ShelfCount vs MarketMan: a fifth of the price, without the enterprise half

The price, side by side

MarketMan figures from marketman.com/pricing, checked Aug 2026. Capterra's listing shows $199 and $249 for the first two tiers, $50 below MarketMan's own page. Probably a stale mirror of an older price, so we quote the vendor. Prices change, so check both before you sign anything.

For a single site that’s $199 a month, about $2,400 a year. Real money for a cafe. It’s also only half the story, because the two products aren’t aimed at the same operator. That’s what the next table is for.

What each one actually does

MarketMan cells come from their pricing page, partner directories and product pages, checked Aug 2026. Where two of their own pages disagree, both are shown.

Where MarketMan is ahead

They’ve been at this for over a decade and took more than $100 million from a private-equity firm in 2022, and the surface area shows it. EDI ordering is the clearest example. If your produce order goes out over EDI to Sysco or US Foods today, we can’t replace that, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Same story with QuickBooks and Xero. Same with commissary management, which we have no version of at all.

The POS list isn’t close either. We have Square and Clover. Their partner directory runs to dozens of systems, and in April 2026 Square launched Square Restaurant Inventory by MarketMan, which signs in with your Square credentials and lands on one Square bill. If that setup is what you want, it exists, and it isn’t coming from us.

Run more than a handful of locations and the Enterprise tier is built for exactly that. Our multi-unit rollup reporting doesn’t exist. The table says “not yet” because it’s on the list, which is a long way from shipping next week.

Where we went the other way

Counting is the thing your staff touch every week, so it’s the thing we built first. A ShelfCount count is a link in whatever browser is already on the phone in their apron. Nothing to install, no login to provision, no seat to pay for. MarketMan ships real native apps, which is a better architecture in several ways. But their iOS app sat at 2.5 out of 5 across 46 ratings when we looked in August 2026, and the reviews dragging it down are about counts specifically. The same product rates 4.7 on Capterra, so treat that App Store number as a signal about one surface rather than a verdict on the company. It just happens to be the surface that matters most to a six-person cafe.

Our invoice scanning stops short of automatic on purpose. Photograph an invoice or forward the email, we read it, and then it waits for you. Nothing changes an item cost until a person approves the line. Plenty of people want the fully hands-off version and we don’t offer it: a wrong cost propagates into every recipe that touches the item, and a bad plate cost you never noticed is worse than five minutes of approving.

Then there’s how you buy. You can be inside ShelfCount in two minutes without talking to anyone. Both of MarketMan’s paths run through a demo booking.

Who MarketMan is right for

• More than a couple of locations, or a commissary feeding them
• Ordering by EDI from Sysco, US Foods, PFG or Gordon
• Books in QuickBooks or Xero, and you want that sync automatic
• A POS that isn’t Square or Clover
• You want an assigned rep and a real onboarding project

Who ShelfCount is right for

• One location, or two, where every dollar of overhead crosses your desk
• Square or Clover on the counter
• Staff who will count on their own phones or not at all
• Cafes and coffee shops. That’s the shop it was built in and it shows
• You’d rather try the thing than sit through a call about the thing

If you are leaving MarketMan

Export your inventory list and upload it. We read MarketMan exports directly, so day one starts with your items, your vendors and your pack sizes instead of an empty database. The $299 concierge migration is the version where we do that for you and hand you a verification report to sign off before anything goes live.

One thing I can’t tell you: MarketMan doesn’t publish a contract length or a cancellation notice period anywhere on their pricing page. A Capterra reviewer describes being held to a notice period, and a competitor’s comparison page claims twelve months, but neither of those is MarketMan stating their own terms. Read your agreement before you plan the switch. On our side it’s month to month and you cancel in the app.

Questions people actually ask

How much does MarketMan cost?

MarketMan's own pricing page showed $249/month for Starter, $299 for Growth and from $449 for Enterprise when we checked it in August 2026. Add-ons sit on top: API access is $25 to $99 a month depending on how many locations you have, and the commissary modules are $499 and $749. Capterra still shows $199 and $249 for the first two tiers, which looks like an older price a third-party site never updated. We quote MarketMan's own page.

Does MarketMan have a free trial?

Not one they publish. The call to action on their pricing page is Book Your Demo, and Capterra's listing states that neither a free trial nor a free version is available. ShelfCount's trial is 14 days. You add a card at signup, nothing is charged until the trial ends, and cancelling is one click in your billing settings.

Can I move my MarketMan data into ShelfCount?

Yes. Export your inventory list from MarketMan and upload it. We read that export directly, so you start with your items instead of a blank screen. If you'd rather not touch it at all, $299 buys the done-for-you version: items, vendors, par levels and recipes set up for you, with a verification report you approve before go-live.

What does MarketMan do that ShelfCount doesn't?

Vendor EDI ordering, QuickBooks and Xero sync, multi-unit rollup reporting, commissary management, and a far longer list of POS integrations. If your operation needs any of those, buy MarketMan. I'd rather lose the sale than have you find out in month two.

Which POS systems does ShelfCount work with?

Square and Clover today. Toast is built and in certification, which is not the same as live, so we won't claim it. If your POS isn't on that list, counts, recipes, purchasing and waste tracking all still work. You just won't get theoretical vs actual until sales are flowing in.

Compare something else

• ShelfCount vs MarginEdge
• ShelfCount vs a spreadsheet
• ShelfCount pricing

Sources

Every figure above about another company came from its own public pages on the date listed. Prices move; if one of these is stale, email us and we’ll fix the page.

• MarketMan pricing page — https://www.marketman.com/pricing (checked Aug 2026)
• MarketMan POS partner directory — https://www.marketman.com/partner-categories/pos (checked Aug 2026)
• MarketMan Actual vs Theoretical report page — https://www.marketman.com/page/actual-vs-theoretical-food-cost-report (checked Aug 2026)
• MarketMan on the Apple App Store — https://apps.apple.com/us/app/marketman/id691193993 (checked Aug 2026)
• MarketMan pricing and reviews on Capterra — https://www.capterra.com/p/136439/Marketman-Restaurant-Inventory/pricing/ (checked Aug 2026)
• Square press release, Square Restaurant Inventory by MarketMan — https://squareup.com/us/en/press/square-restaurant-inventory-marketman (checked Aug 2026)