Reftab is one of the better tools in this space and it is not hard to see why people like it. It does hardware and software, it has a real free tier, it has mobile apps, and it does the thing that actually matters — checking equipment out to a named person and back in again.
This page is about one number, and about who falls off the edge of it.
The free tier is real, and it has a wall
Reftab gives you a genuinely usable free account: a few dozen assets, forever, no credit card. Not a trial. The mobile app, barcodes and reports are in there. Many tools calling themselves free are a 14-day countdown, and this is not that. Credit where it is due.
But it is metered on asset count, and it is a small number. Once you cross it, you are on a paid plan, and the paid plan is a flat monthly fee rather than a gentle per-asset increase. So the cost curve is not a slope, it is a step.
That matters if you are the business this catches: about two hundred laptops, one person looking after them, a real need to know who has what — and comfortably past a free tier built for a department with a few dozen machines.
To be fair about the paid plan: it includes unlimited users, which is unusually generous. Most tools in this comparison charge per seat. Reftab charges for the things, not the people, and if you have a big team and modest inventory that is the right way round for you.
When Reftab is the right answer
- You need software licence tracking as well as hardware — seats, renewals, who has what installed. We do not do this at all.
- Several people need to be in it at once. Unlimited users on the paid plan is a genuinely good deal if your team is large.
- You want a real mobile app for scanning around an office.
- You want automated maintenance reminders that arrive without anyone looking.
- You are under fifty assets. Then their free tier costs nothing and does more than we do. Go and use it.
That last one is worth repeating: if you have a small number of assets, Reftab's free plan is a better deal than paying me $79. I would rather say so than sell you something.
Where the third option fits
The gap is the business that is past the free tier and does not want a monthly bill: a few hundred specific items, one person who mostly manages them, nobody editing simultaneously.
- Check things out to real people, stamped with a name and a date.
- A due-back date and an Overdue filter showing how many days late something is — so “who is late” is answerable, not just “who has it”.
- Printable barcode labels generated from your own list.
- Depreciation and book value, and warranty dates colour-coded before they lapse.
- Unlimited assets and unlimited people looking at it. Nothing is metered, because there is no server doing the metering.
What it asks of you, stated as plainly as the rest
- One editor at a time. It is a file. Two people editing at once will lose work. This is the biggest limitation and it rules out some teams entirely.
- Fixed columns. No custom fields.
- No mobile app. It is a browser page. It works on a phone; it is not an app.
- Nothing can be sent to you. Overdue and expiring items are colour-coded on screen, but no email or alert exists, because sending one needs a server and there isn't one.
- No permissions, no SSO, no integrations, no software licence tracking.
- Camera scanning only works on Android. Chrome and Edge on Windows do not support the barcode API, and neither does Safari on iPhone or iPad. A USB scanner works everywhere and costs about $25.
In exchange: one payment, no renewal, no asset ceiling to hit, and your records stay in an
.xlsx on your own disk.
Look at both before you decide
There is a live demo with sample data. It runs in your browser, it does not ask for an email, and you can click every screen before deciding.
It is $79 once. If you are under fifty assets, or you need software licence tracking, use Reftab's free plan instead. That is the honest answer.