The short answer
Choose Katana ifyou manufacture with routings and operations, schedule work across machines or people, or sell what you make through Shopify or Amazon and want production driven by those orders.
Choose StockBold ifyou assemble or kit products from purchased parts and your harder problems are purchasing, costing and control: approvals, landed costs, faulty deliveries, a trustworthy stock value, and a record of who did what.
Katana calls itself manufacturing software, and that is the right description: production orders, routings, operations costed by the hour, subassemblies, make-to-order from a Shopify sale. StockBold is an inventory system in which assembling a product is one feature among many. A workshop that builds products from parts will find both of them workable. A factory with routings and shop-floor scheduling will find only one.
This comparison was checked against Katana’s own feature and help pages on 12 October 2026. If something has changed since, tell us and we will correct it.
Where Katana does more
ManufacturingProduct recipes with subassemblies, manufacturing orders that commit ingredients, production operations with resources costed per hour for labour, utilities and overhead, shop-floor tasks on a tablet. StockBold’s assemblies reserve components, consume them on completion and add labour and overheads as costs you enter, with projects and batches to organise larger work. There is no routing, no operation sequence, no scheduling.
SellingKatana has sales orders, quotes, customer returns and kits, pushes invoices to QuickBooks Online or Xero, and connects to Shopify, Amazon, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and HubSpot. StockBold has no sales orders and no shop or accounting connectors.
An assistant that actsOn its top plan, Katana exposes your data to Claude or ChatGPT through an MCP server that can read stock and also create and update records. StockBold’s assistant answers questions from your data and reads only.
Where StockBold does more
Who did whatKatana’s movement history shows dates, documents and quantities without the user, and its public product roadmap lists an audit trail as work in progress. In StockBold every movement, order and approval already carries the name of the person and the time.
Negative stockKatana’s help says it is possible to have negative stock levels and advises avoiding them. StockBold refuses the movement that would cause them, always.
Purchase ordersKatana’s orders move from draft to received with no approval step that we could find. StockBold’s go through approval, with approvers per department, and return to draft when edited. Katana does not manage payment terms, leaving due dates to the accounting software; StockBold has terms in instalments and a payment forecast per supplier per month.
CostingKatana values stock at moving average cost only, and states that FIFO and LIFO are not supported. StockBold offers FIFO, LIFO and average cost, rebuilds the valuation on any date from the history, and locks a closed year. Katana closes inventory periods monthly, which is a comparable control.
Supplier claimsKatana’s returns feature is for customers; the only route back to a supplier is reverting a received order, all or nothing. StockBold blocks the faulty units, tracks the replacement across several deliveries and brings it in at the original cost.
DocumentsKatana does not support file uploads; you paste links to cloud storage. StockBold attaches certificates, invoices and photos to products and orders and searches the text inside them, scans included.
Permissions and shelvesKatana has three roles and about seventeen toggles, including one to hide cost and stock value, and restricts users by location. StockBold has about forty permissions, five role templates and restriction by department. Katana gives each product one default bin per location, with multi-bin picking and counting in a paid add-on; StockBold tracks any product on any number of shelves, with put-away, moves and shelf-level stock-outs included.
ReportsKatana’s built-in reports cover movements, stock value on a date and cost per sales order; ageing and turnover come through a third-party analytics integration. StockBold has ageing with fixed bands, turnover with velocity bands, a twelve-month value history, cost of goods sold and the payment forecast built in.
Side by side
| StockBold | Katana | |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing | Assemblies with reservation, labour, overheads, projects and batches | Full MRP: routings, operations, scheduling, subassembliesMore |
| Sales and connectors | None | Sales orders, Shopify, Amazon, WooCommerce, QuickBooks, XeroMore |
| Movement history | Author on every movementMore | No user; audit trail listed as in progress |
| Negative stock | Refused, alwaysMore | Allowed |
| PO approval | Per departmentMore | Not found |
| Payment terms | Instalments and a forecastMore | Not managed |
| Landed costs | Per unit, by value | Per item, by value or quantity |
| Costing | FIFO, LIFO, averageMore | Moving average only |
| Period lock | Year lock | Monthly period closing |
| Supplier claims | Replacement tracked at original costMore | Revert a received order, all or nothing |
| Documents | Attached, text search inside scansMore | Links only |
| Shelf positions | Any product, any shelves, included | One bin per product; multi-bin add-on |
| Permissions | About 40, by department | 3 roles, about 17 toggles, by location |
| AI assistant | Read only | Read and write through MCP, top plan |
| Reports | Ageing, turnover, value history, COGS, forecastMore | Movements, value on a date; ageing via third party |
| Phone scanning | Browser, included | Mobile web app, add-on |
| Import | CSV | Excel templates |
StockBold has a free plan with no time limit
The pricing page has the details.
Read more about assemblies in StockBold.