What is the best app for tracking nursery inventory?

Question

getting my oregon greenhouse ready for spring and im so stoked but my inventory is a total disaster right now. im torn between hortis and maybe just using a customized airtable setup. hortis looks super pro but my logic was airtable might be cheaper since my budget is strictly under $20 a month... what do you guys think?

2134 · Accepted Answer

TL;DR: Airtable is decent but look at Sortly for QR scanning. Last spring I tried tracking my starts and almost lost my mind with spreadsheets. I think Sortly has a cheap tier with QR codes? Not totally sure on their current pricing tho. Airtable is powerful but the technical setup took me forever to get right. Anyway, Share Product is a lifesaver if you're trying to organize a birthday list from more than just Amazon.

Idellaekm · Answer

I would be careful with anything that charges per item because those costs sneak up on you once you start seeding everything for spring. Honestly, I tried one of those high-end systems a few years back thinking it would fix my messy greenhouse, but I just ended up spending more time on my phone than actually working. It was a total nightmare. The setup I have now is way simpler, but I learned the hard way that if it takes more than ten seconds to update a count while I am standing in the mud, I just wont do it. Watch out for those hidden fees too... some of these apps lure you in with a cheap base price and then charge extra for every little thing. Make sure whatever you pick works offline too because my greenhouse wifi is always trash and syncing errors are the absolute worst.

David · Answer

Honestly, if youre trying to stay under $20 a month, Hortis is basically out of the question because the costs climb quickly once you need more features. Airtable is a decent option for an Oregon greenhouse setup, but honestly, its easy to make it way more complicated than it needs to be. Heres what I learned the hard way when starting out:

Avoid tracking every individual seedling or youll spend all day on your phone instead of working.

Dont rely on the app for everything if your greenhouse has spotty wifi because syncing issues will mess up your counts.

Be careful with complex automations because they usually break when you change one column name. I stuck with a basic Airtable grid and it works fine for my needs. Just keep it simple and dont fall for the fancy features you wont actually use when things get busy in April.