Best free home inventory app: what each free plan really gets you

We make BoxTrack, and its free plan is one of the small ones: 1 box with up to 5 items. That's enough to try it, not enough for a house. We'd rather say that here than have you find out halfway through your kitchen.

A typical home has hundreds of things worth listing. The kitchen alone can run past 100 lines, even if you group small things ("12 drinking glasses"). So a free plan capped at 10 or 20 items covers about one shelf. That's fine for deciding whether you like an app, and it isn't a home inventory. Before you start, check the limit against how much you own, so you don't build half a list in an app you then have to pay for or leave.

NAIC Home Inventory: best fully free app. No item limit that we found and no paid tier. It groups things by room or category, scans barcodes and exports your list. The trade-off is reliability: store reviews mention glitches, failed email exports on large inventories and trouble adding photos. Export a copy as you go. See BoxTrack vs NAIC.

HomeZada's free plan: best free plan from a full home app. HomeZada's pricing page lists a free "Essentials" plan that includes home inventory, on iPhone, Android and the web. It's the free tier of a bigger home management product, so expect the paid features to be offered to you.

HomeBox: best free option if you're technical. Free and open source, with no limits beyond your own server. You host it yourself and use it in a browser. It prints QR labels and imports and exports CSV. If "self-hosted" means nothing to you, skip it.

Libib: best free plan for books, music and games. Its free Basic plan allows up to 5,000 items and 100 collections, with barcode scanning in the apps. It's built for media collections, not a whole-home insurance list, but if most of what you own is on shelves, it's generous.

Memento Database: best free plan if you want to design your own. "Free to use forever" with limits on cloud libraries and AI credits, on Android and iPhone. It's a blank database you shape yourself, so it takes setting up.

Small free tiers worth trying, not living in: Under My Roof (limited to 10 items), Itemtopia (a small item limit; a third-party summary says 20), Nest Egg Lite (capped), Sortly (a third-party review says 100 items and 1 user) and BoxTrack (1 box, 5 items).

BoxTrack's free box: best for trying photo AI before paying. Your free box lets you try every feature, AI photo scan, the insurance PDF and Excel export included, so you can see whether snapping beats typing for you. A whole home needs a paid plan, with a 72-hour free trial. It's also new, a web app with no app-store download, and it can't import from other apps.

• You want free, full stop: NAIC, or a spreadsheet plus a photo album.
• You'll pay later if it's good: try two free tiers on the same shelf and keep the one that felt quicker.
• You care most about not losing it: whichever you use, save an export outside the app. Free apps have shut down before, as Encircle's did in December 2025.

Is the NAIC home inventory app really free?

Yes. It's a free app from the state insurance regulators' association, with no upsell that we found. It was still being updated in 2026. The thing to watch isn't cost, it's the export: reviewers say it can fail on big inventories.

What's the catch with free home inventory apps?

Usually an item limit. Many free plans stop at 10 to 100 items, which is a shelf or a few rooms, not a house. Some also keep reports or exports for the paid plan. Check both before you start listing.

Can I make a home inventory for free without an app?

Yes. A spreadsheet and your phone's photos work, and insurers care that you have the list, not what it's in. Our free room-by-room home inventory checklist needs no sign-up. See also a home inventory app vs a spreadsheet.