Inventory Planner is a genuine upgrade over Stocky for demand forecasting, multi-channel, and automated replenishment — but it starts at $119.99/month and rises steeply with SKUs and channels. If you used Stocky mainly to track orders and stock, it’s overkill, and a free tool covers you.

With Stocky shutting down on August 31, 2026, Inventory Planner is one of the most-recommended replacements — and one of the most expensive. This is the honest comparison: what each tool does, current real pricing, and the single question that decides which is right for you. That question isn’t about features. It’s whether you used Stocky for forecasting or just for tracking.

What each tool is built for

Stocky was a free, Shopify-native inventory app: purchase orders, supplier management, stocktakes, basic demand forecasting, and reorder suggestions inside the Shopify admin. Its appeal was that it was free and needed no setup. It’s being permanently retired.

Inventory Planner (now owned by Sage) is a dedicated demand-forecasting and replenishment platform. It ingests historical sales from Shopify and other channels, runs forecasting models, and generates automated reorder recommendations. It’s built for stores where spreadsheet planning has started actively costing money — apparel, beauty, and seasonal brands with real buying teams.

The gap between them is significant. Inventory Planner does far more than Stocky ever did. The question is whether you need what it adds.

Pricing — the real numbers

Most comparison pages go vague here because Inventory Planner hides pricing behind “contact us.” Here’s what confirmed listings and merchant reports show for 2026:

Two cautions. First, pricing scales with catalogue growth — adding a few hundred SKUs can bump you a tier, so a 37% catalogue expansion can mean a 100% price rise. Second, some merchants report meaningful annual increases under Sage’s ownership. Budget for the trajectory, not just the entry price.

Feature-by-feature

Who should pick Inventory Planner

Choose it if you sell across multiple channels or warehouses, you have a dedicated ops or buying person who’ll actually configure forecasting, your catalogue is large enough that stockouts and overstock measurably cost you cash, or you need Open-to-Buy budgeting for seasonal cash-flow control. At that profile, $119.99+/month is cheap against the inventory mistakes it prevents.

Who should not

If you used Stocky to log orders, watch stock, and keep a record of what’s selling — not to run forecasting models — Inventory Planner is more tool and more cost than you need. You’d be replacing a free tracking app with a $1,440+/year forecasting platform to use a fraction of it.

The option this comparison usually omits

Most “Stocky vs Inventory Planner” articles are published by paid competitors, so they never mention the free path. If your real need is tracking rather than forecasting, Stocky Swap logs every Shopify order to a Google Sheet in real time via a Make.com webhook — $0/month permanently, about four minutes to deploy, no app install. It doesn’t do forecasting or automated POs; it does the order-and-stock tracking most stores actually used Stocky for.

A sensible decision path: run the migration risk scorer to gauge complexity, deploy free Stocky Swap now so tracking is covered immediately, and commit to Inventory Planner only if your honest usage audit says you need forecasting. For the full field, see the complete Stocky alternatives comparison.

Whichever way you go, export your Stocky data first — it’s deleted after August 31 and suppliers can’t be exported at all.