This page answers the questions people ask most often before and after they start using PartsBox. For step-by-step instructions, see the User's Guide.
PartsBox keeps track of your electronic components and your production. You can see where every part is stored, how much stock you have, and which parts go into which products. It pulls specifications, datasheets, prices, and availability for linked parts, imports BOMs from your CAD tool, prices those BOMs across distributors, and records every build that consumes stock. You can label any physical item with an ID Anything™ QR code and scan it to find it again in seconds.
It runs in the browser, updates in real time for everyone on the team, and never makes you wait for a page to load: the whole database is held in your browser and search is instant.
PartsBox is parts inventory, BOM pricing, purchasing, and production tracking. It is not a full ERP, not an MES, not accounting software, and not a CRM. It does not do sales orders, shipping, invoicing of your customers, general-ledger accounting, or approval workflows. Many teams run PartsBox alongside those systems and connect them through the API, using PartsBox as the system of record for parts and stock.
A spreadsheet works for a small, single-person collection. It stops working once the inventory grows or more than one person touches it.
A spreadsheet gives you no part specifications, no datasheets, no fuzzy search, and no record of who changed what. Pricing a BOM by hand is the hardest part: price breaks, currency conversions, minimum order quantities, and order multiples become a fragile sheet that is out of date the day you finish it. PartsBox imports the BOM from your CAD tool and prices it automatically from live distributor offers, and it keeps a full stock history that a flat sheet cannot represent.
Yes. The product is built for electronics, but local parts have no required link to a distributor, so connectors, screws, enclosures, cables, PCBs, and any other mechanical or custom part work fine. Parts that are measured rather than counted (wire, solder paste, chemicals) can use a unit of measure such as meters or grams.
PartsBox is run by one person, so there is no sales team and no scheduled-call funnel. The fastest way to evaluate it is the interactive demo, which runs on real sample data with no signup, and the free 14-day trial on your own data. Read the User's Guide for the complete documentation, and email any specific question to info@partsbox.com.
Pick the plan by the lowest tier that includes the features you need:
Each higher plan includes everything in the plans below it. See Plans & Pricing for prices, user counts, and trial terms.
The Maker plan is for one person working on personal projects. It includes parts inventory, stock and storage tracking, fuzzy search, BOM import (including KiCad), custom fields, label printing, barcode scanning with a USB scanner, ID Anything™, and full JSON export.
It does not include multiple users, BOM pricing, purchasing, multiple currencies, file or datasheet attachments, company part numbers, the API, or in-browser camera scanning. Those start on Essentials.
Features are bundled by plan and cannot be bought individually. The KiCad library integration is in every plan, including the free Maker plan.
Every commercial plan starts with a 14-day free trial. No credit card is required to start it; you only enter card details if you decide to subscribe. Everything you do during the trial is kept, so when you subscribe you keep all of your work.
If the trial ends without a subscription, your database goes read-only rather than disappearing. It is kept for several weeks, and you are emailed before anything is removed, so you have time to subscribe or download a backup. If you need a few more days to finish evaluating, ask support and an extension is usually fine.
Yes. You can switch plans during the trial or after you subscribe, so you can move up to test, for example, Production builds or Control lot control against your real parts, and move back down if you do not need them. You can also create another trial subscription from within the app, with the plan of your choice, cloning your database. You will not be charged for the trial.
Yes, at any time. Upgrades take effect immediately and are prorated. Downgrades take effect at the end of the current billing period. Changing plan never deletes data; a downgrade simply turns off the higher-tier features, and your parts, stock, and history stay exactly as they were.
PartsBox sponsors many non-profits, student teams, and hacker/makerspaces. There is no fixed program because every group is different, so email info@partsbox.com and tell me about your organization. Commercial businesses (including for-profit makerspaces) pay the normal commercial price; the free Maker plan already covers individual hobbyists.
No. PartsBox is a hosted service only, with no on-premise or self-hosted version. On-premise was considered and is not something that would make business sense for most customers: the costs of maintaining a separate version of the software are significant. If the concern behind the question is data control, see Your Data Is Yours: you can export everything as JSON at any time, your data is stored and processed in the EU, and there is no lock-in.
An organization admin manages users in Settings, adding and removing them up to the plan's limit, and beyond the limit for an extra per-user charge. Accounts are personal: a PartsBox account belongs to one person and must not be shared, because a shared login gives you no way to revoke one person's access and no record of who did what. To give someone access, have them create their own free account first, then add them. See Multiple Users.
That message means the email address you entered does not yet belong to a PartsBox account. Each person you invite must first create their own account at the address you will use. Once that account exists, add them again and it will work.
Users within your plan's included count are free to add and remove. Beyond that count you can add extra users on any plan without jumping to a higher tier, billed per user per month (currently $13 / €12 per user/month, shown when you add them, and prorated for the rest of the period). Read-only users count the same as full users.
Yes. Every plan with multiple users offers three levels: read-only, read/write, and admin. The Control plan adds Role-Based Access Control, where you define your own roles (for example a Receiving role that can add and move stock but not change projects) and assign them to users.
Every commercial plan offers three options:
You choose the payment type when you subscribe and can change it later in your subscription settings.
Yes. Choose invoiced billing to get a pro-forma invoice for one year of service, then pay by bank transfer (SEPA for EUR, SWIFT for USD). This is the standard option when procurement needs a formal invoice to pay against. Where it is possible, automated credit-card billing is still simpler: it renews and issues invoices on its own, and it avoids the extra fees and mismatched amounts that SWIFT wire transfers often cause, especially in the US.
No, not custom ones. PartsBox does not register in supplier portals, fill out custom vendor or onboarding forms, sign bespoke agreements, or work through per-order approval procedures. The standard invoiced-billing flow is designed to cover what most purchasing departments actually need instead: choose invoiced billing to get a pro-forma invoice for one year of service, pay it by bank transfer, and receive a commercial invoice once payment arrives. You can place that pro-forma against your own purchase order.
The reason for the limit is simple. PartsBox is a small EU-based business serving customers in many countries and tax regimes, and taking on each company's individual procedures is not feasible at standard subscription prices. If your company genuinely requires custom purchasing procedures, those are possible only under an individually negotiated enterprise plan, or you can buy through a local intermediary who is set up to meet your internal requirements.
No. PartsBox does not complete or sign tax-withholding forms (such as W-8BEN, W-8BEN-E, or W-9), custom vendor and onboarding forms, NDAs, or IT security questionnaires, and it does not go through security audits. As a small EU-based business that sells into many overlapping jurisdictions and tax regimes, it cannot take on the legal and tax risk of signing per-customer documents at standard subscription prices.
The standard payment options are built to avoid needing any of this: a pro-forma invoice you pay by bank transfer, or automated credit-card billing. If your accounting department cannot onboard a vendor without these documents, the options are an individually negotiated enterprise plan or buying through a local intermediary.
Your card details never reach PartsBox servers. All card payments are handled by Stripe, an external payment processor; PartsBox does not see or store your card number.
All invoices are available in Settings, under Subscription. You can change the billing company name, address, VAT number, and the email invoices are sent to, and future invoices will use the new details. For a duplicate, a corrected invoice, or a pro-forma, email info@partsbox.com.
In Settings, under Subscription, use Cancel subscription. This stops automatic renewal. You keep full access until the end of your paid-through period, after which the database goes read-only and is later removed. Cancel before the renewal date to avoid being charged for the next period. Export a JSON backup first if you want to keep your data.
It is not deleted right away. A lapsed subscription or an ended trial puts the database into read-only mode and keeps it for a grace period, and you are emailed before anything is removed. You can reactivate at any time during that period by subscribing again, and everything comes back exactly as it was. You can still download a full JSON backup while read-only. If your situation is temporary, ask support to hold the data.
Every paid plan comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee: within the first 30 days after you subscribe, email info@partsbox.com for a full refund. After that a subscription is non-refundable, but cancelling before a renewal date stops the next charge. If an auto-renewal charged you for a period you did not intend to use, email info@partsbox.com and we will sort it out.
Billing country and currency are set when the organization is created and are locked afterward, because they affect tax and invoicing. To change them, contact support. Accounts from countries under international sanctions or export restrictions cannot be served; if you believe your account was restricted in error, email info@partsbox.com.
Email info@partsbox.com and I will change it for you.
Check your spam folder first; these messages are sometimes filtered. An email address can belong to only one PartsBox account, so "already in use" means an account already exists for it. If a mistyped signup address or an interrupted email change has locked you out, email info@partsbox.com and I will fix it.
After too many failed attempts an account is temporarily locked as a protection; wait and reset your password to clear it. A login that used to work and now reports "authentication failed" is usually a stale saved password in the browser or password manager: delete the saved entry and type the password again. A login screen that spins forever is almost always a browser, cookie, or connection problem (see the Troubleshooting section below).
A linked part has a manufacturer part number (MPN) and an online identity, so PartsBox can fetch its description, datasheet, specifications, image, pricing, and availability automatically. A local part has no online link and is used for generic, custom, mechanical, or one-off items such as PCBs. You can link a local part later if you find an online match.
For linked parts, PartsBox matches against a large parts database aggregated from manufacturers and online distributors, and refreshes pricing and availability periodically. Local parts have no online source, so they show only the data you enter and are not part of automatic pricing.
Linking depends on that part being present in the aggregated parts database. Not every distributor listing is covered, so a part you can see on a distributor's own site may still not be matchable, and some catalogs (for example LCSC-only items) may be missing. When the online search returns nothing for parts that normally match, the data service is usually having a transient outage; you can always create a local part by hand in the meantime and link it later.
The Specifications tab shows manufacturer specifications pulled from the online data source, so it appears only on linked parts. Local parts do not have it.
The internal part number (also called the company part number) is set by renaming the part. When it differs from the MPN, both are shown and indexed, so the part is found by either one. Internal part numbers are a feature of the paid plans; the free Maker plan identifies linked parts by their MPN only, which is why on that plan the part name matches the MPN. See Company Part Numbers.
Yes. Custom fields let you store structured, searchable data beyond the built-in fields, on parts, lots, storage locations, orders, projects, and BOM entries. Unlike notes, they are indexed and usable as table columns and filters. Examples: distributor part numbers, compliance status, MSL level, batch numbers, expiry dates. Custom fields are available on every plan, including the free Maker plan; each is defined per part rather than globally.
Yes, on the paid plans. You can attach datasheets, 3D models, and other files to parts. Linked parts already surface the manufacturer datasheet from the online source, so attachments are most useful for local parts and your own documents. File attachments are not included in the free Maker plan.
Yes. By default every part is counted in whole pieces. For materials that are measured rather than counted, give the part a unit of measure from its Settings page; PartsBox supports length, area, mass, volume, and time units. A part with a unit can hold fractional quantities, such as 2.5 meters in stock or 1.5 meters required in a project.
If a vendor sells the part in fixed amounts (a spool of 10 meters, a jar of 500 grams), set the part's package quantity to how much of the part is in one of those, and PartsBox converts between what the vendor sells and what you track and shows both the price per package and the price per unit. A reel of 5000 resistors priced per piece is different: leave the package quantity at 1, because the reel size is the offer's minimum order quantity. A part's unit is locked once it is used in an order, as a substitute, or in a meta-part; remove those references first if you need to change it.
In general, add the bare single boards and treat panels as a packaging detail, the way parts arrive in trays or on reels. The production and pricing unit is usually one tested device, even when boards are produced and tested in panels and depaneled at the end.
Any scheme works, but a short, consistent prefix scheme scans and sorts well. For example, start with a letter for the storage type (b for boxes, s for shelves, c for cabinets), follow it with a number for the unit, and add grid coordinates for compartments: b01-a4, s12-l1-r2, c05-d3. Names can be changed at any time, but settle on the scheme before you print and affix labels, because renaming is inconvenient once labels are stuck on.
Storage locations are archived, not deleted, so that stock history keeps pointing at real locations. Archiving hides a location from normal views while preserving the history of parts that were once stored there. This keeps past stock movements intact while letting you tidy the active list.
No. Storage is a flat list, which keeps search, filtering, and display consistent. You can encode a hierarchy in the name instead, for example a s12-l1-r2 scheme or names like Shelf-1-Box-2-A, which gives you the organizational benefit without the complexity of true nesting.
Not yet as a hard reservation. Today, if the same stock is in range of two builds or purchase lists, both see it as available. Until stock reservation ships, the common approach is to build and consume sequentially, or to separate stock with storage locations and tags so a build draws only from the locations you intend. Reserved and available stock is a frequently requested capability and is on the roadmap.
Use dedicated storage locations (for example a per-client location or one tagged CLIENT-PARTS) and keep consigned stock there. Builds can be told which locations to draw from, so company and customer stock stay separate even when they share an MPN.
Yes. PartsBox imports BOMs from CSV or TSV files exported by almost any CAD tool, including Altium Designer, KiCad, EAGLE, OrCAD, Allegro, PADS, and DipTrace. You map the columns once and save the mapping as a preset for next time. BOM import is in every plan, including the free Maker plan; pricing the imported BOM, with price breaks and multiple currencies, starts on the Essentials plan. See BOM Import.
PartsBox checks the number of reference designators against the quantity, to catch BOM errors where they no longer match. Designator ranges such as Q1-Q3 are expanded and counted. Entries that legitimately have no designators (mechanical parts, consumables, length-based parts) are fine; the check applies only when designators are present, so leave the designator field empty for those entries.
Yes. A sub-assembly is modeled as a part that is itself built from its own BOM, so you can nest assemblies. Building a sub-assembly produces stock of that part, which is then consumed by the top-level build. Some roll-ups across levels are still manual today, and a flattened multi-level view is on the roadmap.
PartsBox uses European Central Bank reference rates, refreshed periodically. Historical stock entries store their original value and currency and are converted using current rates when displayed, rather than the historical rate an accounting system would use. The reason is that BOM and inventory figures are usually wanted at today's cost, to estimate current margins. See Multiple Currencies.
You can check buildability and combine several projects into one purchase list to consolidate buying. What PartsBox does not yet do is allocate or reserve stock across multiple planned builds, so cross-build demand planning is manual for now. A dedicated Planning capability is in development.
PartsBox generates labels in ZPL (Zebra Programming Language), so you need a ZPL-compatible Zebra printer. Older Zebra models that only speak EPL do not work. Non-ZPL printers, including Brother label printers, are not driven directly; the usual workaround is a virtual ZPL printer driver that converts and forwards to another printer. See Label Printing.
Browsers cannot send raw data to a printer; they only offer the generic Print dialog, which cannot place tightly formatted labels or send ZPL. JSPrintManager is a small local application that receives the label data from PartsBox and forwards it to the printer. It is available for Mac, Windows, Linux, and Android.
Please note that PartsBox currently works with JSPrintManager version 8 only. The newer version 9 is not supported yet, and we are working on adding support for it. If you have installed version 9, please also install version 8 (both versions can be installed on the same computer). We apologize for the inconvenience.
Yes. Labels are template-based, and you assign any data field to each position, including the MPN, description, your internal part number, and custom fields, alongside or instead of a barcode or ID Anything™ QR code. You can define multiple templates per object type (parts, lots, storage locations, orders, projects, builds) and switch between them.
PartsBox reads the barcodes on incoming shipments so you can book stock in by scanning instead of typing. It reads 2D codes (DataMatrix, PDF417) and 1D codes from DigiKey, Mouser, Farnell, RS, and other major distributors, plus its own ID Anything™ QR codes. Scanning with a USB scanner works on every plan, including the free Maker plan; in-browser scanning with your computer's camera starts on Essentials. For a camera, use one with autofocus; for a USB scanner, a 2D model such as the Zebra DS2208 reads both 1D and 2D labels. See Barcode Scanning.
Yes. The external API gives programmatic access to parts, stock, storage, projects, BOMs, orders, builds, and lots, so you can drive PartsBox from a script, an ERP, a PDM system, or your own tools. It is the integration path for warehouse automation and external-system sync. The API (and Zapier) are on the Essentials plan and up, use an Authorization: APIKey <key> header, and enforce the same per-plan and per-role permissions as the app. It is actively maintained; if an endpoint you need is missing, ask, and it is often added quickly.
Yes. The KiCad HTTP library integration lets you use your PartsBox parts directly in KiCad, and it is available on every plan. The Altium Designer integration exposes your parts as an Altium database library and requires the Production plan (with no extra fee). Both let you keep a single parts library in PartsBox and place parts from it in your schematic tool. See Use Your Parts in KiCad and Altium.
Distributor pricing and specifications come from an aggregated parts database, which already covers the major electronics distributors. Mechanical-only suppliers such as McMaster-Carr are not covered. For any vendor that is not in the database, you can record your own prices as local offers, or add them through the API.
Yes, on every plan, at any time. Download everything you have ever entered as a single JSON file from Settings, under Data. JSON is used rather than a spreadsheet because the data model is not flat: each part carries its full stock history, lots, offers, and relationships, which a single table cannot represent. File attachments are not part of the JSON; download those separately. See Your Data Is Yours.
Yes. Getting data out is one click; getting it in is a free service. Email a machine-readable export (a clean CSV, Excel sheet, SQL dump, or XML dump, including legacy tools such as Trilogy Parts&Vendors™ and PartKeepr) to info@partsbox.com, and it is imported for you. It is real custom work, because every tool stores things differently, so it is normally done once you have subscribed. A hand-grown spreadsheet full of ambiguous notes is not really a database and sometimes is better entered cleanly by hand; you will get an honest assessment either way. For self-service bulk loading, use the API. See Data Migration.
No. Re-importing arbitrarily edited exports would need extensive consistency checks to avoid corrupting the database. In a genuine data-loss situation, support can perform a manual one-time recovery from your JSON, but this is a manual emergency measure, not an automated round-trip.
Deletion is permanent and there is no general undo or version history, so archive rather than delete when you can. Support can sometimes restore recently deleted data as a one-off, but do not rely on it: keep your own JSON or API backups. The audit trail on the Compliance plan records every change for organizations that need a full history.
Every account has a free private database, separate from any company database it can access, and you switch between them with the database switcher at the top of the app. The two are independent: there is no automatic migration or merge between a personal database and a company database, or between two organizations. Moving data across means exporting and re-importing, which support can help with. Because of this, set your subscription on the organization that already holds your data rather than creating a fresh, empty one.
Your data is stored and processed in the European Union, in a distributed database replicated across servers. Backups run hourly, are encrypted with AES-256, and are copied off-site for disaster recovery. All access is over HTTPS, passwords are hashed and salted, and card payments go through Stripe so card numbers never reach PartsBox. PartsBox operates under EU data-protection law (GDPR); see the Privacy Policy. As a one-person company, PartsBox does not hold formal certifications such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001. If you find a security issue, email info@partsbox.com; responsible disclosure is appreciated. The strongest guarantee is portability: you can export everything as JSON at any time, so your operation is never trapped inside PartsBox.
No company can promise its future, but a few things matter here. PartsBox is a profitable, independent business, not a venture-funded startup burning money for growth, so there is no investor pressure and no runway to run out of. It is built for low-cost, long-term operation, and it is run by one person who builds, runs, and supports it directly.
The one promise I will make is that your data will never be held hostage. Data export is and will stay a core feature on every plan. You should stay with PartsBox because the product is good, not because leaving is hard. See Your Data Is Yours.
PartsBox loads your whole database into the browser, so the initial load and overall responsiveness scale with database size and depend on a stable connection. On a slow or flaky network, large views (such as a very large purchase list) can time out and the app may reload. These reloads never corrupt your data. Use a good connection, keep the number of open tabs reasonable, and reload if a view stalls. A genuine server outage looks different (it affects everyone at once); a problem only you see on one network is usually local.