The best props app in 2026 is Sortly if you want general inventory, Cheqroom if you are running a kit room, and StoryboardCanvas if you want the props list to come out of the script and the costume continuity to flag its own missing reference photos.
Quick answer
- General inventory: Sortly
- Kit room check-in and check-out: Cheqroom
- Props seeded from the breakdown, costume continuity tracked: StoryboardCanvas
The category nobody builds for
Props and costume are where productions quietly leak money and continuity. Most of the market is generic inventory software wearing a film hat.
Sortly
A genuinely good general inventory app, and a lot of art departments use it. Photos, QR codes, quantities, locations. It does not know what a scene is.
Cheqroom
Equipment check-in and check-out done well, aimed more at gear than at hero props. Strong for the kit room.
Setkeeper
Closer to the film problem than the generic tools, with production context built in.
StudioBinder
Props exist as part of the breakdown and the shot list. Light, but connected.
Spreadsheets and a phone camera
Be honest: this is what most productions do, and it works right up until the continuity supervisor needs the reference photo of the swaddling cloths from Day 2 and it is in somebody's camera roll.
StoryboardCanvas
The Props app is seeded from the breakdown's prop tags, so the inventory starts as a list of everything the script asks for rather than everything somebody remembered. Each prop carries its category, condition, quantity (one hero plus three doubles), period, sourcing, the scenes it appears in and the department that owns it, plus hire burn per day and an insurance schedule of values. The costume continuity page tracks what each character wears scene by scene against the reference photo the supervisor will actually be checking, and it flags, loudly, any costume that does not have one yet.
How to choose
- General inventory, any industry? Sortly.
- A kit room? Cheqroom.
- Props and costume that came out of the script and feed the call sheet? StoryboardCanvas.
FAQ
What is a hero prop? The one the camera sees close, in the actor's hands. It usually has doubles.
What is costume continuity? The record of exactly what a character wears in each scene, with the reference photo that proves it, so a shot from Day 8 matches one from Day 2.
The honest summary
No single tool wins every column, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something. What we built StoryboardCanvas to answer is a different question: what if the script, the breakdown, the schedule, the budget, the boards and the call sheet were the same file instead of six exports that drift apart by week two?
Every app is on every tier, there is a free tier that is not a trial, and you can open the whole suite on a finished short film right now, read-only, with no sign-up: try the demo. Pricing is on the pricing page.