AirTags vs Sortly: The 50% Intro Discount That Disappears at Renewal (2026 Comparison)

The Core Problem with Sortly

The prices on Sortly's pricing page ($24, $74, $149 per month) are 50% first-year discounts. The list prices are $49, $149, and $299. Your second year costs roughly double your first by design, and Sortly confirms this in its own responses to Capterra reviewers: 50% off year one, standard rate after.

Add the item caps (500 items on Advanced, 2,000 on Ultra, 5,000 on Premium) and the pattern reviewers describe makes sense: you spend weeks photographing and entering your inventory, hit a cap or a renewal, and the price to keep your own data jumps. One Trustpilot reviewer reported a $340 first year renewing at $1,438. A Capterra reviewer in February 2025 described an escalating subscription that "just crested $299 per month" and called it bait and switch.

And after all of that, Sortly still cannot tell you where anything is. It is a photo catalog with QR codes, not a tracking system. This page covers both problems with sources, plus the cases where Sortly is genuinely the right buy.

Sortly Actual Pricing: What Customers Report Paying

Sortly's advertised pricing and what reviewers report at renewal are different numbers. Verified from Sortly's pricing page (June 2026) and public reviews:

API and webhooks are Enterprise-only. QuickBooks Online integration starts at Premium. Purchase orders start at Ultra.

What reviewers report after the first year or after Sortly retired their legacy plans:

These are the worst reported cases, not the median. Most of the largest jumps trace to Sortly discontinuing its legacy plans and migrating customers to the current capped tiers at renewal. But the first-year discount structure means every new customer sees an increase in year two.

Airpinpoint pricing for contrast: $29 per tag one time ($24.75 each in 4-packs), $11.99/device/mo Business or $14.99 Enterprise, no contracts, cancel any month. The price on the site is the price at renewal.

Head-to-Head Comparison

Where Sortly Genuinely Wins

Sortly holds a 4.5/5 across 953 Capterra reviews and 4.4/5 on G2. The praise is real and specific to cataloging.

Photo-First Cataloging

Every item gets photos, custom fields, serial numbers, purchase dates, and condition notes, organized in folders by site or category. For visual identification (which generator model is that, what condition was the drill in when it went out), Sortly is the better tool. Airpinpoint does not do visual cataloging.

QR and Barcode Check-In/Out

Print labels from the app, stick them on items, scan to check in and out. For a tool crib or equipment room with a single checkout point, this creates a usable audit trail of who had what. Note that some Capterra reviewers report the barcode scanner can be unreliable at recognizing and linking items.

Consumables and Low-Stock Alerts

Sortly tracks quantities and alerts you when stock drops below a threshold. Airpinpoint does not track quantities at all. If your main problem is reordering supplies and parts, Sortly addresses it and Airpinpoint does not.

Small Stationary Inventories on a Budget

The free plan covers 100 items for 1 user at $0. If you have a single storage room and under 100 items, Sortly free beats paying for anything, including Airpinpoint.

What Sortly Users Say

Beyond star ratings, the complaint patterns across review platforms are consistent:

• Pricing volatility is the top complaint. Capterra's review analysis flags "high and unpredictable costs," with 47% negative sentiment across 128 pricing-related reviews. Sortly's Trustpilot score sits at 3.9/5, with the lowest reviews concentrated on renewal increases and the legacy plan retirement.
• The first-year discount surprises people. A May 2025 Capterra reviewer who otherwise rated Sortly 4 stars flagged the significant cost increase after the intro discount; Sortly's official response confirmed the 50% off year-one structure.
• Caps force upgrades. Hitting the 500-item cap on Advanced means moving to Ultra at $149/mo list, a 3x jump, even if you only need item 501.
• Cancellation triggers retention discounts. Trustpilot reviewers report being offered roughly 40% off only after starting to cancel, which reads as confirmation there was room in the price all along.

For balance: positive reviews consistently cite ease of use, fast setup, and the mobile app. Nobody disputes that Sortly does photo cataloging well. The disputes are about what it costs to keep doing it.

Use-Case Breakdown

Stockroom, office, or warehouse inventory (items rarely move): Sortly. Photos, folders, quantities, and low-stock alerts fit this exactly. Stay aware of the item caps and budget for the post-discount renewal price.

Job site equipment that moves between locations: Airpinpoint. Sortly's location field is whatever someone last scanned. If a trailer moves from Site A to Site B and nobody scans it, Sortly still shows Site A. Airpinpoint beacons update automatically through the Find My network, with no scanning workflow to maintain.

Theft prevention and after-hours monitoring: Airpinpoint, and it is not close. Sortly has no geofencing, no movement detection, and no alerts. If equipment leaves your yard at 2 AM Saturday, Sortly tells you nothing; you find out Monday. Airpinpoint sends a geofence exit alert when it happens and gives you a live map for recovery.

Consumables, parts, and supplies: Sortly. Airpinpoint does not track quantities.

Mixed fleet (stationary stock plus mobile high-value assets): Run both. Sortly for the shelf inventory, Airpinpoint beacons on the 20 to 50 assets that move and would hurt to lose. At $11.99/device/mo with no item caps and no contracts, you only pay for the assets that actually need live location.

Cost Comparison at Real Scale

At 50 tracked assets: Sortly Ultra at $149/mo list covers cataloging them. Airpinpoint at $11.99/device/mo costs $599/mo and tracks each one live with geofences, movement alerts, and location history. The price difference is the capability difference: one tells you what you own, the other tells you where it is.

The honest framing: if you never need location, Sortly is cheaper per item. The moment one asset goes missing, the math flips. A single recovered $15,000 skid steer pays for 2 years of tracking 50 assets.

Our Recommendation

Buy Sortly if your inventory is stationary, you need photos and quantities, your item count fits a tier with headroom, and you budget against the list price ($49/$149/$299), not the first-year promo. It is a well-reviewed cataloging tool with a pricing structure you should walk into with open eyes.

Buy Airpinpoint if your assets move, you need to know where things are right now, or theft is a real risk. $29 per tag once, $11.99/device/mo, REST API and webhooks included, no contracts, and the advertised price is the renewal price.

Buy both if you have shelf stock and mobile equipment. They overlap almost nowhere.

If you searched "Sortly vs AirTags" because Sortly's renewal email surprised you, the short version: you were not looking for a cheaper photo catalog, you were probably looking for the tracking layer Sortly never had.