Overview

ConsignCloud and SimpleConsign are two of the highest-rated resale/consignment softwares available for small businesses. Both have POS systems for making sales as well as powerful features enabling resale and consignment stores to manage consignors, inventory, payouts, and e-commerce. You can also check out our comparison of Ricochet and ConsignCloud.

Pricing

While ConsignCloud and SimpleConsign are similar in their available features, the main difference between the two is their pricing and pricing structure. SimpleConsign has straightforward pricing tiers, and each of those tiers comes with a set of features:

The benefit of SimpleConsign's pricing model is that it is easily understood at a glance—each tier clearly outlines the available features. The downside of this pricing structure is its inflexibility. For instance, if you want a lean feature list, but syncing your Shopify store is important, you will need to pay $359/month for the Professional plan. This means you may be paying for features you neither want or/nor need.

ConsignCloud, on the other hand, has a pricing structure that is determined by the number of add-ons a store wants (add-ons are a set of powerful features). The disadvantage of this pricing structure is that it requires stores to pick and choose the add-ons they want, which is not as straightforward as SimpleConsign’s fixed tiers. The advantage is that a store chooses which add-ons they want to pay for. The amount of add-ons determines which pricing tier a store falls under.

Credit Card Processing

SimpleConsign offers in-house credit card processing called SimplePay that is capable of receiving most or almost all payment types, advertises low rates, can receive next-day funds, and can be used away from the store. This is a mandatory integration, meaning all stores need to switch to the SimplePay processing. While many customers have enjoyed the benefits of having integrated processing, stores that want to keep their own processor need to find an alternative software.

ConsignCloud has two credit card processing options: integrated and non-integrated.

Integrated: ConsignCloud partners with Gravity Payments which is capable of receiving most all payment types, advertises low rates, can receive next-day funds, and can be used away from the store.

Non-integrated: if a store wants to keep a previous credit card processor, they are able to keep that processor, but will need to manually record the sale in the processor.

Features and Integrations

ConsignCloud and SimpleConsign share many basic features with slight differences, but here we'll note particularly important features and integrations where the softwares differ. The most notable difference is how features affect pricing; as mentioned before, SImpleConsign has a strict pricing structure and certain features are only available at a certain price point. ConsignCloud has a pay-per-add-on structure. We will show these differences per feature.

Accounts and Consignor Management Features

Both ConsignCloud and SimpleConsign offer consignment management tools that enable store owners to track consignor account balances, consignor inventory, sort through consignor data, and allow consignors to see their own inventory and account balance.

SimpleConsign gives store owners control over the basics of consignor management. They even give consignors a consignor portal and the ability to enter inventory from that portal. This feature is especially useful for consignment malls that have multiple vendors, as the vendor can enter their own items and item details. While these features are powerful, they do come at a steep cost of $259/month and $359/month.

ConsignCloud offers more advanced filtering features, allowing stores to find and edit groups of consignors with ease; additionally, ConsignCloud offers automated emails as an additional way of communicating with consignors. ConsignCloud also has a consignor portal, allowing consignors to see their balances, items active and sold, as well as payout history. Lastly, ConsignCloud also allows vendors to enter their own items and item details. Both the consignor portal and vendor item entry are available as add-ons.

Integrations

Time management, cost, and simplification are important to running a consignment store. Integrations are one of the main ways stores can save time and simplify their workflows.

SimpleConsign's Quickbooks integration and Shopify integration are big time savers and they come at the $359/month cost of their Professional plan. This makes e-commerce possible for your store through the Shopify integration.

ConsignCloud's Square and Shopify integrations mean you can utilize the powerful features of Shopify and Square when you need them, especially their e-commerce capabilities. Additionally, NearSt is an integration that allows your in-store products to show up on Google and Facebook, allowing them to preview your inventory, and driving traffic to your store and your store website. While these integrations are all add-ons and can potentially bump your store into a higher spending tier at ConsignCloud, these tiers are substantially less than SimpleConsign's (compare ConsignCloud's $149 and $179 to SimpleConsigns $259 and $359).

Inventory Management Features

SimpleConsign offers a good inventory entry workflow with solid features. As shown below in the reporting section, it also offers a good selection of reporting templates to view and analyze inventory across many categories. It also allows for bulk item editing for a limited number of categories and importing items via a spreadsheet. SimpleConsign does allow stores to take pictures of inventory but only at the $359/month Professional plan tier.

ConsignCloud enables stores to enter items one at a time or enter using autosaving batches so stores can create multi-step intake processes (like one employee entering the items and another employee pricing the items). Additionally, ConsignCloud gives stores the ability to bulk edit inventory at just about any level. Taking pictures of inventory can be done from any device with a camera and it is included in the Basic plan.

Point of Sale Features

SimpleConsign has a polished point of sale (POS) that allows the cashier to both sell inventory and buy inventory (if a store wants to buy items outright at the sale counter). It has handy discounting capabilities, allowing stores to discount items by category/color/schedule on the backend, and allowing stores to discount items at the sale screen by manually adjusting the price. SimpleConsign can easily handle the layaway process. SimpleConsign gives stores the ability to use consignor balances as store credit, but only on the $259/month pricing tier.

ConsignCloud's POS is also capable of handling manual discounting and automatically applied discounting for categories/tag colors/schedules as well as adjusting the price of items at the sale screen. While layaway is possible by parking and unparking sales, it is not as smooth as the Simple Consign POS. Thankfully, consignors can use their account balance as store credit and they can even set up store credit to be automatically discounted, incentivizing consignors to shop at your store more often.

Reporting Features

SimpleConsign's reporting features have an easy-to-use interface and allow store owners to pull data from many different angles. Most store owners will be pleased with the template reports provided by SimpleConsign. They also have a mobile app that allows store owners to get advanced inventory insights from anywhere, but it is unfortunately at the $359/month price point.

ConsignCloud provides an impressively detailed reporting list, whether profits summaries, inventory reports, or sales reports, etc. ConsignCloud also offers advanced inventory insights in two ways: 1. Our Data Explorer, which is a very powerful but somewhat challenging tool to navigate; it can provide data on just about any imaginable convergence of data points. 2. Our Inventory Insights reports views aspects (or fields) like performance by brand, category, consignor, etc. Both of these are part of the Advanced Insights add-on.

Consignor Payout Features

SimpleConsign's payout features will allow stores to easily payout their consignors and have a record of those payouts. Stores can pay consignors out by a specific amount or per item. Payout options include check printing and the extremely handy feature of direct deposit through their partner Proplr. This direct deposit feature is thankfully available at their Standard plan pricing of $259/month rather than their $359/month pricing, and they charge $2.50 per payout. Store owners could pass this on to their consignors by charging their consignors a $2.50 "direct deposit" fee.

ConsignCloud likewise has the ability to payout consignors with ease, see those payout histories, check printing and direct deposit. Since ConsignCloud partners with Checkbook.io to enable direct deposit, stores are charged $1.79 per payout. While this can add up quickly, many stores have passed the $1.79 onto their consignors by charging a "direct deposit" fee.

Printing Features

SimpleConsign gives stores the ability to print labels and receipts using their dedicated printers. While they are not able to provide custom designs to their labels or receipts, the essentials for labeling and receipt printing are available. SimpleConsign offers the handy Cloud printing feature at the $359/month Professional plan price tier.

ConsignCloud allows stores to customize the information and some small design features on both their labels and receipts, including the addition of logos, color, font, alignment, custom messages, and other designs. Cloud printing is available at the base cost of $119/month.

Conclusion

SimpleConsign and ConsignCloud are both great options for reseller and consignment stores. Both softwares provide stores with everything essential to run a small, profitable consignment business. They also offer more powerful features and integrations for stores that want to grow and scale.

A high point for SimpleConsign is its POS thanks to its intuitiveness, its "buy item" feature, and its layaway capability. Additionally, it has a handy QuickBooks integration and a good selection of report templates. You can schedule a demo with SimpleConsign on their website.

ConsignCloud's high points are its consignor and inventory management systems which offer powerful filtering and editing capabilities (the batch item-entry feature is particularly valuable for processing inventory). Also, its consignor portal and automated email notifications make consignor communication a breeze.

While these softwares each offer a great selection of features, ConsignCloud is the better option for most stores because of its competitive pricing. Most ConsignCloud customers run their stores at the $119/month subscription cost. For those stores that want more powerful features, the most they will pay is the $179/month cost, while SimpleConsign stores start at $159/month, and quickly move into the $259/month or $359/month tier for features like the consignor portal, advanced insights, or the Shopify integration. You can schedule a demo with ConsignCloud here to learn more about the software.