ShareMyToolbox alternatives that don't charge per person

If you are trying to work out who has the impact driver, ShareMyToolbox is one of the few tools built for exactly that. It is mobile-first, it is aimed at contractors and field crews rather than offices, and the borrowing model — a tool is assigned to a person, and that person accepts it — matches how tools actually move on a site.

This is not a page about why it is bad. It is a page about what it charges for, which is unusual and easy to miss.

It charges for people, not tools

Almost every tracking tool in this market meters the things. ShareMyToolbox does the opposite: tools are unlimited, and you pay per person. There is a monthly fee for the first administrator, and additional people are added in blocks rather than one at a time.

Credit where it is due — the pricing is published plainly on their site, which is more than several bigger names in this space manage.

But sit with what per-person metering means on a crew:

• Adding tools is free. Adding people is not. If you buy fifty more drills nothing changes; if you hire two more guys who need the app, that may cost you.
• Blocks mean you round up. Needing one more person can cost the same as needing five.
• Seasonal crews are the awkward case. A crew that doubles for three months in summer is a pricing decision, not just a scheduling one.

To be fair, per-person pricing is the right way round for some people. If you have a warehouse full of tools and three guys, you will pay far less here than on anything metered by item count.

When ShareMyToolbox is the right answer

• Your crew needs it on their own phones, in the field, all day. This is the core of the product and a browser page on a laptop is not a substitute.
• You want the borrow-and-accept flow — a worker confirms they took it, so accountability is mutual rather than one person's word.
• You have far more tools than people. The metering is in your favour.
• You need GPS or scan location data. A file on a laptop cannot do it.

If two or more of those describe your week, buy it. Genuinely. I would rather you found this page and bought the right tool than bought something from me that does not fit.

The question worth settling first

Most crews searching for this are trying to answer one thing: who had the mitre saw last, and when is it coming back?

That is a custody question. It needs a list, a name, a date, and something that flags when the date has passed. It does not need GPS, a cloud account, or a licence per person.

If your problem is genuinely “where on the site is it right now”, buy software with a live location. If it is “who signed for it and did it come back”, a lot of what you would pay for is machinery you will never use.

Where the third option fits

• Sign a tool out to a named person, stamped with a date, so the argument three weeks later has an answer.
• A due-back date and an Overdue filter showing how many days late something is.
• Printable barcode labels off your own printer.
• Runs on a laptop in a site trailer with no signal, because it never talks to anything.
• Unlimited tools AND unlimited people. Neither axis is metered.

What it asks of you, stated as plainly as the rest

• One editor at a time. If the whole crew needs to update it from their phones, this is the wrong tool and ShareMyToolbox is the right one. That is the honest dividing line.
• No borrow-and-accept. The office records who took it; the worker does not confirm on their phone.
• No GPS or location. It records who signed for something, not where it is.
• No mobile app, and nothing can be sent to you. Overdue items are colour-coded on screen, but no alert exists, because sending one needs a server.
• Camera scanning only works on Android. A USB scanner works everywhere and costs about $25.

In exchange: one payment, no renewal, no per-person licence, and your records stay in an .xlsx on your own disk.