Chalk

Comparison

AssetTiger vs Sortly

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 →

Sortly

The friendliest inventory app in this comparison and the easiest to actually start using — built for supply closets and job sites, priced by how many items you have, which is exactly the wrong meter for a 1:1 fleet.

Pricing: Fully published, tier by tier, including a real free plan — rare and worth crediting. Free is $0 per month for 100 unique items, 1 user license and 2 jobs. Advanced is $49 per month for 500 items, 2 users and 5 jobs; Ultra is $149 per month for 2,000 items, 5 users and 10 jobs; Premium is $299 per month for 5,000 items, 8 users and 15 jobs; Enterprise is quote-only for 10,000+ items and 12+ user licenses. A 50% first-year promotional discount was displayed against the paid tiers at the time of writing. Both axes are metered — unique items and user licenses — and no education discount is published.

Where Sortly is strong

  • Every price is on the page, including a genuinely free tier, with no demo gate anywhere in the funnel.
  • The lowest adoption cost in this comparison by a distance: folders, tags, photos and custom fields, usable by a building secretary in an afternoon without an IT project behind it.
  • Strong mobile — iOS and Android with offline access, barcode and QR scanning, and label generation from inside the same app, so counting is a phone job rather than a scanner-hardware purchase.
  • Alerting that fits consumables well: low stock alerts for reordering and date-based alerts for maintenance and repair schedules, with in-app and email notification.
  • More reporting than the price suggests — activity history, inventory summaries, user activity, low stock and item-flow reports, saved custom reports, and report subscriptions delivered on a schedule.
  • Real integration surface for a product this simple: webhooks, an API, QuickBooks Online, and Slack and Microsoft Teams notifications, plus purchase orders, pick lists, and check-in and check-out.

What to check before you buy

  • Pricing meters unique items, and a 1:1 district's item count is its student count. At 5,000 items the published tier is $299 per month, and anything past 10,000 items is Enterprise quote-only — a mid-sized district is off the published ladder on device count alone.

    Basis: Vendor pricing page item limits: 100 free, 500 Advanced, 2,000 Ultra, 5,000 Premium, 10,000+ Enterprise.

  • User licenses are metered too, and tightly: 1 user free, 2 on Advanced, 5 on Ultra, 8 on Premium. A technician team plus building staff crosses into Enterprise quickly.

    Basis: Vendor pricing page user-license limits per tier.

  • No help desk or ticketing of any kind. A district running Sortly still buys a service desk somewhere else, and the two never see each other.

    Basis: Absent from the vendor's published feature list, which covers inventory, alerts, reporting and integrations.

  • No MDM or device integrations at all. The published integration list is QuickBooks Online, Slack, Microsoft Teams, webhooks and an API — so ChromeOS, Intune and Jamf data is typed or imported, and serials go stale between imports.

    Basis: Vendor features page lists no device-management or directory connectors.

  • No SIS or rostering integration and no student, guardian or enrollment concepts — nothing notices a transfer, a withdrawal or grade rollover.

    Basis: Absent from the vendor's feature list and from its industry positioning, which addresses inventory rather than student records.

  • Check-in and check-out is item custody, not a school-year loan: no due dates on a student device agreement, no e-signature, no damage fee, no family balance and no loaner pool workflow.

    Basis: Vendor documents check-in/check-out alongside pick lists and stock tracking, with no agreement or fee concepts published.

  • It is an inventory product rather than an IT asset lifecycle product — warranty expiry, depreciation, ChromeOS auto-update expiration and refresh planning are not in the published feature set, though generic date-based alerts can approximate some of it.

    Basis: Vendor features page covers custom fields, alerts and reports; no warranty, depreciation or lifecycle module is published.

  • Hosted SaaS only, with no self-hosted option, and no SSO or SAML in the published feature list — so it sits outside your single sign-on estate in both directions.

    Basis: No self-host or source distribution is offered on the vendor site, and SSO does not appear on the features or pricing pages.

How Chalk compares with Sortly →

The third option: Chalk

If you are weighing AssetTiger against Sortly, 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.
Chalk vs AssetTiger → Chalk vs Sortly →

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.

See pricing Self-host on GitHub