How Crate compares

One admin, instead of tools that never agree.

Most businesses run on a patchwork: a page here, a chat there, a notebook for stock and a spreadsheet for money. Crate brings it into one dashboard, built for how you actually sell and get paid.

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Instead of Spreadsheets Chat threads A stock notebook A marketplace stall

crate.shop/admin

In stock
$190

Payment received$420 · just now

How does Crate compare with other platforms?

Crate is a commerce platform built for small and medium businesses, and that is what separates Crate from platforms built for another market first. Crate takes the payment methods each market actually uses, cards and wallets in one market and card, bank transfer and the local rails of a merchant's market, USSD included in another, and prices in that market's own currency, USD or NGN, rather than treating local rails as an add-on. Crate treats Instagram and WhatsApp as selling channels beside the online store, because that is where these merchants already sell. Crate is used from a phone as readily as from a desktop. This page compares approaches rather than quoting a competitor's prices, which are out of date the day they are written down.

Compare Crate with a platform you are considering

One page each, all the same shape: what they are in their own terms, a side-by-side table, an honest list of when to choose them instead, and where Crate is behind.

Platforms used worldwide

Platforms and tools used across Africa

How these pages are written

The other product is described as what it is, not as a problem. Their own paragraph comes before any claim we make.
No prices, fees, percentages or counts for anybody, including us. Those change without notice and a stale number is worse than no number.
Every page lists when to choose the other product, at the same width and the same type size as the reasons to choose ours.
Every page names where Crate is behind, in our own voice, and what we took in exchange.
Every page carries the date it was last checked and a way to tell us it has gone stale.
Nothing said about Crate goes beyond what our feature, pricing and security pages already say.

No prices and no fee percentages for anybody on those pages, ours included. Crate's own prices are on the pricing page, in full.

Every comparison carries the date it was last checked. If one has gone out of date, tell us and we will correct it or take it down.

Juggling separate tools, or one admin.

Side by side

An honest look at the day to day. The middle column is the patchwork many businesses run on today. The right is Crate. Every claim here describes what Crate does.

What you are doing

Juggling separate tools

With Crate

Selling channels

A page here, DMs there, a chat catalog somewhere else.

Your store, Instagram, WhatsApp and your counter, from one catalog.

Your product list

A spreadsheet you re-type prices into by hand.

One catalog, live everywhere you sell, priced in US dollars.

Orders

Screenshots and chat threads you scroll back to find.

Every order from every channel in one queue.

Stock

A notebook or a guess, and the occasional oversell.

Live stock that updates on every sale, everywhere.

Payments

Share an account number, then keep checking the bank app.

Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and bank transfer, with an instant alert when money lands.

Getting your money

Whatever is in the account, whenever you remember.

Withdraw your balance to your bank whenever you want.

Your brand

A stall inside someone else's marketplace.

A branded store on your own domain, that is yours.

Where it all lives

Five apps open, none of which agree with each other.

One dashboard for orders, stock, customers and money.

Every claim in this table describes what Crate does. The named comparisons above are where another product is discussed, and each of those carries the date it was last checked.

Why one admin wins

The pieces stop fighting each other.

When your channels, orders, stock and money live in separate places, they drift apart. A sale in a chat thread never reaches the notebook. The spreadsheet says one thing, the shelf says another. One admin keeps them in step, so nothing gets missed and nothing oversells.

One source of truthSell on any channel and the order, the stock and the customer all update in one place.
Nothing re-typedAdd a product once and it is ready to sell everywhere, priced in US dollars. No copying between apps.
One place to learnYour team learns one dashboard, not five tools that each work differently.

crate.shop/admin/orders

The Crate orders queue: every order from every channel in one list, instead of screenshots and chat threads

New orderWhatsApp · $310

One catalog

Your real catalog, not a spreadsheet.

List a product once, with its photos, price and stock, and it is ready to sell on every channel. No re-typing, no version that is out of date, no wondering which app has the right number.