Best Inventory Management Software for Wholesale Distributors
Seven inventory options for wholesale distributors, compared on eight distribution needs with limits and prices from vendors' own pages.
By Loopency Team
This post is for the owner or operations manager of a wholesale distributor, from a few people to around a hundred, buying from manufacturers and selling to businesses, who is choosing inventory software for the first time or replacing a tool that has been outgrown.
The short answer: for a distributor, inventory software is judged on eight things, and the right product depends on which of them are hard for you. Briefly:
- Order volume is the constraint: Cin7 or Zoho Inventory, checking their order caps.
- You want a simple, solid stock tool beside QuickBooks or Xero: inFlow, Unleashed or Fishbowl.
- You want one product for stock and accounting and can fund implementation: Odoo.
- The hard part is the handoffs between sales, stock, purchasing and the ledger: that is where Loopency fits, with limits we set out below.
The Eight Things Distribution Needs
| # | Need | Why it matters for a distributor |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Multiple warehouses and bins | Stock in the right place is the product you sell |
| 2 | Available-to-promise | Sales must see stock net of what is already promised |
| 3 | Purchasing from shortages and reorder points | Most of your cost is buying; buying late is losing orders |
| 4 | Landed cost | Freight and duty change unit cost, and margins are thin |
| 5 | Batch and serial tracking | Required by some customers and some product lines |
| 6 | B2B order handling | Quotes, partial deliveries, backorders, returns, credit |
| 7 | Accounting connection | Stock value and cost of goods must reach the ledger correctly |
| 8 | Volume and user limits | Some plans cap orders, users or locations |
The Options
Prices and limits below were read from each vendor's own pricing page on 15 October 2026, in US dollars. They change; check the source before you decide.
Cin7 Core
Price: Standard $349 per month (5 users, 6,000 sales orders a year), Pro $599 (10 users, 24,000 orders), Advanced $1,199 (15 users, 120,000 orders). Cin7 Omni is quoted per customer. Cin7 pricing Strong on: higher order volumes (8), with tiers sized by yearly sales orders. Check: which features are in your tier, and how accounting (7) is handled for your setup.
Zoho Inventory
Price: Standard $29 per organisation per month billed yearly (500 orders a month, 3 users, 2 locations); Premium $79 (3,000 orders, 5 users, 4 locations) is the first tier with serial and batch tracking and bins; Plus $129; Enterprise $249 (15,000 orders, 10 users, 10 locations). Zoho Inventory pricing Strong on: price and a natural fit with Zoho Books and the rest of Zoho. Check: the order, user and location caps (8) against your volume in two years, not today.
inFlow Inventory
Price: Lite $99 per month billed annually (2 team members, 1 location), Core $299 (5 members, 5 locations), Pro $499 (10 members, unlimited locations), Max $699 (20 members). Monthly billing costs more. inFlow pricing Strong on: a straightforward stock tool for small teams. Check: member and location limits (8), and what reaches your accounting package (7).
Unleashed
Price: Core $399 per month paid monthly (3 users; extra users $69 a month) or $4,389 a year; Pro $729 per month (5 users; extra users $89). Both list multi-warehouse management, with Xero and QuickBooks Online as accounting integrations. Unleashed pricing Strong on: inventory for product businesses that keep their books in Xero or QuickBooks. Check: the cost of additional users as the team grows.
Fishbowl
Price: Essentials $229 per month billed annually (2 users), Growth $429 (5 users), Scale $729 (10 users). Fishbowl pricing Strong on: depth for QuickBooks-based businesses. Check: which accounting sync is in your tier; the page lists QuickBooks Online and Xero sync on Essentials and two-way QuickBooks sync on Growth.
Odoo
Price: a Standard plan that includes all apps (inventory, purchasing, sales, accounting) and a Custom plan with Studio, multi-company and API access; per-user prices carry a first-year discount for initial users. Odoo pricing Strong on: stock, purchasing, sales and accounting in one product (2, 3, 7). Check: implementation cost and who will configure it.
Loopency
Price: Community free for up to three people; Business per person with a 14-day trial. Pricing
Against the eight needs:
| # | Loopency |
|---|---|
| 1 | Stock by warehouse, zone and bin; transfers approved, dispatched and received, with pick and put-away confirmed |
| 2 | An accepted quote reserves the stock it needs; an order shows what it is short |
| 3 | Reorder levels per warehouse raise requisitions for approval; "Buy what's short" on an order raises a purchase request linked to it; receipts fill waiting orders |
| 4 | Landed costs posted against a receipt are allocated to it and added to stock value |
| 5 | Batches and serial numbers; traceability from receipt to customer; expiry alerts |
| 6 | Quotes by secure link, partial deliveries, drop-ship orders, returns that credit the invoice and reverse cost of goods |
| 7 | Built-in ledger: receipts, shipments, landed costs and adjustments post their own entries |
| 8 | No order caps in the plan design; Community is limited to three people |
Where we are the wrong choice, honestly:
- Sales channels. If you sell through online marketplaces or shop platforms and need their orders pulled in automatically, Loopency is the wrong choice today: it does not connect to marketplaces or shop platforms. Check each other vendor's own integrations list for the channels you use.
- Keeping QuickBooks or Xero. Loopency has its own ledger and does not sync to them today.
- Track record. We are newer than every product on this list.
How to Choose
- Mark which of the eight are hard for you today. Most distributors find two or three that cause most of the pain.
- Project your volume two years out and check every plan's caps against it.
- Decide where your books will live. That splits the list in two.
- Trial your top two with a real order: a customer order with one line short, a purchase order that arrives in two parts, and a freight bill that arrives a week later. Watch where the cost of the freight ends up.
Run that order through Loopency
Competitor prices and limits were read from each vendor's own pricing page on 13 October 2026 and are linked where used.