AfterShip vs Sortly

AfterShip is a post-purchase platform for ecommerce brands, started in Hong Kong around 2011 to 2012 by Teddy Chan, Andrew Chan and Dante Tsang after Teddy built a script to cut where-is-my-order emails in his own store. It raised a $66M Series B led by Tiger Global in 2021. Its core job is keeping shoppers informed after checkout and reducing support tickets about deliveries, returns and delays.

The suite is sold as separate products: Tracking (branded tracking pages, delivery notifications, estimated delivery dates and analytics across 1,300+ carriers), Returns (self-serve returns and exchanges), Shipping (label printing and rate comparison), Protection (shipping insurance), plus personalization and warranty tools. AI features and an MCP server give assistants read access to shipment and return data. Each product has its own tiers, and the Shopify App Store versions are priced differently from direct plans.

AfterShip fits Shopify, BigCommerce and WooCommerce brands that ship thousands of orders a year and want to turn tracking emails and pages into a marketing channel. Brands mainly needing cheap labels should look at Shippo, Easyship or ShipStation, and EU merchants often pick Sendcloud.

Buying tip: in mid-2026 AfterShip cut its direct Tracking plans from four to three, renamed Pro to Premium at $59 a month billed yearly, and moved to annual shipment quotas (6,000 a year on both paid tiers). API and webhooks start on Premium. On Shopify, compare the app's own plans, which include a free tier for 50 shipments a month.

Sortly is a US-based inventory management app built for small businesses that track physical stuff: tools and equipment, spare parts, retail stock, medical supplies or event gear. Instead of an ERP-style item master, it organizes inventory in visual folders with photos, so a field technician or warehouse helper can find and update items from a phone without training.

Core features include item photos, custom fields, nested folders by location or type, barcode and QR scanning from the mobile app, label creation, low-stock and date-based alerts, offline mode, activity history and PDF or CSV reports. A newer Jobs feature links items to jobs, projects and work orders so teams can see what went out, what was used and what came back. Higher plans add purchase orders, custom role permissions, a QuickBooks Online integration, and on Enterprise an API and webhooks. Plans are limited by unique items, user licenses and active jobs.

Sortly fits contractors, facilities teams, schools, clinics and small retailers that need clear counts more than accounting depth. inFlow and Cin7 are better when you need sales orders, multi-warehouse stock and ecommerce channel sync, and Katana is built for manufacturers with bills of materials. Sortly does not manage multichannel order fulfillment.

Buying tip: the 50 percent yearly discount applies only to the first year; renewals get 20 percent off, so budget for a jump in year two. The 14-day trial on paid plans requires a credit card and converts automatically unless cancelled.