A UK seller's guide to the 2026 inventory software market
The UK inventory software market has shifted materially in the last 12 months. Here's what's changed, who's winning, who's losing ground, and what to evaluate if you're shopping.
If you haven't evaluated inventory software in 18 months, the market you remember isn't the market you'd be buying from today. Prices have moved, positioning has shifted, and two meaningful new platforms have emerged in the UK SMB segment.
This guide isn't a listicle — that's here. This is the "what's going on in the market" view for sellers planning a switch or a renewal in 2026.
The five biggest shifts
1. Per-user pricing is under pressure
The dominant pricing model for the last decade was per-user: pay more when you add team members. That model is showing its age because:
- UK minimum wage rose again in April 2026
- More sellers are running hybrid in-house/3PL operations where headcount fluctuates
- Buyers are wise to it — "cost per extra user" is now the first question in most sales calls
Linnworks still charges per-user. Brightpearl still charges per-user. Cin7 now offers a hybrid. MaxInvent, Zoho Inventory, and Sellbrite charge per-order or flat-rate — and are winning net-new SMB customers because of it.
What to do: model three years at your expected team size. If the same platform would cost you £12k more at year-three headcount, walk away.
2. Amazon owning Veeqo is finally showing up in the product
Amazon acquired Veeqo in 2021. For the first two years, not much changed. From late 2024 onwards the roadmap has clearly tilted Amazon-native:
- Deep Amazon Buy Shipping integration
- Amazon FBA workflows first-class
- Amazon attribution and analytics expanded
- Non-Amazon channel investment visibly slower
If you're 80%+ Amazon, this is great — Veeqo is free and built for you. If you're running serious Temu, TikTok Shop, or Groupon alongside Amazon, the trajectory is less encouraging.
3. Temu is the channel with the biggest software gap
Temu's UK seller base grew ~4x in 2025 according to widely-cited marketplace analyst figures. But inventory platform support hasn't caught up:
- Most platforms import orders but can't buy Temu courier labels directly
- Few have native promotional pricing support for Temu flash events
- Reporting rarely breaks out Temu fee structures cleanly
This is why we built direct Temu courier label purchase — and why we wrote about it here. It's the single biggest gap in the 2026 market.
4. Data residency is newly a real concern
Two GDPR enforcement cases in the UK in late 2025 (covered extensively in the Retail Gazette and The Grocer) raised the compliance stakes for ecommerce data transfers to US-based SaaS platforms. Customer data processing agreements are being asked for more often, especially by B2B customers and regulated sectors (health, children's, age-gated).
Any platform hosted in AWS US-East or Azure US regions now has more explaining to do. UK-hosted platforms (MaxInvent, Unleashed) and EU-hosted platforms (some Brightpearl instances) have become noticeably more attractive in tenders.
5. "Contact us for pricing" is losing to published pricing
SMB buyers in 2026 want published rates. "Contact sales" is now a negative signal rather than a premium positioning signal — it reads as either "we want to price-discriminate against you" or "we have something to hide".
Linnworks's and Brightpearl's reluctance to publish full pricing is actively costing them evaluation slots. Platforms with transparent published pricing (MaxInvent, Zoho, Sellbrite, Cin7 now partially) are making it into more shortlists.
Who's positioned well for 2026
| Platform | Best fit | Trajectory |
|---|---|---|
| Linnworks | Established UK sellers already invested | Stable but under pricing pressure |
| Brightpearl | Omnichannel retail with POS | Moving up-market; losing SMB share |
| Veeqo | Amazon-heavy sellers | Rising — free + Amazon-native investment |
| Cin7 Omni | Mid-market with manufacturing | Strong globally; UK share modest |
| Unleashed | Accountant-led food/drink brands | Stable niche |
| Zoho Inventory | Small sellers in the Zoho ecosystem | Rising — price-sensitive buyers |
| Sellbrite | Under 500 orders, basic multi-channel | Stable entry-level |
| MaxInvent | UK multi-channel 500–20,000 orders | New entrant, rising — Temu depth + UK data residency |
What to do if you're evaluating right now
Five questions worth asking every vendor on your shortlist — not in the first demo but before you sign:
- "What has your pricing model changed in the last 3 years, and what's changing in the next 18 months?" Filters out vendors planning price hikes.
- "What percentage of your development capacity is spent on each marketplace you support?" Tells you where their roadmap actually points.
- "Show me your last three outage reports." Tests whether they communicate honestly when things break.
- "Can you put me in touch with a UK customer who recently switched to you from my current platform?" Best-quality reference.
- "What's the all-in annual cost at my projected volume, without discounts?" Cuts through negotiation games.
If you'd like the buyer's decision framework in more depth, we wrote one here.
The honest bias
We're MaxInvent. We'd obviously like you to pick us — but only if we're the right fit. About 60% of sellers we talk to are a fit; about 40% aren't, and we tell them so on the demo. A good platform decision outlasts any sales conversation.
If you want the MaxInvent pitch specifically, see what we've built or request a demo. If you want to switch from a specific incumbent, here's the migration guide.