Built for the operator, not the back office.
MarginEdge is $350 a location a month and includes a human team that processes your invoices in 24 to 48 hours. Stockcount covers counts, invoices, recipe costing, and live food cost from $19 a month. The AI reads the invoice while you stand at the dock. No contract, no setup fee.
The money side
Pricing, side by side.
MarginEdge pricing from marginedge.com as of 2026-07-02. Stockcount pricing from our pricing page.
| Stockcount | MarginEdge | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price (single location) | $19/mo | $350/mo flat |
| Pro tier (more credits, multi-location) | $49/mo | One flat plan at $350/mo, about $315/mo billed annually |
| Setup fee | None | No setup fee. Optional onboarding packages cost extra, priced on a sales call |
| Contract | Month-to-month, cancel from the billing page | Monthly plan has no contract. The annual plan is a 12-month commitment |
| Extras beyond the plan price | Usage credits included; optional extra usage bills at cost | Freepour +$150/mo, a $50/mo Toast API fee paid to Toast, $500 for an unreturned SmartScale |
| Invoice turnaround | Parsed in the session, uncertain lines flagged for review | 24 to 48 hours, 3 to 5 days during the first four weeks |
| Time to first count | Same day, self-serve | Demo-led sales, then onboarding |
| First-year cost, one location | $228 on Starter, $588 on Pro | $4,200, or about $3,780 billed annually, plus any onboarding package |
The count is 15 minutes of talking.
MarginEdge counts are typed into a phone or tablet, and two people cannot work the same count sheet without overwriting each other. Stockcount removes the typing. Walk the walk-in and say what you see. Your phone stays in your pocket. Each item is confirmed on screen when you glance at it. The count is done when you stop talking.
- A weekly count is about 15 minutes of talking
- Invoices captured by photo or PDF upload, parsed in the session
- Food cost percentage updates the moment a count or invoice lands
A price that fits a single location.
MarginEdge is one flat plan at $350 per location per month, sold through a demo, with no free version. Stockcount starts at $19 per month, self-serve, month-to-month. If it does not earn its keep, cancel from the billing page.
- No setup fee, no annual commitment, no per-seat pricing
- Starter ($19/mo) covers a single location
- Pro ($49/mo) adds credit headroom and multi-location dashboards
Who should stay on MarginEdge.
If you run a full-service or multi-unit group with back-office staff and a heavy invoice volume, MarginEdge's flat price covers work Stockcount does not do. Third-party analyses put its fit around $800K or more in annual revenue.
- Unlimited human-assisted invoice processing, including handwritten invoices
- Unlimited US bill pay and accounting sync (QuickBooks, Xero, Sage Intacct, NetSuite)
- 50+ POS integrations, POS-based theoretical variance, multi-unit and commissary tooling
Last updated 2026-07-02
MarginEdge pricing, explained.
As of 2026-07-02, MarginEdge’s own pricing page lists one plan: $350 per location per month. Annual billing saves 10 percent, about $315 a month, and is a 12-month commitment. Cancel mid-term and you owe the remaining balance. Some pricing roundups still list $330; that number is stale. The flat price includes a lot. Unlimited human-assisted invoice processing and unlimited US bill pay are in. So are inventory, recipe costing, price tracking, a daily P&L, POS and accounting integrations, and 1:1 training.
There are costs beyond the plan. There is no traditional setup fee, but optional onboarding packages are paid, and their prices are only available on a sales call. Toast users pay Toast a $50 per month per location pass-through for the required API tier. The Freepour smart-scale liquor system adds $150 a month, or $500 a month bundled, and an unreturned SmartScale costs $500. Card payments to vendors carry a fee. MarginEdge’s own materials list different rates, so ask for the current one.
First-year math for one location: $4,200 on monthly billing, about $3,780 on annual, plus any onboarding package. That price makes sense for the customer MarginEdge is designed for: full-service and multi-unit groups with back-office staff and a steady stream of invoices to process. It is a hard price to justify when the person doing inventory is also the person making the coffee.
Stockcount covers the counting, invoice capture, recipe costing, and food cost work for $19 to $49 per month, self-serve, with no contract. The gap is in the back office, not the count: we do not have bill pay, accounting integrations, or POS-based theoretical variance yet, and MarginEdge does.
What switching looks like.
There is no migration project. Export your item list as a CSV and import it, or skip the export entirely: photograph one recent invoice from each of your vendors and Stockcount builds your catalog from the line items. Then do your first count. Signup to a finished first count is a same-day job.
Check which MarginEdge plan you are on before you cancel. The monthly plan has no contract, so you can overlap freely: run both tools for one inventory cycle, compare the counts and the food cost number, and keep the one that earned the month. The annual plan owes the remaining balance if you cancel mid-term, so time the switch to your renewal date. If you want help moving a large catalog, email us and we will migrate it with you.
Keep reading.
- Stockcount vs MarginEdgeThe full feature-by-feature comparison table.
- AI inventory managementHow voice counting and invoice scanning work.
- Free food cost calculatorCheck your food cost percentage in 30 seconds.
- Stockcount pricingStarter, Pro, and Business, all month-to-month.
Frequently asked questions.
- How much does MarginEdge cost?
- As of July 2026, MarginEdge’s own pricing page lists $350 per location per month. Annual billing saves 10 percent, which works out to about $315 a month, but it is a 12-month commitment. A bundle with the Freepour smart-scale liquor system runs $500 per location per month. The flat price includes unlimited invoice processing, US bill pay, inventory, recipe costing, price tracking, and a daily P&L. Stockcount starts at $19 a month with no setup fee.
- Is there a cheaper alternative to MarginEdge?
- Yes. Stockcount covers the core inventory work (counts, invoice capture, recipe costing, live food cost percentage) from $19 a month for a single location and $49 a month for busier or multi-location operations. That is roughly a tenth of MarginEdge’s price. The tradeoff is real: MarginEdge’s flat price includes unlimited human-assisted invoice processing and unlimited US bill pay. If you receive a very high volume of invoices, that flat price can work in your favor.
- Does Stockcount have usage limits?
- Each plan includes monthly usage credits for the AI features. Starter covers roughly 1.5 hours of voice counting or 60 invoice scans a month; Pro covers about 5 hours or 180 scans. If you run out mid-month, turn on extra usage, which bills at cost with a monthly cap you set. No surprise invoices. MarginEdge includes unlimited invoice processing in its flat $350, so if your invoice volume is heavy, weigh that against the credit model.
- What is the difference between Stockcount and MarginEdge?
- The core difference is who does the work. MarginEdge is a back-office service: you send invoices in, their tech and humans digitize them within 24 to 48 hours, and the system pays your bills and syncs your books. Stockcount is a tool for the operator who does the count personally: you count by voice with your phone in your pocket, photograph invoices at the dock, and the AI parses them in the session. Stockcount is also $19 to $149 a month instead of $350.
- Can I switch from MarginEdge to Stockcount?
- Yes. Export your item list as a CSV and import it, or photograph a recent invoice from each vendor and Stockcount builds the catalog from those. You can be counting the same day. If you are on MarginEdge’s monthly plan there is no contract to break. If you are on the annual plan, canceling mid-term means paying the remaining balance, so time the switch to your renewal date or run both until then.
- Does Stockcount have every MarginEdge feature?
- No, and it does not try to. Stockcount does not have bill pay, accounting integrations, or MarginEdge’s 50-plus POS integrations. MarginEdge offers POS-based theoretical-versus-actual variance today. Stockcount tracks count-based variance. POS-based theoretical-vs-actual is planned alongside the Square POS integration, which is in development. Purchase orders work through the chat agent, not a dedicated screen. If your operation leans on bill pay or accounting sync, MarginEdge is likely still the better fit.
- Why is Stockcount so much cheaper than MarginEdge?
- Different model. MarginEdge’s $350 pays for a service that includes human review of every invoice and unlimited bill pay. Stockcount is self-serve AI: you photograph or upload the invoice, it is parsed in the session, and anything uncertain is flagged for your review. You do the final check instead of their team, and the price reflects that.
Run both for a month and keep the one that earns it.
Set up your catalog from a handful of invoice photos and do your first count this week. Plans from $19/mo, no contract, cancel anytime.