Decide first whether your equipment mostly breaks, mostly moves between people, or simply needs listing — those point at three different categories of product. Then check the pricing model, whether the people handling equipment can actually record it, and whether it works where the work happens.
Feature matrices are a poor way to choose in this category, because the tools all list the same words and mean different things by them. These are the questions that actually predict whether a tool will still be in use in a year.
1. Does your equipment break, or does it walk?
This decides the category, and getting it wrong is the expensive mistake.
- Breaks — breakdowns, missed servicing, downtime, parts not on the shelf. That is maintenance, and you want a CMMS.
- Walks — disappears, comes back damaged with nobody accountable, gets double-booked. That is custody, and you want an asset tracker.
- Neither, you just do not know what you own — you want a register, and possibly nothing more.
Most organisations have some of each. The one costing more this year should decide the purchase; the other can be a second tool or a later problem.
2. How does it price, and what does that do to your behaviour?
Pricing models are not just cost — they shape how the system gets used, and the effect outlasts the invoice.
- Model
Per asset / item tierWhat it does to youDiscourages registering cheap equipment — which is where quiet loss lives - Model
Per user / seatWhat it does to youConcentrates work on a few licensed people, creating a bottleneck when they are away - Model
Per team / flatWhat it does to youNo structural incentive either way; check the plan limits instead
| Model | What it does to you |
|---|---|
Per asset / item tier | Discourages registering cheap equipment — which is where quiet loss lives |
Per user / seat | Concentrates work on a few licensed people, creating a bottleneck when they are away |
Per team / flat | No structural incentive either way; check the plan limits instead |
Neither of the first two is dishonest, and both can be cheaper for a given shape. The point is to notice the incentive before it quietly shapes your register.
3. Who physically handles the equipment, and can they use it?
The quality of asset data is decided by whether the person present when equipment moved is the person who recorded it. If they are not — because of licences, permissions or an interface built for someone else — every record is second-hand and slightly late.
Ask specifically: can a warehouse supervisor, a team lead, a lab technician and a site foreman each use this, on a phone, without a licence conversation?
4. Does it work where the work happens?
Basements, plant rooms, rural sites, steel-framed warehouses. If the app needs a connection, the register will have gaps exactly where scanning was most needed. Offline-first with a sync queue is not a luxury for field work.
5. What does it refuse to do?
A vendor who cannot name what their product is not for either does not know or will not say. Both are bad signs, and the gap will surface in month two rather than during evaluation.
For the record: Stackroom is not a CMMS, not inventory or warehouse software, not IT discovery or software asset management, not fixed-asset accounting, and has no RFID support or on-premise deployment. If any of those is your requirement, we are the wrong tool.
Questions that matter less than they appear
- Total feature count. Unused features are cost, not value, and they make the interface worse for everyone.
- Configurability. Powerful when you have a real constraint and someone to own the configuration. A tax when you do not — configuration projects stall and adoption stalls with them.
- Number of integrations. Check whether the two you need exist, and whether there is a REST API for the rest. A long list is mostly marketing.
- Review scores. Useful for spotting disasters, close to useless for choosing between two good tools with different shapes.
How to actually evaluate
- 1Load your own data
Fifty real assets, not the demo set. Your naming, your locations, your awkward edge cases.
- 2Hand a phone to your least patient user
Not the project sponsor. The person who will do this forty times a week and has no interest in software.
- 3Run one real handover and one real return
End to end, with a signature, including the part where something comes back damaged.
- 4Ask a question you actually get asked
Who had the thermal camera in March. What is due for service next month. See which tool answers it without you leaving the app.
A tool with a genuine free tier lets you do all four before involving procurement, which is often how these decisions are actually made and won.
Frequently asked questions
What should I look for in asset tracking software?
Whether the people who physically handle equipment can record it without a licence conversation, whether an update can be completed where the equipment is, what the pricing model does to your behaviour, and what the vendor admits the product is not for.
How do I evaluate asset tracking tools properly?
Load fifty of your own assets, hand a phone to your least patient user, run a real handover and return including something coming back damaged, then ask a question you genuinely get asked and see which tool answers it without you leaving the app.
Does feature count matter when choosing?
Very little. Unused features are cost rather than value and they make the interface worse for everyone. What predicts success is adoption, and adoption is decided by how many seconds an update takes.
Should I choose a configurable platform?
Only if you have a genuine constraint imposed from outside and somebody to own the configuration. Otherwise configurability is a tax — the setup phase stretches and adoption stalls before the tool proves its value.