What you already pay for, and whether this replaces it.
Mostly it does not. Four of the five categories below do something Aivin does not do and is not trying to do, and each gets the sentence naming when it is the better purchase. Beverage inventory platforms, guest-facing list apps, appraisal firms and market-data services are not competitors. A spreadsheet is.
Counts bottles, runs par levels, takes purchase orders, reconciles against the POS, reports variance and cost of goods. A mature category doing its job properly.
What it cannot answer
They are cost-basis systems. No market reference on a lot, no evidence grade, no house service window, no provenance chain, no basis of value — so they cannot tell an adjuster what the cellar is worth, and they were never built to.
Where Aivin sits
Reads from them rather than replacing them. Keep the counting where your team already does it.
Buy that, not this
If what you need is receiving, par and variance, buy one of these and do not buy Aivin.
Guest-facing wine list apps
Digital list and tablet-menu products
What it does well
Presents the list properly, hides a bottle once it is 86’d, lets a table browse without a book. Genuinely good for the guest.
What it cannot answer
They describe the list, not the cellar. Hiding a sold-out bottle from a guest is a different job from telling the floor a course cannot be covered at forty covers.
Where Aivin sits
A different shift. Aivin faces the somm at five; these face the table at eight.
Buy that, not this
If the problem is that the list looks dated in a guest’s hands, this is the purchase.
Appraisal firms and independent appraisers
ASA and ISA credentialed personal-property appraisers
What it does well
Produces a signed, defensible opinion. A professional judgment no software substitutes for, ours included.
What it cannot answer
The schedule underneath gets rebuilt every engagement, which is where the two to six weeks and the published $2,500 to $6,000 go.
Where Aivin sits
Assembles the schedule, the comparables and the adjustments so the appraiser arrives at the judgment with the evidence built, and holds an effective-dated snapshot so next year reproduces.
Buy that, not this
If you need a signed appraisal this month and no appraiser is available to review our output, engage a firm directly.
Market data and auction reference services
Liv-ex, Wine-Searcher, auction house databases
What it does well
Publishes transaction history and index movement for the wines that trade. Authoritative on what a bottle has actually sold for.
What it cannot answer
They price wine; they do not know your cellar. No bin, no cost basis, no house service window against your own list, and no view on what to pour Friday.
Where Aivin sits
A consumer of this data rather than a competitor to it — and it says on every lot when no reference exists rather than interpolating one.
Buy that, not this
If you only need to look up what a bottle is worth, subscribe to one of these and save the rest.
A spreadsheet one person maintains
The actual market leader
What it does well
Everything, badly, for free, in a format that person understands perfectly and nobody else does.
What it cannot answer
It has no memory of why a lot was priced that way and no owner once they leave. Every figure in it is undefendable the moment somebody outside the building asks how it was derived.
Where Aivin sits
This is the real competition, and the honest comparison has its own page.
Buy that, not this
Under about forty labels, the spreadsheet wins. Put the money into wine.
Questions people ask first
Do we have to replace BinWise or Backbar to use Aivin?
We just got the whole team onto BinWise. I am not moving again.
No, and you should not. Your inventory system counts bottles and reconciles against the POS, which is what it is for. What it does not carry is a market reference, an evidence grade, a house service window or a provenance chain, so it cannot tell an insurer what the cellar is worth. Aivin reads from it and never writes to your POS.
