Craftybase alternative · honest comparison
Craftybase is now Stocksmith. A good moment to re-read the fine print.
On July 1, 2026, the tool a generation of makers knew as Craftybase became Stocksmith. A rebrand is a natural moment to ask what you’re actually signed up for. Here is the honest version — including what Stocksmith does genuinely well, and the four promises we make that a rebrand can’t.
The moment
Fifteen years as Craftybase, then Stocksmith
Craftybase became Stocksmith on July 1, 2026, after fifteen years under the Craftybase name. If you’re reading pricing pages again because the brand you signed up with changed, you’re not alone — that’s exactly the moment makers re-evaluate.
Our answer to that moment isn’t a cheaper sticker price — it’s promises in writing. Four of them, product constraints, not marketing lines, and that a rename or a repackage can’t quietly revise.
Source: Craftybase → Stocksmith rebrand, effective July 1, 2026.
What a rebrand is a good moment to check
- Whether the plan you’re on can be repriced out from under you. Our promise: the price you join at is yours for as long as you keep it.
- Whether your plan caps orders, transactions, or sales volume. We never meter your sales — only AI receipt scans, which are our real cost.
- Whether you can walk with everything if you leave. Export it all — materials, products, batches, orders, cost history — as JSON or CSV, free, forever.
How your Stocksmith / Craftybase export lands
- We ship a migration importer built for exactly this: export from Stocksmith, upload the CSV (or paste it in), map the columns, and preview exactly what will land — how many materials and products, and any conflicts — before anything is written.
- Your materials arrive with opening balances and costs; from there every purchase re-averages each material’s cost — the disclosed average-cost method, on every report.
- Recipes are the one honest catch: Stocksmith’s export withholds its bill-of-materials, so from Stocksmith your materials, products, and costs come across and you rebuild recipes in-app. (Coming from Ardent Seller instead? Those exports do carry recipes, and we import them straight in.)
- And the door swings both ways: whatever you import, you can export again, any time, on any tier. No lock-in in either direction.
Side by side
| What matters | Craftybase | Batchnook |
|---|---|---|
| The brand you signed up with | Rebranded from Craftybase to Stocksmith, effective July 1, 2026 (after fifteen years) | The name and the plan you join at stay yours — existing customers are never repriced |
| Repricing | Check stocksmith.io for current plans | The plan you join at is yours — existing customers are never repriced. |
| Order / sales metering | Check their current plan limits | Batches and orders are never metered, on any tier — we meter AI receipt scans (our real cost), never your sales. |
| Receipt capture | Web-based data entry — check their current mobile support | Snap a supplier receipt; the AI reads the lines and you approve them before anything counts. |
| Costing method | Real-time inventory and COGS for small-batch manufacturing | Moving-average cost per material, recomputed on every purchase — disclosed average-cost method on every report. |
| Data export | Check their current export terms | Export everything (JSON/CSV), free, on every tier, forever — in and out, no lock-in. |
| Migration in | — | Upload a Stocksmith / Craftybase CSV export (or paste it) into the column mapper — dry-run preview + 24-hour undo |
| Price | Check stocksmith.io/pricing for current plans | Free to start · Bench $19/mo · Studio $29/mo |
Rebrand date verified July 2026 (Craftybase → Stocksmith, effective 2026-07-01). Stocksmith plan details change; we omit their prices rather than risk a stale number — check stocksmith.io. Their current numbers may differ — always check their own site. We never invent a competitor claim: rows we can’t verify say “check their current…”, not a made-up figure.
What Craftybase does well
Craftybase spent fifteen years building deep, defensible manufacturing inventory for small-batch makers — real-time COGS, materials tracking, and manufacturing records. It’s a mature tool, and plenty of makers are genuinely well served by it. This page is a fair comparison, not a takedown.
The part that doesn’t fit in a table
Batchnook runs on a set of promises — marketing claims that are also product constraints, so a rebrand or a price change can’t quietly revise them:
- The price you join at is yours.
- No order-line meters, ever.
- Your data walks free — export everything, always.
- Tax-ready numbers, never tax advice.
When Craftybase is still the right call
You’re settled on Craftybase / Stocksmith, work mostly at a desktop, and don’t need phone-first receipt capture. A mature tool you already know has real switching costs, and theirs is genuinely deep — if it fits your bench, staying put is a perfectly good call.
Try the maker-first way, free
No card, no countdown — 3 products and 3 receipt scans a month, free forever. Snap a receipt and watch every product’s margin update.
Or look at the full pricing page — the entitlement table is exact, on purpose — or read the other comparison.