# CostGuard Inventory Control Software Pricing, Alternatives & More 2026 | Capterra > With the help of Capterra, learn about CostGuard Inventory Control Software - reviews, pricing plans, popular comparisons to other Restaurant Management products and more. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/2293/CostGuard-Inventory-Control-Software/reviews/ --- # CostGuard Inventory Control Software Review 2026: Features, Reviews, Integrations, Pros & Cons Last updated on July 23, 2026 Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Description](#description)[Use cases](#use-cases)[Alternatives](#alternatives)[FAQs](#faqs)[Features](#features)[Pricing](#pricing)[Support](#support)[Reviews](#reviews) CostGuard Inventory Control Software ## What is CostGuard Inventory Control Software? CostGuard is a complete foodservice software for managing inventory, recipes, menus, sales mixes, and reporting. CostGuard analyzes actual and ideal food costs, and calculates variance (shrinkage) by major and minor food groups, as well as by the individual item. There are interfaces with supplier data, POS systems, accounting (including QuickBooks), and Catering systems. We have thousands of CostGuard users worldwide; we have been industry leaders for more than 25 years. ## What is CostGuard Inventory Control Software used for? [Restaurant Management](https://www.capterra.com/restaurant-management-software/)[Food Costing](https://www.capterra.com/food-costing-software/) Top alternative Featured Overall rating Based on 4 user reviews Reviews sentiment Positive \- Neutral \- Negative \- Starting price $495 Per User, One Time Free trial available Free version not included Capterra Shortlist charts the highest-rated and most popular products... Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings... Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings... Do you work for CostGuard Inventory Control Software?[Manage this product listing](https://digitalmarkets.gartner.com/get-listed/claim-bx?url=http://www.costguard.com/&name=CostGuard Inventory Control Software) ## Compare with a popular alternative Capterra selects software alternatives based on relevant features, verified user reviews and user interactions. Placement may be influenced by client status. ### CostGuard Inventory Control Software 4.0 (4) VS. [4.9 (57)](https://www.capterra.com/p/180564/SMART-Systems-Pro/reviews/) Starting Price $495 Per User, One Time Starting Price $99 Flat Rate, Per Month Free Trial Free Version Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version Ease Of Use 3.0 (4) Ease Of Use 4.6 (57) Value For Money 0.0 (0) Value For Money 4.9 (54) Customer Service 4.0 (4) Customer Service 4.9 (53) ## CostGuard Inventory Control Software alternatives [4.9 (17)](https://www.capterra.com/p/207446/Recipe-Cost-Calculator/reviews/) Starting price $29.00 Per User, Per Month Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 100% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [meez](https://www.capterra.com/p/246573/meez/) [4.7 (44)](https://www.capterra.com/p/246573/meez/reviews/) Starting price $19.00 Per User, Per Month Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 98% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/246573/meez/) [Marketman](https://www.capterra.com/p/136439/Marketman-Restaurant-Inventory/) [4.7 (112)](https://www.capterra.com/p/136439/Marketman-Restaurant-Inventory/reviews/) Starting price $199.00 Per User, Per Month Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 96% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/136439/Marketman-Restaurant-Inventory/) [Stocksmith](https://www.capterra.com/p/144117/Craftybase/) [4.6 (245)](https://www.capterra.com/p/144117/Craftybase/reviews/) Starting price $99.00 Per User, Per Month Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 94% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/144117/Craftybase/) ## FAQs about CostGuard Inventory Control Software Overview ### What company size and specific industries is CostGuard Inventory Control Software built for? CostGuard Inventory Control Software is designed for restaurants of all sizes, from small operations to larger businesses, that need on-premise inventory and cost control. It is built for food service organizations managing inventory, sales, recipes, vendors, POS, and costing through Excel spreadsheets. Features and Usability ### What are the key features of CostGuard Inventory Control Software? CostGuard Inventory Control Software offers inventory management, billing and invoicing, and point of sale (POS) tools for sales and stock transactions. It also includes kitchen and menu management, recipe management, and reporting and analytics for tracking usage, pricing, and inventory activity across foodservice operations. Getting Started and Support ### What training and onboarding options does CostGuard Inventory Control Software offer? CostGuard Inventory Control Software provides in-person training and webinars to help teams get started. In-person training supports direct, face-to-face instruction, while webinars offer live online sessions for guided setup and product learning. Getting Started and Support ### What customer support options does CostGuard Inventory Control Software offer? CostGuard Inventory Control Software provides chat support. Users can reach help quickly through chat for questions and issue resolution, though no reviewer feedback is available to describe response speed, helpfulness, or common support frustrations. ## Features AI summary Based on 1,432 Restaurant Management reviews Capterra reviewers point to these as the restaurant management features they value most when comparing options: - **Order Entry** (**54%** of reviewers rated this feature as critical) - **Online Ordering** (**46%**) - **Order Management** (**45%**) CostGuard Inventory Control Software includes other capabilities that reviewers also consider important, such as **Kitchen/Menu Management** (**45%**) and **Reporting/Analytics** (**41%**). These features help restaurants organize menus and kitchen workflows, track performance trends, and make more informed inventory and operational decisions, allowing teams to manage day-to-day restaurant activity with better visibility. Billing & Invoicing Create, manage, and send invoices or bills to customers Inventory Management Track and manage inventory levels to maintain proper supply Kitchen/Menu Management Allows users to view inventory and build a menu that's appropriate Point of Sale (POS) Accept and process customer payments for products or services using hardware and software Recipe Management Store recipes, enable recipe modification, and generate data required for production records Reporting/Analytics View and track pertinent metrics to find patterns and gain insights from data CostGuard Inventory Control Software 6 features Create, manage, and send invoices or bills to customers Track and manage inventory levels to maintain proper supply Allows users to view inventory and build a menu that's appropriate Accept and process customer payments for products or services using hardware and software Store recipes, enable recipe modification, and generate data required for production records View and track pertinent metrics to find patterns and gain insights from data Get Advice We can help you find the software with the features you need. ## Pricing Free Trial Basic $495.00 Per User,One Time Connect with a Capterra advisor for a free 15-minute consultation Get a personalized software list aligned to your business needs with guidance from our expert advisors. Our team has helped 1 million+ businesses like yours find options that fit their needs. ## Support, customer service and training options Customer Service 4.0 (4) Support - Email/Help Desk - FAQs/Forum - Knowledge Base - Phone Support - 24/7 (Live rep) - Chat Training - In Person - Live Online - Webinars - Documentation - Videos Deployment - Web - Android - iPhone/iPad Typical users - Freelancers - Small businesses - Mid size businesses - Enterprises Customer Service 4.0 (4) 4.0 Based on 4 reviews ## User reviews Overall rating 4.0 Based on 4 reviews Filter by rating 5(2) 4(1) 3(0) 2(1) 1(0) Mentioned topic Sorted by most recent AF Ali F. Chef/kitchen manager ### "have been use for a number of years ,support is excellent but expensive ,it helped inventory control" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 2.0 2.0 Features 0.0 0.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 0/10 February 25, 2016 pros: help tracking ,control food cost and waste,stores all purchases, and recipes cons:tricky to use at time ,takes to much time to enter invoices , Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. CS Chris S. Executive Chef ### "The data I get from CostGuard has been a real boon." 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 0.0 0.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 0/10 February 9, 2016 I've been using CostGuard for the last 9 years and each year it's gotten better. I use the automator to import my POS sales mix over night, and I use VendorTransport to import my order guides and invoices. It's a great tool to allow me to keep up with my usage and prices. But I really love the variance reports. I can get my chef and accountant together to look at the numbers. I am a real stickler for numbers! I also can't stand it when my vendor sends me the inventory I order but in a different form. The substitutions function has been the best. I don't have to manually change my recipes, CostGuard does it for me. There is a learning curve, but I use a lot of software (reservations, POS etc) and everything has a learning curve. Their webinar training is great and has helped to get our new employees up and running quickly. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. SC Susan C. ### "BUYER BEWARE" 2.0 Overall Rating 2.0 2.0 Ease of Use 1.0 1.0 Features 0.0 0.0 Customer Service 1.0 1.0 Likelihood to Recommend 0/10 January 5, 2016 Do not buy this product. It's antiquated and crashes regularly. The company does not stand behind their product and will ask you to pay hundreds of dollars per hour for any type of customer support. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. Response from Vendor February 15, 2016 Thanks for your feedback. CostGuard is definitely not old, the software is updated several times a year to keep it up to date and to continually add functionality. It is built on years of industry knowledge and has extremely robust and complex business rules built in to it. We do charge 15% of the cost of the purchase price of the software for technical support. Not hundreds of dollars an hour. Never! This entitles you to all the updates (that keep the software fresh) as well as access to our tech engineers. We do make that very clear on our web page and in all the literature we send out with the software. We definitely don¿t surprise anyone with this information. Most of our customers do purchase support, and it would be very unfair to those people if we looked the other way and responded to users who chose not to purchase support. We are very fair to our users who do purchase support. We do not undermine their trust. Feel free to renew your support. We are here for you! IT Isaac T. Chef/Owner ### "Huge time saver, cut food costs by 9%" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 0.0 0.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 0/10 August 20, 2015 I was happy when I upgraded from my shoebox-full-of-paper system to Excel spreadsheets, but CostGuard helped us take our organizational system to the next level. To be honest, the initial setup takes some time so I was a little wary at first (that's the only reason it got 4 stars for ease of use), but the time savings make up for that within a few days. There are no more stupid arithmetic errors like there were in Excel, I get alerted about price changes without having to pull out old invoices, and the program helped me pinpoint waste. It's one of the only piece of restaurant software I've used that actually helps me spend more time in the kitchen and less in the office. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. ## Top-rated software of 2026 ### Fill out the form and we'll send a list of the top-rated software based on real user reviews directly to your inbox.