What they are
Browser-first asset tracking with mobile apps, sold to everyone who owns things: schools, gyms, warehouses, clinics. Registers, checkouts, photos, barcode scanning. They are general-purpose (an asset can be a projector or a pallet) and that flexibility is their strength. On pricing they are not one model. Sortly and Asset Panda charge by the user; Asset Panda’s published tiers start per user with asset caps and minimum seat counts. EZOfficeInventory prices by the number of tracked items. Most of the category prices by the person and the rest by a published item tier, so check any quote for the unit it is counted in.
The difference that decides the rest: whose hands the register is in
Their architecture sends every asset you record through, and into, their cloud. Some of what that buys is real: nothing to host, any device with a browser works, IT does nothing. What you give up is structural, not a setting. The vendor’s servers are in the path of your register, permanently.
In Manifest you choose at setup whether the register lives on “this Mac and my devices” (no account, no telemetry, nothing of your inventory reaching us) or in Starkive Cloud, where the regulated scope, lease costs, condition notes, photographs and compliance evidence are encrypted on your device with a key we never receive. We could not read them if you asked us to. That choice between architectures is the choice between products. Make it on purpose, not by default.
The pricing shape
| The cloud asset apps | Manifest | |
|---|---|---|
| What the price counts | By the user on most of them, by tracked items on EZOfficeInventory | By assets, never by seat. The tier is the whole price |
| Where the register lives | In their cloud, by design | Your hardware or Starkive Cloud, chosen at setup, and the choice governs every sync afterwards |
| What is encrypted | Depends on the vendor, and their servers are in the path | Regulated scope, lease costs, photographs and evidence encrypted on your device with a key we never receive |
| If a subscription ends | Typically the register locks until you pay. Ask before the demo | Read-only, never locked: reading, reporting and exporting keep working |
Manifest starts at $19 a month for 500 assets, seven tiers, all of them printed on the pricing page.
What happens when a card expires
This is the question to ask every vendor, before the demo and before the quote. If a subscription lapses, cloud tools typically lock the register until you pay. Your asset list, held by a billing calendar. In Manifest a lapsed subscription makes the register read-only, never locked: reading, reporting and exporting keep working, and only adding and editing stop. For a consultant whose register is a client’s, mid-audit, that difference is the whole page.
What they do that Manifest does not
Stated in the same size type as everything else on this page, because a comparison that only runs one way is an advertisement.
- Any device with a browser. Manifest is Mac and iPhone. If the team is Android or Windows, the cloud apps will serve them and we will not.
- General-purpose flexibility. Tracking costumes, lab samples or a fleet of golf carts? That is their product. Manifest is deliberately hardware-only: devices, stockrooms, consumables, contracts, leases, licences, repairs, disposal.
- An established company. Integrations, ecosystems, support departments. DePalo Consulting is a small company, and buying from it is a bet on one. Said plainly, so you can weigh it.
What Manifest does that they do not
- An ITAM data model, not an everything data model. Warranty expiry, lease rent, licence seats, repair history and disposal certificates are first-class fields, not custom fields you design yourself and then maintain.
- Compliance evidence. The pack maps to 72 controls across 12 standards over 16 reports, in every tier. Mapping a register to an audit framework is not a feature this category leads with; you would assemble it from exports.
- A register that never has to leave your hardware at all. The local track has no account, no telemetry, and no path from your register to us. No cloud asset app can say that, because it is the thing they are.
- AI that runs on your Mac, on Apple’s on-device models, and is not metered.
The honest close
If the register is a school’s cameras or a gym’s kit, the cloud apps are built for you and this page is not arguing. If it is a client’s fleet, with a lease on one machine in three and an audit in the spring, that is the register this is built to hold. Download Manifest free and open the demo: Hill Valley Gas and Electric, 1,000 assets, contracts and paperwork filled in, free for three days from when you open it.
Sources
- ezo.io/ezofficeinventory/pricing: EZOfficeInventory’s pricing page, priced by tracked items.
- sortly.com/plans: Sortly’s plans, priced per user.
- Asset Panda pricing: published tiers priced per user with asset caps and minimum seat counts; quoted for enterprise.
- Checked 2026-09-28. Where a vendor’s own page was unreachable at checking time (Asset Panda, Sortly), the pricing shape is cited from a secondary source and the text keeps it hedged, on purpose. If you are one of these vendors and a figure is wrong, write to us and we will fix it.