Comparison

Inventory management software for Amazon: the categories compared

Spreadsheet, ERP, specialist FBA tool or replenishment planning – the four categories solve different problems. This page maps them out, gives you the selection criteria and says openly where Octuno belongs and where it does not.

  • Categories, not a vendor ranking
  • Twelve selection criteria to tick off
  • Octuno placed honestly, limits included

Last reviewed on

Four categories, four different problems

Most comparisons line up products that do not actually do the same thing. The more useful question is which kind of tool solves your current problem at all – picking a vendor comes after that.

Spreadsheet

Excel or Google Sheets – where a great many sellers actually are today

A spreadsheet is not a bad tool, it is a very flexible one. Stock levels, lead times, safety stock and a reorder suggestion can all be modelled cleanly, and you keep full control over every formula. The price is that every data point is entered by hand and every piece of logic is maintained by you.

A good fit when

  • You sell on one channel and carry a manageable number of active SKUs.
  • Demand is reasonably stable, without heavy seasonality or promotion spikes.
  • You want the calculation logic in your own hands and understand every cell.
  • Updating the numbers once a week is realistically doable.

Runs into limits when

  • The stock level in the sheet drifts from Seller Central because units sold between two updates.
  • Several channels draw on the same physical stock, but the sheet only knows about one of them.
  • FBA quantity limits never enter the calculation, so the sheet plans shipments the warehouse will not take.
  • Nobody but you understands the file – when you are on holiday, purchasing stops.

ERP and merchandise management

In the German market, JTL-Wawi, plentymarkets or Xentral for example

An ERP is the backbone of day-to-day operations: item master data, orders, storage locations, pick and pack processes, documents, handover to accounting. If you ship a meaningful share of your goods yourself, run several storage locations or have a team working in the warehouse, there is hardly a way around this category.

A good fit when

  • You ship a relevant share of your goods yourself and need warehouse processes in the system.
  • Documents, returns and the handover to accounting should come from a single source.
  • You carry many variants, bills of materials or bundles that a marketplace backend cannot model cleanly.
  • Several people work on orders and stock at the same time.

Runs into limits when

  • The focus is on representing the current state correctly. Demand forecasting and reorder suggestions are a different discipline – whether and how deeply a given system covers them, via an add-on module, a partner app or not at all, differs from system to system and belongs on your checklist before you decide.
  • Rollout and upkeep take time. An ERP is a project, not a subscription you sign up for on a Tuesday afternoon.
  • What the licence model charges for – users, orders, revenue or a flat rate – varies widely. Run it against your numbers for next year, not this year's.
  • Amazon specifics such as quantity limits on FBA shipments are an edge case that not every general-purpose system takes into account.

Specialist FBA tools

Repricing, product and keyword research, PPC, reimbursements, analytics

A large ecosystem of individual tools has grown up around Amazon, each covering a narrow slice: tracking prices, running ad campaigns, finding reimbursement cases, researching products, analysing metrics. Within their slice, these tools usually beat any all-purpose solution.

A good fit when

  • You have exactly one clearly defined problem and want the best tool for it.
  • That slice matters enough to justify a subscription of its own.
  • You work mostly on Amazon anyway and do not need a cross-channel view.
  • You do not mind pulling numbers together from several interfaces.

Runs into limits when

  • Several specialist tools side by side mean several subscriptions, several logins and several versions of the truth about the same stock.
  • Whether a tool actually plans replenishment or merely shows past sales is rarely visible from a product page. That is a question for a trial, not a feature list.
  • The view usually stops at the Amazon border – eBay, Kaufland or TikTok Shop do not appear in it.
  • The narrower each slice, the bigger the gap between the tools, and that gap ends up being filled by hand again.

Inventory and replenishment planning

Forecast, reorder point, order quantity – this is where Octuno sits

This category answers a single question thoroughly: what needs to be reordered, when and in what quantity, so that nothing runs out and no capital sits idle on the shelf? That takes sales history, lead times, safety stock and – on Amazon – the warehouse's quantity limits. A tool like this does not replace an ERP; it answers the question an ERP typically leaves open.

A good fit when

  • You know what you sold, but not reliably what to reorder and when.
  • Lead times differ sharply – sea freight alongside a top-up order from a wholesaler.
  • You sell the same item across several channels and need one shared view of stock.
  • FBA quantity limits have already cost you a planned shipment once.

Runs into limits when

  • Accounting, documents and your own warehouse processes are not part of it – that stays with an ERP or with FBA.
  • A forecast is only as good as the history: for an item with three weeks of sales data, every number remains an estimate.
  • Another system means another integration that has to be set up and maintained.
  • If you only carry a handful of stable SKUs, you gain little over a well-kept spreadsheet.

Vendor names appear here purely as well-known examples of a category, not as an assessment and not as a ranking. Check feature scope, modules and pricing directly with the vendor – they change far too quickly for a page like this one.

Twelve questions that let you decide for yourself

These answers separate tools more reliably than any feature list. Take the list into a demo call – with us and with every other vendor.

  1. 01

    Where does the stock data come from?

    Automatically through the marketplace API, via CSV import or by hand? That determines how current your numbers really are and how much manual work is left each month.

  2. 02

    Does the system plan replenishment or only show the past?

    A dashboard with the last 30 days of sales is not a forecast. Ask to see the order quantity it proposes for one specific item – and the reasoning behind it.

  3. 03

    Can lead time and safety stock be set per item?

    A blanket value for the whole assortment inevitably produces wrong quantities as soon as sea freight and wholesaler top-ups exist side by side.

  4. 04

    Are FBA quantity limits part of the calculation?

    Amazon caps how much you may store. A reorder suggestion that ignores this produces shipments that get cut down or are not accepted at all.

  5. 05

    Do all channels draw on the same stock?

    As soon as the same item sits on Amazon, eBay, Kaufland or TikTok Shop, this question decides between overstock on one side and a stockout on the other.

  6. 06

    What does the price depend on?

    Per user, per order, per revenue or a flat rate per account? Run the model against your numbers for the coming year – a model that grows with you costs considerably more later than it does today.

  7. 07

    What happens during seasons and promotions?

    Ask specifically how the system treats a Prime Day or the Christmas quarter: as an outlier it smooths away, as a pattern it expects, or not at all.

  8. 08

    How long does setup realistically take?

    Ask for the path from sign-up to the first trustworthy reorder suggestion – with the intermediate steps and with who has to do what.

  9. 09

    How much history does the system need before it calculates usefully?

    Every forecast needs a past. A vendor promising a solid number for an item that is two weeks old is promising too much.

  10. 10

    Can you get your data back out?

    Export into an open format is your insurance against a wrong decision. You ask this before signing, not when cancelling.

  11. 11

    Who sees your sales data and where is it stored?

    Server location, data processing agreement and deletion periods are no formality for data pulled from the Amazon API. A vendor who answers this cleanly has thought about it.

  12. 12

    How many systems will you have afterwards?

    Every additional tool adds another login, another subscription and another source that can contradict the others. Sometimes that is worth it, sometimes not – but the question deserves to be asked either way.

If these twelve questions lead you back to your spreadsheet, it was a deliberate decision. That is worth more than a subscription still running unused three months from now.

How to tell your spreadsheet has stopped working

There is no rule about the number of SKUs at which you need a system. These signals are more useful than any threshold.

  • Last quarter you had at least one item go out of stock that you could have seen coming.
  • You maintain the same stock level in more than one file or interface.
  • Reorder quantities come from gut feeling because the sheet does not model seasonality.
  • A shipment to Amazon was cut down or refused because a quantity limit had been reached.
  • You cannot say off the top of your head which item has to be ordered this week.
  • The file has grown to the point where even you are no longer sure which formula applies where.

One signal is coincidence. Three are a pattern.

Where Octuno fits in

Octuno belongs in the fourth category: inventory and replenishment planning for Amazon FBA and multichannel sellers. To keep this a placement rather than an advert, both sides are here – what the system does and what it explicitly does not do.

What Octuno is built for

  • A demand forecast per item, based on the sales history of your connected channels.
  • Restock recommendations that factor in FBA quantity limits instead of ignoring them.
  • One stock level across Amazon, eBay, Kaufland and TikTok Shop instead of one per channel.
  • Supplier tracking with lead times per item and per supplier.
  • Costing including Amazon fees – the same calculation logic as in the free FBA calculator.
  • A flat rate per account instead of per user: the team can grow without the price growing with it.

What Octuno is not built for

  • Not an ERP: documents, accounting and processes in your own warehouse are not covered.
  • Not a repricer and not a PPC tool: you keep managing prices and ad campaigns wherever you do today.
  • Not product or keyword research for items you do not carry yet.
  • Not a substitute for history: for a freshly listed item without sales data, our forecast is an estimate too.

And the most honest point last

Octuno is in a closed beta with a maximum of 30 testers. That means short paths to the team and free usage – but also a product that is still growing. If what you need today is a solution proven over years with a large partner ecosystem, we are not the right choice yet. That belongs in an honest placement just as much as everything above it.

Short answers

Does Octuno replace my ERP?

No. An ERP models orders, documents and warehouse processes; Octuno plans replenishment. If you run an ERP today, you keep running it – the two tools answer different questions.

Why is there no table of vendors, features and prices here?

Because we could not keep it accurate in good conscience. Other vendors' feature scope and pricing models change constantly, and an outdated table on a competitor's website is worthless to you and unfair to them. The twelve criteria above lead you to a decision more reliably – and they work for vendors that do not even exist yet.

Is a spreadsheet really still enough?

For many sellers yes, and that is not a courtesy. As long as you serve one channel, carry few active SKUs and demand is stable, a well-kept spreadsheet is the cheapest and most flexible tool there is. The signals above tell you when that point has passed.

How does Octuno's price compare?

Octuno charges a flat rate per account: four tiers from 49 to 399 euros a month, regardless of team size. Whether that is cheaper than your current solution depends on what its price is calculated from – which is exactly why that question is on the checklist.

Can I try Octuno before deciding?

During the closed beta yes, as long as places are free: at no cost and capped at 30 testers. After the beta, three months are on us. A trial with your own items answers more questions than any comparison page, including this one.

Run the numbers yourself instead of being compared to

If the checklist leads you to conclude that what you are missing is a forecast and a reorder suggestion, the fastest test is the one with your own numbers.

Closed beta, 30 testers maximum, free of charge. Three months free after the beta.

Request beta accessSee all features

Related pages

Avoid stockoutsHow to calculate safety stock and the reorder point – with formulas you can check yourself.FBA calculatorWork out Amazon fees, profit and margin per ASIN, free and without signing up.IntegrationsWhich marketplaces and shipping carriers run on one shared stock level.PricingA flat rate per account instead of per user – four tiers from 49 to 399 euros a month.