Skip to content
WrkLst
Log inStart free trial
Compare

WrkLst vs. ARTERNAL

WrkLst and ARTERNAL are two ways to run a gallery’s inventory, contacts and sales. This page compares them side by side — the artwork inventory first, then how each one is priced, what each one does, where your data lives, what it connects to, and what you can take with you when you leave. Where ARTERNAL is the stronger choice, we say so.
Start free trial
At a glance

What reviewers say, and what each one’s pages describe

WrkLst5.0 out of 5 · Reviews: 14
Value for money
4.8
Functionality
4.8
Ease of use
4.8
Customer service
5.0
ARTERNAL5.0 out of 5 · Reviews: 2
Value for money
4.0
Functionality
5.0
Ease of use
5.0
Customer service
5.0

Capterra, read 7 October 2026

Described on its published pages; the note beneath names the plan, condition or scope.Not described on its published pages, read 7 October 2026; a note beneath says what is described instead.

WrkLst and ARTERNAL: features at a glance
FeatureWrkLstARTERNAL
Inventory
Works with images and documents
Described
Described2
Editions and proofs
Described
Described2,3
Provenance and exhibition history
Described
Described2,24
Condition reports
Described
Described2,23
Insurance values and valuations
Described
Not described
Consignments
Described
Described19
Locations and shipments
DescribedLive tracking for FedEx, DHL and UPS
Described2,20,27,30Shipping notes and customs entries per work; delivery tracking with Reggie, an add-on now open to a founding cohort
Data entry by AI from a PDF or pasted work details
DescribedAlso scans and links, reviewed before saving
Described4Also images and spreadsheets, approved before saving
Contacts & CRM
Contacts with their purchase history
Described
Described6,9
Collector interests per artist
DescribedWith waitlists
Described1,25From Principal
Sales funnel for enquiries and offers
DescribedLeads, in every plan, with reminders
Described1,6Every plan; “Visual Deal Pipeline” on Expert
Mail sent from your own mail account
DescribedGoogle, Microsoft 365 or IMAP; also one letter to many
Described7,26,29Google Workspace, Outlook or Mac Mail; offers to many at once
Mailing lists for newsletters
DescribedThrough Mailchimp or MailerLite
Described1,6Through Mailchimp, from Principal
Newsletters designed and sent in the software itself
Not described
Not described
WhatsApp conversations in the CRM
Not described
Described1,14From Principal
Sales & finance
Invoices on your letterhead
Described
Described10
E-invoices
DescribedZUGFeRD, with invoice bookkeeping
Described10,14,22XRechnung and ZUGFeRD, switched on separately
Connection to accounting software
DescribedQuickBooks, Lexware, DATEV export
Described1,10QuickBooks
Card payments on invoices
DescribedYour own Stripe or Shopify Payments
Described1,10ARTERNAL Pay
Prices in several currencies
Described
Described1,2
Sales reports
Described
Described1,9Basic, advanced or custom, by plan
Tear sheets, labels and lists from your own templates
Described
Described1,2
Showing the work
Exhibitions and art fairs
Described
Described2
Private viewing rooms by link
DescribedPresentations, in every plan; opens counted
Described1,8,28Every plan
Views per work in a viewing room
DescribedWorks looked at most, View in Room opens, downloads
Described1,8From Principal
Previewing a work at real size, in a room or in augmented reality
DescribedIn WrkLst, its apps and on WrkLst websites
Not described
App for iPhone and iPad
DescribedWorks offline
Described1,15From Principal
App for Android
DescribedWorks offline
Not described
Websites and marketplaces
A website built from your records
DescribedWebsite Complete, priced on top
Described1,15Separate package, alongside any plan
Selling works on your website
Not describedEnquiries from the website arrive as leads
Not described
Your works on the website you already have
DescribedFree WordPress plugin
Not described13,15Kept alongside, or moved over by ARTERNAL; an “open API” is named
Listing works on an online marketplace
Not described
Not described
Platform & data
Direct connection for developers
DescribedIn every plan
Described1,13“API Access” on Expert
Tasks done for you by an AI assistant
DescribedYour own assistant, with your permissions
Described1,14,15ARTERNAL AI from Principal; “Limited AI Features” on Essential
Roles and permissions
Described
Described1,2,5,22Who can see each work; “Admin Dashboard with User Permissions” on Expert
Two-factor sign-in
Described
Described1
A complete export of all your data
DescribedOne file, at the push of a button
Not described16,17Contacts and the whole inventory as spreadsheets
Interface in several languages
Described16 languages
Not described
Data hosted in Europe only
DescribedGermany, Finland, Switzerland
Not described11,12Amazon Web Services, “US, ETA”
Installed on your own computer, runs without the internet
Not described
Not described
Comparison

Side by side

CriterionWrkLstARTERNAL
Works, editions and provenanceEditions and proofs, with a number, price and location per copy; provenance and exhibition history, publishable line by line; condition reports, insurance values, valuations and locations; consignments in and out with loan forms; confidential prices; photographer credits; View in Room; data entry by AI from a PDF, spreadsheet, scan or pasted work details. No cap on works or artists — the tier follows the number of records.Editions as a parent record with variants such as artist’s proofs; interests, location, provenance and condition; works set as retail or consignment acquisitions; multiple currencies with live conversion; documents, videos and installation views; fact sheets, tear sheets, wall labels and certificates of authenticity as PDFs. An intake agent creates work records from a PDF, images, CSV or Excel or pasted text once you approve them. The inventory is limited to 500 artworks and 50 artists on Essential and to 1,500 artworks and 200 artists on Principal, and unlimited on Expert. Not described on the inventory page: insurance values.1,2,3,4,19
How it is pricedBy the size of your archive — works plus contacts — in euros, net. Every tier includes its users, from four to thirty, and every software module, in every tier; billed monthly, or yearly at about 10 % less. For an unusual setup — many contacts and few works, or a large archive with few people — the price is adjusted on request.Per user per month, in US dollars: Essential $95, Principal $195, Expert $325. “Rates based on a 12-month contract term. Choose monthly or annual payments. Ask about longer-term discounts.” The artwork and artist limits of Essential and Principal are in the row above. New users are added by the ARTERNAL team, and “additional users may impact billing depending on your subscription plan”. Not described on the pricing page: whether the prices include sales tax or VAT.1,5
What every plan includesEvery software module and its users in every tier: the apps, roles and permissions, Leads, presentations, reports, the direct connection and AI.On every plan: the CRM and sales pipeline, inventory, invoicing, online viewing rooms, the PDF builder, ARTERNAL Pay and two-factor authentication. From Principal: the iPhone and iPad app, interest tracking, the WhatsApp CRM, Mailchimp contact sync, PDF and viewing-room analytics, and migration support. On Expert only: the “Admin Dashboard with User Permissions (RBAC)”, the “Visual Deal Pipeline”, “API Access” and the concierge migration.1
Reviews5.0 out of 5 on Capterra, from 14 reviews — every one of them five stars.“4.8 · 40+ reviews” on the pricing page; the platform the reviews are on is not named there. On Capterra: 5.0 out of 5, from 2 reviews.1,21,31
CRM and sales funnelLeads, the sales funnel, in every plan: every enquiry, interest and conversation becomes a lead that moves from New to In contact, Offer, Hold and Sale — or to Lost, with a reason. A lead can also aim at an exhibition, a press feature or a goal of your own, each with its own steps, and every artwork on a lead has its own stage, so the works a client turned down are marked while the others go ahead. Someone assigned and a follow-up date with reminders; Create turns a lead into an offer, hold or sale with the form filled in; waitlists keep standing interest per artist. Leads arrive from your WrkLst website, presentation enquiries, your mail, the direct connection and your own AI assistant; reports show the win rate by goal, channel and person, the leads per contact, the sources, lost reasons and reply times.The CRM and a sales pipeline on every plan — “Track every deal from first inquiry to final sale” — with “True Sales Pipeline” and “Offer Tracking” in every plan; interest tracking and the WhatsApp CRM from Principal; a “Visual Deal Pipeline” on Expert. Smart Mail sends personalised offers from the inventory and tracks opens, PDF views and time spent on offers — 300 sends a month on Essential, 1,000 on Principal, unlimited on Expert — and, from the iPhone app, artwork links can be shared, and tracked, through WhatsApp, iMessage, WeChat and KakaoTalk.1,6,7
Where your data livesOn Hetzner servers in Germany, with redundant infrastructure in Finland and Switzerland — on renewable electricity, by the providers’ own account.Amazon Web Services, listed as “US, ETA”. All 24 sub-processors on the list are given with the country US, among them Anthropic as “AI LLM provider”.11,13
Privacy and data ownershipThe data you enter belongs to you, including full exportability: a complete copy of your database (SQL dump), as one file, at the push of a button. A German company as your processor, under a data processing agreement as the GDPR requires; stored in Europe only, in Germany, Finland and Switzerland; your images, prices and notes never used as training material, by us or by anyone else.A company in New York. The privacy policy, last updated in June 2022, says that for users in the European Union this involves “transferring your data outside the European Economic Area (EEA)”, and refers to a Data Processing Addendum. Terms are set in each customer’s agreement: “whether monthly or annual, our agreements outline our terms & conditions as well as data processing and security.”12,13
Viewing rooms and presentationsPresentations are the viewing rooms: pages built from blocks in an editor connected to the archive, light or dark, with optional prices and availability, sent as a private link or a designed email; enquiries and requests to buy arrive as leads, View in Room and augmented reality are offered per work, and the works looked at most are counted — included in every tier.Online viewing rooms on every plan, built in an editor connected to the inventory, with text blocks, layouts and colours of your own; custom fonts from Principal, advanced customisation on Expert. Who viewed, which artworks they spent time on and when — visitor and inquiry analytics — from Principal. Custom viewing-room addresses at $50 a month on Essential and Principal, included on Expert.1,8
Exhibitions and shipmentsEvery show with its works, documents and installation views on one timeline; shipments with live tracking for FedEx, DHL and UPS, and the paperwork.Inventory search results can be turned into exhibitions and saved as live-updating checklists for shows and fairs. Package and shipping notes on each work, which can be included in its PDFs. Domestic and international shipping — quotes, bookings, delivery tracking and customs paperwork — is named for Reggie, an AI registrar “in production with a small founding cohort” and afterwards “a per-seat add-on”.2,14,20
Invoicing and bookkeepingInvoices on your letterhead with payment links; invoice bookkeeping tuned to your country — GoBD, e-invoice and DATEV in Germany — tax assistance that suggests the VAT or US sales tax of every sale and watches the thresholds, economic nexus included; bank and payment gateway reconciliation; QuickBooks and Lexware sync.Branded, optionally password-protected invoices that show whether they were opened, with payment through ARTERNAL Pay; automatic sales tax calculation and economic nexus tracking; invoices and payments sync to QuickBooks. On German e-invoicing, the release notes of 15 December 2025 say “E-invoicing is now available under the einvoicing feature flag, supporting XRechnung and ZUGFeRD compliance”; the invoicing page answers “Yes, ARTERNAL fully supports workflows aligned with Germany’s evolving e-invoicing requirements”, says it “already generates clean, compliant invoice PDFs”, and lists export to XRechnung and ZUGFeRD on its roadmap.1,10,22
Taking a card paymentThrough your own Stripe or Shopify Payments account for the payment link on an invoice. WrkLst takes nothing; you pay the provider’s fees.Through ARTERNAL Pay, powered by Stripe: in North America cards at 3.4 % + $0.30, Affirm at 10 % + $0.30 and ACH at a flat $30; in the European Union cards at 1.9 % + €0.25 and SEPA at 0.8 % up to €45,000 and 0.1 % above. Affirm is available in the USA and Canada, ACH in the USA.1,10
ReportsA sales report per exhibition, production costs per show, collection values, the win rate, sources and reply times of your leads — and every list exports to Word, Excel, CSV and PDF.Basic reports on Essential, an advanced reporting suite on Principal, custom sales reports on Expert. The reporting page names total spend and average acquisition price per client, total sales across time periods and revenue per artist.1,9
Users and permissionsRoles with separate permissions per module, invoices and payments behind doors of their own, and a change history on every record — in every tier; an administrator invites colleagues under Settings › User Management.The “Admin Dashboard with User Permissions (RBAC)” on Expert; the inventory page names “customizable permissions that allow you to keep data public or private”. Users are added by the ARTERNAL team on request; a limited account gives access to contacts and inventory, without Smart Mail or invoicing.1,2,5
AIData entry by AI: a PDF, spreadsheet, scan, link or pasted work details become records, reviewed before saving; your own AI assistant works with your permissions. Optional, only in features that say so, switchable for the whole workspace; the import’s model runs in Switzerland.The intake agent turns documents into work records, and nothing is created until you approve. By the home page, its AI drafts responses, onboards artwork and surfaces follow-ups: “Your team reviews and approves everything.” Reggie, an AI registrar, works with a small founding cohort. The sub-processor list names Anthropic, US, as “AI LLM provider”.4,11,14,15
The appsiPhone, iPad and Android, offline, in every tier.iPhone and iPad, from Principal. Not described on the pricing page: an Android app.1,15
LeavingYour complete database as one file (SQL dump), generated at the push of a button in your own settings and delivered to you automatically — alongside Word, Excel, CSV and PDF exports.All contacts export, typically as an Excel (CSV) file, and the whole inventory as a spreadsheet, from Import/Export. Not described in the help centre’s export articles: a complete copy of the database. Not described on the get-started page: the terms for the end of a contract, which it says the agreements outline.13,16,17
Who owns the companyWL Artworld Solutions GmbH, Berlin — independent, founder-run, no outside investors.Arternal Inc. / Artlocal Inc., New York. Not described on arternal.com: who owns it.12,14
What it connects toGoogle Workspace, Microsoft 365, IMAP; QuickBooks Online, Lexware Office, a DATEV export; Mailchimp, MailerLite; Stripe, Shopify; German bank accounts online over FinTS, bank statements as camt, MT940, OFX, QIF, CSV or Excel files, your PayPal activity, and US bank accounts through your own Stripe account; a WordPress plugin; a direct connection for developers and a link for AI assistants — on every plan.Gmail, Outlook, QuickBooks, Stripe, TaxJar and Affirm on every plan; Mailchimp contact sync and the WhatsApp CRM from Principal; “API Access” on Expert.1
Your website
  • Website Complete: a website that builds itself from your WrkLst records, hosted and set up by the people who built WrkLst — €1,900* once, then €99* a month or €1,069* a year. Pages for your artists, exhibitions and works, arranged in an editor; light or dark, in your colours, typefaces and logos, with every text kept at a 7:1 contrast. A change to a work’s price, availability or details reaches the site by itself within minutes; other changes go online when you publish — by hand, or by themselves every hour or every night. Per work, you choose whether it is shown, whether its price is shown or reads “Price on request”, and whether visitors may enquire or only look; every enquiry arrives as a lead. View in Room and augmented reality on the work pages, an imprint and privacy policy written from your account’s details, an artist shown only with their consent; stored in Germany and delivered through a worldwide network. Every website option is priced on top of a WrkLst subscription.
  • Website Data: the same editor and content for a website your own developer builds and hosts — €490* once, €49* a month.
  • A bespoke site, designed and built from the ground up by us, on Laravel, Sanity, Shopify or Shopware — scoped and quoted before any work starts.
  • You keep yours: the free WordPress plugin publishes images with captions and alt texts and the artist biographies, and a direct connection lets your developer link any other website fully.
“Custom gallery websites as a separate package — build, design, and hosting included”, at $200 a month alongside any plan; “No templates, no DIY builders”, integrated with the inventory and viewing rooms. You bring the domain, which stays registered in your name.1,15
LanguagesSixteen interface languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian, Arabic (right to left), Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (simplified) and Chinese (traditional).Not described on the pricing page; the help centre is in English only.1,18
The trial14 days, card details required, cancel any time before it ends.A demo, by form — “Fill out the form for a demo!” — and a contract, monthly or annual. Not described on the pricing or get-started pages: a free trial.1,13
SupportThe people who built it — by chat inside WrkLst, by mail and by phone, from Berlin — a knowledge base at support.wrklst.art, and the WrkLst Specialists: an independent network of archivists, art advisors and studio managers who set WrkLst up with you.Email support within 12 hours and in-app chat on every plan; priority support, an account manager, a direct line and migration support from Principal; expedited support and a concierge migration on Expert. “Most galleries are fully operational within 2 weeks.”1
  1. 1. https://arternal.com/pricing — read 7 October 2026.
  2. 2. https://arternal.com/inventory — read 7 October 2026.
  3. 3. https://support.arternal.com/en/articles/6008118-how-to-create-and-manage-parent-records-for-editioned-artworks — read 7 October 2026.
  4. 4. https://support.arternal.com/en/articles/13772017-artwork-intake-create-records-from-pdfs-images-text — read 7 October 2026.
  5. 5. https://support.arternal.com/en/articles/15262385-adding-additional-users-to-your-workspace — read 7 October 2026.
  6. 6. https://arternal.com/crm — read 7 October 2026.
  7. 7. https://arternal.com/smart-mail — read 7 October 2026.
  8. 8. https://arternal.com/online-viewing-rooms — read 7 October 2026.
  9. 9. https://arternal.com/reporting — read 7 October 2026.
  10. 10. https://arternal.com/invoicing — read 7 October 2026.
  11. 11. https://arternal.com/subprocessors — read 7 October 2026.
  12. 12. https://arternal.com/privacy-policy — read 7 October 2026.
  13. 13. https://arternal.com/get-started — read 7 October 2026.
  14. 14. https://arternal.com/llms.txt — read 7 October 2026.
  15. 15. https://arternal.com/ — read 7 October 2026.
  16. 16. https://support.arternal.com/en/articles/4792911-how-to-export-contacts — read 7 October 2026.
  17. 17. https://support.arternal.com/en/articles/5455632-how-to-export-all-or-selected-artworks-in-arternal — read 7 October 2026.
  18. 18. https://support.arternal.com/en/ — read 7 October 2026.
  19. 19. https://support.arternal.com/en/articles/5118220-how-to-set-batch-acquisitions-retail-consignment-for-artworks — read 7 October 2026.
  20. 20. https://support.arternal.com/en/articles/5528067-how-to-enter-and-export-package-shipping-information — read 7 October 2026.
  21. 21. https://www.capterra.com/p/177763/Arternal/ — read 7 October 2026.
  22. 22. https://support.arternal.com/en/articles/4785386-arternal-release-notes — read 7 October 2026.
  23. 23. https://support.arternal.com/en/articles/5520086-how-to-generate-and-customize-condition-report-pdfs — read 7 October 2026.
  24. 24. https://support.arternal.com/en/articles/6079515-understanding-pdf-types-for-inventory-in-arternal — read 7 October 2026.
  25. 25. https://support.arternal.com/en/articles/9787300-contact-interest-tracking — read 7 October 2026.
  26. 26. https://support.arternal.com/en/articles/4490026-how-to-link-your-email-to-your-arternal-account — read 7 October 2026.
  27. 27. https://arternal.com/reggie — read 7 October 2026.
  28. 28. https://support.arternal.com/en/articles/12986794-best-practices-for-sharing-online-viewing-room-links — read 7 October 2026.
  29. 29. https://support.arternal.com/en/articles/5812133-linking-google-email-accounts — read 7 October 2026.
  30. 30. https://support.arternal.com/en/articles/13560623-customs-tracking-timeline — read 7 October 2026.
  31. 31. https://www.capterra.com/p/177537/WrkLst/ — read 7 October 2026.
To be fair

Where ARTERNAL is the stronger choice.

If your gallery’s work is mostly sending offers and following them up, ARTERNAL is built around exactly that.
Offer tracking
Smart Mail sends personalised offers from the inventory and shows opens, PDF views and the time spent on each offer; artwork links shared from the iPhone app through WhatsApp, iMessage, WeChat or KakaoTalk are tracked too, and its inventory page describes collector prioritisation as “Auto-scored, ranked”. A WrkLst presentation shows its visits, the works looked at most and the documents downloaded, and mail sent from WrkLst records whether it was opened.
A WhatsApp CRM
From the Principal plan, WhatsApp conversations are part of the CRM. WrkLst connects mail from your own accounts, not WhatsApp.
Viewing-room analytics per work
From the Principal plan, who viewed a viewing room, which works they spent time on and when.
Payments in the USA
ACH bank transfers and financing through Affirm, built into ARTERNAL Pay.
Named clients, 40+ reviews by its own count
“4.8 · 40+ reviews” on its pricing page, and Hauser & Wirth, Phillips, Anat Ebgi, Addis Fine Art, KARMA and Southern Guild named among its clients.
A website at a monthly price
A bespoke website, designed and built by ARTERNAL, at $200 a month alongside any plan; the pricing page states no setup fee. A WrkLst Website Complete has a setup fee of €1,900* and €99* a month, on top of a WrkLst subscription.
The verdict

Where WrkLst is the better product.

From the table above, point by point.
  • No cap on works or artists in any tier, and insurance values and confidential prices on every work beside its editions, provenance, condition, locations and consignments — where ARTERNAL limits the inventory to 500 artworks and 50 artists on Essential and 1,500 artworks and 200 artists on Principal, and lifts the limit on Expert.
  • Priced by the size of your archive, with users included in every tier and every software module in every tier, adjusted on request for an unusual setup — where ARTERNAL charges per user per month, on a 12-month contract, and the app, the “Admin Dashboard with User Permissions” and “API Access” depend on the plan.
  • 5.0 out of 5 on Capterra, from 14 reviews, every one of them five stars — where ARTERNAL has 2 reviews there.
  • Leads, the sales funnel, with its reports in every plan — win rates by channel and person, lost reasons and reply times — and waitlists per artist, where ARTERNAL has the sales pipeline on every plan, interest tracking from Principal and the visual deal pipeline on Expert.
  • Roles and permissions, the apps and a direct connection in every tier, where ARTERNAL lists the “Admin Dashboard with User Permissions” and “API Access” on Expert and the app from Principal — and apps for Android as well as iPhone and iPad, offline.
  • Your data belongs to you, fully exportable at the push of a button: stored in Europe with Hetzner in Germany and Finland and Infomaniak in Switzerland, a German company as your processor, and never used as training material — protection that comes with your data wherever in the world you work.
  • Invoice bookkeeping tuned to your country: gapless numbering, locked documents and a DATEV export in Germany, and bank and payment gateway reconciliation that marks invoices paid by itself.
  • A website built from your records, with every enquiry a lead, View in Room and augmented reality on its work pages, and its imprint and privacy policy written from your account’s details, stored in Germany — or the free WordPress plugin for the site you have.
  • A 14-day trial you start yourself, and sixteen interface languages.
  • Independent and founder-run since 2008 — no venture fund, no private-equity owner, no exit to serve.
“I have been using gallery CRM programs for years (Arternal, Artlogic, ArtBase etc) and I find WrkLst to be the most user friendly and visually superior.”
Jasmin C. · RegistrarA real review from one of our customers on Capterra· 2026
And where WrkLst is

Every software module and every user included.

WrkLst is priced by the size of your archive, and every tier includes every software module and its users. Card payments run through your own Stripe or Shopify Payments account, at no margin to WrkLst. Your data is on servers in Germany, Finland and Switzerland, the company is independent and based in Berlin, and a complete copy of your database (SQL dump) is yours at the push of a button. Apps for iPhone, iPad and Android, sixteen interface languages, and AI that turns a PDF or pasted work details into records, optional and switchable for the entire workspace. And it stays open: a direct connection for developers, a free plugin and standard calendar and address book links mean any system can be connected, now or later.

See the pricing
Method

How this comparison was made

Every statement about ARTERNAL on this page, apart from the ratings, was read on arternal.com or in its help centre support.arternal.com on the date given beside its source, and links to the page it was taken from. Prices are shown as published there, in US dollars, the plans per user per month; WrkLst prices are in euros, net. The ratings are Capterra’s, for each product from its own page on capterra.com, as shown there on the date given. In the feature table, a check means a feature is described on that product’s published pages, with the plan, condition or scope in the note beneath; a dash means it is not described there, not that it is missing. If something has changed, write to info@wrklst.art and we will correct it within a working day.

Ready to switch to WrkLst?

Start free trial