A spreadsheet is fine until it is not. It holds a parts list, but it does not know that a reel and a strip of cut tape are different stock, that a BOM priced last month costs more today, that a build should deduct what it used, or which units shipped with a suspect lot. It cannot tell 5 meters of wire from 5 pieces of wire, and it lets anyone overwrite last month's count without a trace. As the work grows, stock drifts, orders double up, and traceability is gone. PartsBox is built around exactly those things.
Switching does not mean re-typing everything. For newly subscribed customers on commercial plans, data migration is a free service: PartsBox imports your existing data for you, from Excel, CSV, SQL or XML dumps, a Trilogy Parts&Vendors Access database, a PartKeepr database dump, Part-DB, or a distributor's own inventory tool.
The one requirement is that the data be machine-readable — a clean export, not a scan of handwritten notes — and ambiguous matches are resolved by hand, because a wrong match is expensive to undo later. You get an honest assessment of what is in good shape and what is not; sometimes the better path for a sheet that grew by hand over the years is to enter it cleanly.
You can also import yourself. The API creates parts, storage locations, stock, and projects, so a script — yours, or one an AI writes against the OpenAPI description — can convert whatever you have into API calls.
What PartsBox will not do is let the data deteriorate the way a spreadsheet does. It is opinionated where that protects stock accuracy: stock history is not rewritten after the fact, every part has a real identity, and a build consumes real stock. That structure is the point. It is what a spreadsheet cannot give you once more than one person, more than one project, or more than a few hundred parts are involved.
Start with the interactive demo: it runs on realistic sample data, with no signup. Then evaluate on your own data — every commercial plan starts with a free 14-day trial, no credit card required, and everything you enter during the trial is kept when you subscribe. If you decide against PartsBox, nothing is locked in: a full JSON export is one click, during the trial and after it.
For personal, single-user use, the free Maker plan is a real tool, not a trial. Note that it is a personal database, separate from the shared database that commercial plans use — a commercial evaluation belongs on a commercial trial.
The free Maker plan covers personal projects, with inventory, BOM import, and the KiCad library. Team inventory, purchasing, and BOM pricing start on the Essentials plan.