Guide / free, honestly
Product inventory software, free: the honest ladder
Product inventory is the list of what you sell — quantities, costs, reorder points. Free covers the list; sharing it, trusting it between counts, and connecting it to money is where software earns its price.
The key facts
- Genuinely free: the spreadsheet product list — fine for one person, fragile the moment it is shared.
- Free tiers: real databases with caps on users, volume and history.
- What the paid layer adds: live quantities, reorder-driven purchasing, counts with audit trails, the accounting handoff.
- BSimple is not free: from $180/month (AUD), all features in the core plans, the full product free to trial.
- Context: the full inventory system holds the wider system, this page one stop in it.
- 01The key facts
- 02What free product inventory covers
- 03What the paid layer actually adds
- 04Where BSimple fits
What free product inventory covers
The spreadsheet is the honest free answer: product, SKU, cost, price, quantity, one maintainer. It works at small scale, and the businesses that outgrow it are not the biggest ones — they are the ones where the list started being edited by two people, or where a wrong quantity cost real money.
Free tiers of cloud tools move the list into a real database: mobile counts, search, maybe a barcode scan. The caps are predictable — users, order volume, locations, how far back history goes — and they sit on the features that save time, because that is what converts free users to paid ones. The simple-inventory rung and the free-tools landscape map both honestly; the stock-software comparison covers the free options for small stock rooms.
What the paid layer actually adds
- Live quantities. Every sale, receipt and adjustment updates the number — the list becomes a record.
- Reorder-driven purchasing. Reorder levels raise supplier orders before the shelf empties, with price variance caught at receipt.
- Audited counts. Cycle counts from a phone, variances adjusted with reasons — shrinkage becomes visible, not absorbed.
- The accounting handoff. Invoices push to Xero or MYOB and payment status mirrors back — no re-keying, no drift between the shelf and the books.
None of these are luxuries; they are the difference between a list and a record. Free tiers rarely include them, which is the structural reason "free" and "trustworthy" rarely overlap in this market.
Where BSimple fits
We build BSimple, so weigh that. It is the paid record done whole: product inventory live across locations, reorder-driven purchasing, counts from any phone browser, orders from the customer portal through pick and pack, and invoicing with the accounting handoff — from $180/month (AUD), no modules. If your product list lives in a spreadsheet, importing it is the first step of the trial, which is free and full-featured: your own products, an afternoon, and an honest answer.
The stock-management mechanics explain what the record does daily, and the free ladder is the honest companion for anyone not ready to leave $0.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there free product inventory management software?
The spreadsheet, genuinely — free forever at one-person scale. Free tiers add real databases with mobile counts, capped on users and volume. The live, shared, audited record with an accounting handoff is the paid layer everywhere.
Is BSimple free?
No — plans start at $180/month (AUD). The trial is the full product: import your product list, count a shelf, take an order to invoice, and judge on your own numbers before paying.
What do free tiers leave out?
Usually users, volume, history and the accounting handoff. The handoff matters most: without it, every invoice is re-keyed — an hour a week that quietly costs more than the paid plan.
When should we move off the free product list?
At the second editor, the second channel, or the first costly wrong quantity. The list needs to become a live record before those become monthly expenses — not after.
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