Guide
HomeZada vs Sortly vs Aitemize: The Honest 2026 Home Inventory App Comparison
July 11, 2026
If you’re trying to pick between HomeZada, Sortly, and Aitemize, here’s the short answer: Sortly is the easiest for visual inventory of physical stuff, HomeZada is the most comprehensive whole-home management platform, and Aitemize is the most hands-off if you want AI to do the bulk of the cataloging. The “best” one depends entirely on why you’re inventorying your home in the first place.
Why These Three Get Compared So Often
All three are modern home inventory apps with mobile apps, cloud sync, and photo-based item recording. But they were built with very different primary users in mind:
- Sortly grew up serving small businesses that need to track tools, supplies, and equipment — and expanded into the home market.
- HomeZada was built for homeowners who want one app to handle inventory, maintenance schedules, and home value tracking.
- Aitemize is the newest of the three, betting that AI can identify and value your stuff from a photo so you barely have to type anything.
That difference in origin matters more than the feature checklist. It shapes what each app is genuinely good at — and where it falls short.
HomeZada: Best for Whole-Home Management
HomeZada isn’t really a “stuff catalog.” It’s a homeowner command center. The inventory module is one piece of a larger system that includes:
- A maintenance scheduler that reminds you when to service the HVAC, change filters, or reseal the deck.
- A home value tracker that pulls estimated value over time.
- Document storage for warranties, receipts, and insurance policies.
- Project tracking for renovations and remodels.
Where it shines: If you own a home and want one app that handles everything from “when did I last clean the gutters” to “what’s my net worth tied up in this house,” HomeZada is the only one of the three that comes close.
Where it falls short: The interface feels heavier than Sortly or Aitemize. If you don’t care about maintenance schedules or home value tracking, you’re paying complexity for features you won’t use. It’s also more web-first, so the mobile experience is solid but not as snappy as Sortly’s.
Best for: Long-term homeowners who want to manage the whole property, not just catalog what’s in it.
Sortly: Best for Visual Inventory That Anyone Can Use
Sortly is the photo-first option, and that’s its superpower. You snap a picture of an item (or a box of items), tag it, and you’re done. You can:
- Generate QR code labels and stick them on boxes, bins, or individual items.
- Organize with folders, tags, and custom fields.
- Share inventory with collaborators — employees, family members, or a spouse.
- Sync across iOS, Android, and web.
Where it shines: Speed and usability. You can inventory a closet in 20 minutes. The visual layout makes it easy to flip through and recognize items without reading detailed descriptions. The QR label feature is genuinely useful for storage units, basements, and moving boxes.
Where it falls short: Sortly was built for tracking things you already know you have, not for valuation, replacement-cost documentation, or insurance depth. The free tier is limited, and paid plans get expensive once you have a fully loaded home. There’s no AI to speed up cataloging, so you’re typing names, values, and details yourself.
Best for: People who want the simplest possible visual inventory — small business owners, families documenting for insurance, or anyone packing for a move.
Aitemize: Best for Hands-Off AI Cataloging
Aitemize is the newest and most AI-forward of the three. The pitch is simple: take photos of your belongings, and the AI identifies the item, suggests a category, and estimates a value. You review, adjust, and confirm.
Where it shines: If you’re staring at a garage full of stuff and don’t want to spend a weekend typing item names and prices, Aitemize’s AI does the heavy lifting. It’s particularly good for common household categories — electronics, furniture, kitchen gear, tools. The valuation estimates give you a starting point for replacement-cost discussions with insurers.
Where it falls short: AI identification isn’t magic. Unusual items, vintage pieces, or anything without a clear brand or barcode get miscategorized or under-described. You’ll still need to review and edit. Aitemize also has a narrower feature set than HomeZada — it’s focused on inventory, not whole-home management. And because it’s newer, third-party integrations are limited.
Best for: People who want a fast first pass on a large home and don’t mind reviewing AI output afterward.
Head-to-Head: Where Each One Wins
| Use Case | Winner | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Fastest visual inventory | Sortly | Photo-first workflow, minimal typing |
| Whole-home management | HomeZada | Only one with maintenance + value tracking |
| Hands-off AI cataloging | Aitemize | AI handles naming and rough valuation |
| QR labels for boxes / bins | Sortly | Built-in label generator |
| Maintenance reminders | HomeZada | Native scheduler |
| Insurance documentation | Aitemize | AI valuations paired with photo evidence |
| Small business inventory | Sortly | Originally built for this |
| Multi-user collaboration | Sortly | Cleanest share workflows |
The Pricing Reality (2026)
All three run on freemium or subscription models, and the price you actually pay depends on how many items you log. A 2,000-square-foot home can easily hit 1,500–3,000 items once you’re thorough, which usually pushes you off the free tier of any of them.
- Sortly offers a limited free plan and paid tiers that scale with item count and users.
- HomeZada has a free inventory tier; the full platform (maintenance, value, documents) runs as a paid subscription.
- Aitemize bundles AI features into its paid plans, with pricing that generally scales by home size.
Before committing, run a rough count of the rooms and categories you’d realistically catalog. It changes which tier you’ll land on, and it changes the answer.
The Honest Gap None of Them Fill
Here’s what no comparison chart will tell you: all three of these tools are built for general home inventory. They work great if you’re documenting for insurance, organizing a move, or tracking maintenance.
They are not built for situations where ownership, fairness, or negotiation are at stake — like divorce, estate disputes between siblings, or partnership dissolutions. In those cases, you typically need:
- A way to tag ownership (mine, yours, shared, disputed)
- Fair-market valuations that can hold up to scrutiny
- A clean export that works as documentation — not just a phone gallery
That’s a different problem with a different toolset. If your reason for inventorying goes beyond “I want to know what I own,” it’s worth checking whether something more purpose-built fits the situation better. Tools like HalfYourStuff exist specifically for the divorce-documentation use case, where the point isn’t just listing items but proving what’s there and how it should be split.
Which One Should You Pick?
- Pick Sortly if you want the simplest, fastest, most visual inventory — and you don’t need AI or whole-home management features.
- Pick HomeZada if you’re a homeowner who wants inventory plus maintenance and home value tracking in one app.
- Pick Aitemize if you want AI to do the bulk of the cataloging and you’re comfortable reviewing its output.
- Look at something else if your underlying need is ownership documentation, legal protection, or dispute preparation — none of these three were designed for that.
The right choice comes down to the question behind the question: are you trying to know what you own, or are you trying to protect something specific?
