Sortly is great for visual inventory lite: small business wanting to know what it owns and where. Free plan to start. As soon as you move into pro rental — projects, loans, maintenance, signed quotes, QR-bill — Sortly isn't built for it.
Simple and visual. Limited as soon as you rent for real.
Sortly (San Francisco, 2013) is the visual inventory tool. Big photos, swipeable cards, mobile-first, free plan to start. Perfect for a carpenter photographing tools, a prop stylist tracking furniture, a small shop inventorying stock. Not a pro rental tool: no projects, no availability conflicts, no versioned quotes, no planned maintenance, no QR-bill invoicing.
Generous free plan (100 items, 1 user) — great for trying.
Polished visual UI, huge photos, slick mobile app — zero-training accessible.
Basic QR/barcode scan + printable labels (Avery-compatible).
Inventory reports + simple movement history.
No rental projects, no conflicts, no 5-status workflow — simple inventory, not rental flow.
No quotes, no invoicing, no e-signature — Sortly does not bill your customers.
No planned maintenance or intervention history.
US hosting — not in Switzerland, no nFADP guarantee on storage.
| Feature | ark.stock | Sortly |
|---|---|---|
| Large photos + visual inventory | Yes | Yes |
| Free plan to start | No | Yes |
| ark.stock starts at CHF 12/month (Solo, 1 user). | ||
| QR/barcode scan | Yes | Yes |
| NFC scanner | Yes | No |
| Multi-line rental projects | Yes | No |
| Hierarchical containers + flight cases | Yes | Partial |
| Quotes + invoicing + signature (via ark.plan) | Yes | No |
| Swiss invoicing via ark.plan (SIX / ISO 20022 QR-bill) | Yes | No |
| Planned maintenance | Yes | No |
| Swiss hosting (Infomaniak Geneva, ISO 27001) | Yes | No |
| Swiss nFADP + GDPR compliance | Yes | No |
| Full CSV / Excel / PDF export anytime | Yes | Yes |
What the matrix above asserts, here's how it looks inside ark.stock. Previews faithfully rebuilt from the app.
SIX QR-bill embedded on every invoice. ISO 20022 standard, native IBAN, scanned and paid by any Swiss bank.
Versioned quotes with immutable snapshots. Each send freezes prices and terms — 100 % traceability without guessing what was on the table 6 months ago.
Fast loan in three steps: QR scan, pick borrower, validate. 80 % of loans are routine — the app removes the friction on those 80 %.
Sortly free plan caps at 100 items, 1 user, no export. Fine for a small shop; a rental company outgrows it in weeks and must move to $24/month (Advanced, 1 user) or $74/month (Ultra, 5 users).
Technically yes (custom statuses, tags like "Rented to Customer X until…"), but you hack. No availability conflicts, no quotes, no invoices, no planned maintenance. ark.stock handles conflicts and maintenance natively; quotes and invoices follow via ark.plan.
Sortly exports CSV (paid plans only). ark.stock Mapper reads it directly. Photos re-imported via public URL or manual batch. Typical: 2-3 hours for 500 items.
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A few slots reserved before the public launch. Tell us about your needs — we reply within 2 business days.
