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Restockly vs Inventory Planner vs Prediko: Which Inventory Tool Is Right for Your Store?

If you have spent any time looking for a Shopify inventory management tool, you have almost certainly run into Inventory Planner and Prediko. They are the most-mentioned options in the space, they have strong reviews, and they genuinely do what they claim. But they are also priced for stores doing well over $1 million a year, which rules them out for most merchants who actually need this kind of help.

This post compares all three tools honestly: what they do, what they cost, and which one makes sense depending on your store's size and needs.

The Core Problem All Three Tools Try to Solve

All three tools exist because spreadsheet-based inventory management breaks down as a store grows. When you have 50 SKUs, you can probably keep things manageable in a Google Sheet. At 200 SKUs with multiple suppliers and varying lead times, manual tracking leads to stockouts, dead stock, and wasted hours each week.

The difference between rule-based tools and ML-based forecasting matters here. A rule-based tool calculates reorder points using a formula: safety stock plus lead time demand. It works, but it does not detect seasonal patterns, does not weight recent velocity changes heavily, and does not adapt to trend acceleration. ML-based forecasting analyzes your actual sales history to find patterns a formula would miss.

All three tools in this comparison use some form of forecasting, but they differ significantly in how sophisticated that forecasting is, who it is built for, and what it costs.

Inventory Planner

Inventory Planner is the most established tool in this space. It has been around since 2015 and integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, Amazon, and several other platforms. It is a genuinely good product for the audience it is built for.

The forecasting is solid. Inventory Planner analyzes sales history, applies seasonality adjustments, and generates purchase order recommendations. It also handles supplier management, multi-warehouse inventory, and purchase order tracking. If you run a complex operation with multiple warehouses and suppliers, those features matter.

Pricing: Inventory Planner starts at around $99-$200 per month for basic plans and scales up from there based on the number of orders processed. Stores doing serious volume can pay $500 per month or more.

Best for: Stores doing $500K+ per year with complex supply chains, multiple warehouses, or wholesale operations. The feature depth justifies the price at that scale.

The problem for smaller stores: At $99-$200/month, the math is hard to justify for a store doing $15K-$50K per month. You would need to prevent a meaningful number of stockouts every month just to break even on the subscription. The interface also has a learning curve that assumes you already think like an inventory manager.

Prediko

Prediko is a more modern Shopify-focused inventory tool that launched more recently than Inventory Planner and targets a slightly broader audience. It has a cleaner interface and a stronger focus on purchase order generation.

The product includes AI-driven demand forecasting, purchase order creation, stock alerts, and some reporting features. It integrates directly with Shopify and handles variant-level tracking.

Pricing: Prediko starts at $119/month and goes up from there based on order volume and feature access. There is no meaningful free tier.

Best for: Shopify-native stores doing $200K+ per year that want a polished interface and purchase order workflows built in.

The problem for smaller stores: $119/month is the floor. For a store doing $20K-$30K per month, that is a significant line item relative to the problem being solved. And like Inventory Planner, Prediko's pricing model assumes you are running at a scale where inventory problems cost significantly more than the subscription does.

Restockly

Restockly is built specifically for the gap that Inventory Planner and Prediko leave open: stores doing $10K-$500K per month that need genuine ML-based forecasting without paying $100-$500 per month for it.

The core feature is AI Restock Recommendations. Restockly connects to your Shopify or WooCommerce store via a one-click OAuth integration, imports your full product catalog and sales history, and generates a prioritized list of restock recommendations with exact quantities, order-by dates, and plain-English explanations of the reasoning. The first recommendations appear within 60 seconds of connecting.

The Stockout Risk Dashboard shows every SKU's days-of-stock-remaining, color-coded by urgency and sorted by risk level. You can see your entire inventory health without opening a spreadsheet or running a report.

The Dead Stock Early Warning feature flags SKUs with declining sales velocity and aging inventory, and suggests specific recovery actions: discount percentages, bundle candidates, or liquidation timing. This is not just an alert. It tells you what to do about the problem.

Weekly email digests summarize the top restock items, newly flagged dead stock, and estimated revenue at risk, with one-click links back to the dashboard. The product surfaces important information even when you are not actively logging in.

Pricing:

  • Starter: Free forever, up to 50 SKUs tracked, AI recommendations for top 10 SKUs, full dashboard access
  • Pro: $29/month, unlimited SKUs, full AI recommendations, dead stock recovery suggestions, seasonal pattern detection, hourly data sync, CSV export
  • Business: $79/month, everything in Pro plus multi-store management, advanced analytics, API access, priority support

Best for: Shopify and WooCommerce stores doing $10K-$500K per month with 50-2,000 SKUs that want real AI forecasting without enterprise pricing.

Side-by-Side Comparison

| Feature | Restockly | Inventory Planner | Prediko | |---|---|---|---| | Starting price | Free ($29/mo Pro) | ~$99/month | $119/month | | AI/ML forecasting | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Free tier | Yes (50 SKUs) | No | No | | Shopify integration | Yes (OAuth, 60s) | Yes | Yes | | WooCommerce integration | Yes | Yes | Limited | | Dead stock recovery | Yes (Pro+) | Limited | Limited | | Plain-English explanations | Yes | No | No | | Multi-store management | Yes (Business) | Yes | Limited | | Setup time | 60 seconds | Hours to days | 30-60 minutes | | Best for store size | $10K-$500K/mo | $500K+/mo | $200K+/mo |

Which Tool Should You Choose?

If your store does over $500K per year and you have a complex supply chain with multiple warehouses and suppliers, Inventory Planner is worth evaluating seriously. The feature depth is real and the pricing is more defensible at that scale.

If you run a Shopify-native store doing $200K+ per year and you want a polished purchase order workflow, Prediko is worth a look.

If you are running a Shopify or WooCommerce store under $500K per year and you want genuine ML-based forecasting at a price that makes financial sense, Restockly is the right tool. The free tier lets you verify the recommendations work before spending anything. The Pro plan at $29/month costs less than most merchants lose in a single partial stockout.

The honest version of this comparison is that Inventory Planner and Prediko are not bad products. They are the right products for a different customer. Restockly was built for the stores those tools effectively price out.

You can start with Restockly's free plan and have your first AI restock recommendations in under a minute. See the pricing page to compare plan limits.

FAQ

Is there a free alternative to Inventory Planner? Restockly offers a free Starter plan that tracks up to 50 SKUs and provides AI recommendations for your top 10 SKUs with a full Stockout Risk Dashboard. It is a genuine free tier, not a trial.

What is the best inventory management app for small Shopify stores? For stores under $500K per month, Restockly offers the best balance of ML-powered forecasting, ease of use, and pricing. Inventory Planner and Prediko are designed for larger operations.

How does Restockly compare to Inventory Planner on forecasting accuracy? Both use ML-based forecasting that analyzes sales history and seasonal patterns. Restockly adds plain-English explanations for each recommendation, which Inventory Planner does not, making it easier to verify and trust the output.

Can I switch from Inventory Planner to Restockly? Yes. Restockly connects to Shopify and WooCommerce directly and imports your sales history automatically. There is no manual migration required. You can run both in parallel during a trial period to compare recommendations.