Comparison

AssetTiger vs Incident IQ

Two tools districts shortlist for device tracking and IT operations, compared the way a buying committee actually reads them: what each is, what each does well, and what to check before signing. We build Chalk, a third option in this space — that context is worth knowing as you read, and it is why every claim below carries its basis.

AssetTiger

The cheapest per-asset tracker a district will find, with no feature gating and unlimited users — and no ticketing, no roster, and no way to see a Chromebook that did not arrive on a spreadsheet.

Pricing: Subscription metered purely on asset count across published tiers, with unlimited users on every paid plan and yearly billing discounted against monthly — the vendor's own framing is 'pay for assets, not seats.' Stock inventory is a separate small add-on. Note a correction to widely repeated third-party claims: the free plan is now a 30-day trial capped at 250 assets and two users, after which the account becomes view-only. It is not free forever. The pricing FAQ raises the question of school and nonprofit discounts; we could not read the answer, so ask them directly.

Where AssetTiger is strong

  • The lowest per-asset cost in this comparison by a wide margin, on a clean single meter.
  • No feature gating between paid tiers — the vendor states explicitly that you upgrade to track more assets, not to unlock capabilities. That is unusually honest packaging and worth conceding.
  • Unlimited users on every paid plan, so every building secretary and tech can have an account for free.
  • Native iOS and Android apps with barcode and QR scanning, plus label printing from any printer — from a company whose main business is asset tags.
  • Check-in and check-out with due dates and overdue alerts, which is more custody machinery than most trackers at this price.
  • Deep reporting for the category — a large library of report types and a very granular permission model.

What to check before you buy

  • No ticketing or help desk of any kind, and no connectors to one. A district running AssetTiger buys or keeps a separate service desk, and the two never see each other.

    Basis: No ticketing capability or integration appears anywhere in AssetTiger's feature list.

  • No MDM or device-management ingest at all — nothing pulls from Google Admin, Intune, or Jamf. Every Chromebook enters by CSV import or by hand, and nothing detects a device you did not know about.

    Basis: AssetTiger publishes no MDM connectors; this is the largest functional gap for a Chromebook district.

  • No SIS or rostering integration — no OneRoster, Clever, ClassLink, or PowerSchool — and no student, guardian, or family concepts. Nothing notices a transfer or a withdrawal.

    Basis: None appear in AssetTiger's features or integration documentation.

  • No parent e-signature on a device agreement and no student fee assessment or family balances, so damage at collection time is handled outside the system.

    Basis: Absent from AssetTiger's documented feature set.

  • Fund tracking exists, but it is generic budget allocation rather than grant-program aware — it will not produce the ESSER, Title, or E-Rate attribution an audit asks for without you building the structure by hand.

    Basis: AssetTiger lists a fund-tracking feature with a per-plan cap; no grant-program or funding-source-restriction concepts are documented.

  • The weakest identity story in this comparison: two-factor plus Google SSO only, with no evidence of SAML support, and certainly no ability to act as an identity provider itself.

    Basis: AssetTiger's feature list names 2FA and Google SSO; no SAML or OIDC support is documented.

  • The free plan is a 30-day trial, not a free tier. After it lapses the account is view-only, and it is limited to two users during the trial.

    Basis: AssetTiger's pricing table labels that column a free 30-day trial; third-party review sites still repeat a legacy free-forever claim that the vendor's page contradicts.

  • Stock inventory is a separate paid add-on, and there is no documented link between it and repair records, so consuming a part against a specific repair is not a supported workflow.

    Basis: Inventory is listed and priced as an add-on; no repair-to-parts linkage appears in the documentation.

How Chalk compares with AssetTiger →

Incident IQ

A K-12-only operations platform that combines IT ticketing, asset management, facilities work orders, event management, instructional resources, and HR service delivery in a single hosted suite.

Pricing: Quote-only. Incident IQ's pricing page states pricing is aligned to student enrollment with no added cost for users, requests, or assets, but publishes no dollar figures or tiers — a demo request is required for a number. Cost for smaller districts is a commonly cited drawback on review sites.

Where Incident IQ is strong

  • The broadest suite in K-12 operations: IT ticketing, assets, facilities, events, resources, and HR service delivery under one portal — the 'one platform, one portal' consolidation story is its most-cited win.
  • Smart Audits can verify a device's presence automatically from MDM and sign-in activity, so a chunk of an inventory audit completes without anyone physically touching the device.
  • Mature bulk-deployment tooling built for scale: rapid scan sessions, spare-pool allotments per building, and rollout accuracy checks aimed at large 1:1 distributions.
  • Native iOS and Android apps with camera barcode scanning and voice lookup for technicians working in hallways and classrooms.
  • AI ticket assistance for classification, suggested knowledge-base articles at submission time, and ticket summaries.
  • Warranty status is a first-class field on the asset record and visible inside a ticket, with warranty claim submission through hardware partners.

What to check before you buy

  • Hosted SaaS only — there is no self-hosted or on-premises option, so district data lives in the vendor's cloud and the software cannot be run or inspected independently.

    Basis: vendor site offers only a hosted product; no self-host or source distribution is published

  • No public pricing. Every cost conversation starts with a sales demo, and pricing scales with student enrollment.

    Basis: vendor pricing page directs all buyers to schedule a demo for a tailored quote

  • Price relative to value for smaller districts is the most frequently cited drawback in buyer reviews.

    Basis: recurring theme in public review-site feedback

  • Limited customization is the second most cited drawback — districts report workflows and fields being harder to bend to local process than expected.

    Basis: recurring theme in public review-site feedback

  • Online fee payment is not native. Collecting money means integrating a third-party processor such as InTouch, MySchoolBucks, Square, Stripe, or Vanco.

    Basis: vendor documents payments as partner integrations rather than a first-party module

  • Warranty claim handling depends on hardware reseller partnerships rather than a vendor-neutral claims workflow.

    Basis: vendor documents claims through named hardware partners

  • MDM integration is ingest-oriented: iiQ reads device state from Google, Jamf, and Intune rather than pushing a reviewed set of changes back into them.

    Basis: vendor asset documentation describes sync into iiQ, with no diff-preview write-back workflow

  • Incident IQ is not an identity provider and does not serve a OneRoster API — it consumes rostering data rather than publishing it to other systems.

    Basis: vendor documents SIS connectors as inbound integrations only

How Chalk compares with Incident IQ →

The third option: Chalk

If you are weighing AssetTiger against Incident IQ, Chalk belongs on the same shortlist. It is the open-source K-12 IT stack: device inventory that fills itself in from Google Admin, Intune, and Jamf against a roster synced from your SIS, a 1:1 circulation desk with agreements and fees, repairs with parts and costs, a help desk that already knows who is asking, and a built-in SAML/OIDC identity provider.

  • Self-host it free forever under AGPL-3.0 — the entire feature set, one binary, your infrastructure — or use the hosted version, priced by fleet size with no per-seat or per-student fees and the price ladder published.
  • Built only for K-12: students, buildings, custody, funding sources, and ChromeOS auto-update expiration are native concepts, not custom fields.
  • Writes back to Google Admin as a reviewed diff — every OU move, disable, and deprovision previewed before it executes — and serves a OneRoster 1.1 API so other district systems can pull the roster from Chalk.
  • Fees are assessed and tracked without touching payment cards, keeping the asset system out of your PCI scope.

See all three on your own roster.

Chalk installs to a populated inventory in about 30 minutes. Self-host free under AGPL-3.0, or let us run it — priced by fleet size, never per seat.