Marinas & dry stack
Built, nobody on it yetSoftware for marinas and dry stack operators
Launch queues, forklift dispatch, rack assignment — and the apps that are supposed to run them.
For dry stack and rack storage operators, and marinas whose launch desk is the bottleneck.
Built and tested. No marina runs on it.
The rule that matters is proven with real data: a boat sitting in one of your slips cannot be promised to a renter or a club member at the same time, by anyone, through any part of the system. That is the mistake that costs you a Saturday morning, and it is the one we tested hardest. What has not happened is a marina using it.
What a yard can do on day one
Map the site — docks, racks, trailer spots, with real dimensions — and have the system refuse a boat that does not fit rather than letting somebody wedge it in. An owner asks for a launch; it becomes dock jobs sorted by urgency. Attendants claim tasks, and a second phone tapping the same task is told somebody got there first rather than both being handed it.
On the thing we said was wrong with this segment
The criticism above still stands and the product does not pretend to answer all of it. Launch dispatch is built. Rack-assignment optimisation, which nobody in the category advertises, is not — the system records where a boat goes, it does not choose. Slip management has fifteen credible vendors and we would still rather sit beside your system of record than replace it.
What is deliberately missing
The lift check tells your driver what the numbers say and never tells them it is safe to lift — that is the person on the machine's call, not a screen's. Overdue accounts get reminders and a record of what you sent; nothing in here withholds, immobilises or disposes of somebody's boat, because that is a conversation with your lawyer and not a button. We cannot take a card yet. And we have not sat a yard crew in front of these screens.
What it does
Where this segment actually fails
Dry stack dispatch is the thinnest part of the whole marine software market in execution. Nine vendors list it as a capability; two built a product around it, and both are impaired. One specialist's iOS app last shipped in April 2023 and sits at 2.8 stars, with lift drivers writing publicly that they do not learn about a launch until five minutes after it was due — which is the one job the product exists to do.
What nobody advertises at all
Rack-assignment optimisation. Across the entire vendor set checked on 1 Nov 2026, not one names it. Every product assumes somebody already knows which rack the boat goes back into.
What we would not try to beat
Slip management has fifteen to eighteen credible vendors and seventy-nine products in the category. There is no room there on features, and we would integrate with your system of record rather than ask you to replace it — which is exactly what the one dispatch specialist that works does, and why it can sit alongside the incumbent ERPs instead of fighting them.
What we built, having said that
Launch dispatch, because it was the gap. An owner requests a launch and it becomes dock jobs in order; claiming is a compare-and-swap in the database, so two attendants tapping at once get one winner and one clear message rather than a duplicated boat movement. It is a shift-worker, push-reliability problem with a forklift at the end, and we have built the scheduling half of it and not the push half.
What to ask any vendor in this market, us included
Written from a sweep of the vendors in this category on 1 November 2026. We have put our own answers on this site where we have them, and said so where we do not.
Open the app store and look at the 'Updated' date.
Mobile is the universal weak point in this category and it is where the work happens — on a dock, on a forklift, in the sun. Outside one marketplace app, every mobile product checked sits between 2.5 and 4.1 stars on single- or double-digit review counts, and several are years stale. The dispatch app your lift drivers will actually hold is the product; the web dashboard is not.
Who owns the vendor this year?
Consolidation is the defining dynamic in this market right now — a string of the best-known names were acquired by private equity and software roll-ups across 2025 and 2026. It is a fair question to ask what happens to your roadmap and your renewal price after the acquirer's second year.
What is the notice period, and what does cancelling cost?
One European vendor's own published service agreement requires six months' notice, makes the customer liable for the vendor's lost profits on cancellation, escalates the price with inflation automatically, and charges a platform-migration penalty. Published terms are worth reading before the demo, not after.
Is data migration included or priced separately?
Migration is routinely priced as a weapon: cheaper tiers exclude setup and data import, and at least one vendor's own listing says maps and data importing are not included. Ask for the migration quote in the same document as the subscription quote.
What is your card rate?
Nobody in the category publishes one, and several vendors own the payment processor underneath their own software, which is where the margin actually is. Ask us the same question.
Every vendor in this category routes your card payments, and not one of them publishes the rate. Several own the payment company underneath their own software, which is where the margin actually sits. Ask any of us — including us — for the card rate in writing before you sign anything.
The other segments
One product underneath. These are the kinds of business it is shaped for, and each page says plainly where it stands.