now you are paying A$60 to A$100 a month for an inventory platform built around a mobile scanning workflow your business has never once used.

The Two Things Your Business Actually Opens

The item list. The quantity field.

That is the job most small businesses hired Sortly to do. And Sortly does both.

It also does QR code generation and label printing, custom barcode scanning via the mobile app, activity history per item showing who moved what and when, multi-user team sync across locations, low-stock reporting, API access for integrations, and a folder hierarchy for organising items into categories. You pay for all of it. Most small businesses open two things.

What your Sortly subscription pays for
  • QR code generation and label printing
  • Mobile barcode and QR scanning workflow
  • Custom fields and folder hierarchy
  • Activity log per item (who moved what, when)
  • Multi-user team sync across locations
  • Low-stock alerts and inventory reports
  • API access for integrations
  • Multi-location inventory tracking
What most small businesses actually need
  • Item list with name, description, and quantity
  • Location or storage area per item
  • Current stock count
  • A way to update quantities when something changes

Who Sortly Is Actually Built For

Sortly is a well-designed tool for businesses that manage physical items across multiple locations using barcode or QR scanning. Event companies tracking equipment between venues. Equipment rental operations checking gear in and out. IT asset managers logging devices by user. Small manufacturers moving stock between production areas.

For those businesses, the scanning workflow is the point. Every item gets a label. Every movement gets logged. The mobile app is central to how the work gets done.

For a business that needs a digital list of what it has and where it is, that workflow is overhead. You are not printing labels. You are not scanning anything. You needed a list. The scanning platform came with it.

The Cost of a Scanning Workflow You Do Not Use

Sortly Advanced runs around A$60 to A$100 a month depending on the plan and number of users. That is the tier most growing small businesses end up on once the free or basic plan becomes too limited.

Picture a small business that has been on Sortly for three years. They use the item names, the quantities, and the location field. They have never printed a QR label. They have never opened the mobile scanning view. They paid A$2,700 to maintain a list that needed none of that.

Sortly Advanced over 3 years
A$2,700
A$75/mo. Recurring. Forever.
Merebase Merebase inventory tracker
A$499
Once. No subscription fee after that.

What a Merebase inventory tracker Includes

A Merebase inventory tracker is built for the job your business actually has. You describe the items you track, the fields that matter (condition, category, supplier, whatever applies), the locations you use, and how quantities move. The app is built to do exactly that.

What a Merebase inventory tracker includes:

Item catalogue with name, description, and custom fields. Location or storage area per item. Current quantity tracking. Receive in and record usage out. Low-quantity threshold alerts. Search and filter. Data export. A$499 once. You bring your own hosting. A basic plan runs A$5 to A$20 a month.

There is no scanning workflow. No label printer integration. No mobile check-in queue. The app does the job. Nothing else clutters the screen.

Your Data Is Already in Sortly

This is the most common reason people stay. Their item list is in Sortly and the thought of moving it feels like more work than it is worth.

A CSV of your items, quantities, and locations can be imported as part of setup. The data comes with you. Your item names, descriptions, and stock counts carry across. Nothing has to be re-entered by hand.

Once the data is in your own app, it stays there. No platform can reprice access to it, change the plan structure under you, or restrict features until you upgrade.

Common questions
Is there a cheaper alternative to Sortly for small businesses?
Yes. A Merebase inventory tracker built by Merebase does what most small businesses actually use Sortly for: an item list with names, quantities, and locations. A$499 once. No subscription fee. No per-seat pricing. You bring your own hosting.
Can I import my existing item list into a Merebase app?
Yes. A CSV of your items, quantities, and locations can be imported as part of setup. You keep your existing data and continue from where Sortly left off. The scope for how your data migrates is agreed in writing before any payment.
What does a Merebase inventory tracker include?
A Merebase inventory tracker from Merebase includes an item catalogue with name, description, and custom fields, a location or storage area per item, current quantity tracking, receive in and record usage out, low-quantity threshold alerts, search and filter, and data export. A$499 once, agreed in writing before payment.
Does the app work on mobile?
Yes. The app runs in any mobile browser without an app store download required. Your team can check stock, update quantities, and search items from their phone without installing anything.