Soda vs Kigu: Private Books or a Verified Trading Floor

Here's my short verdict. Kigu is built to keep a dealer's books in order. It takes what's said in WhatsApp groups and turns it into tidy private records. Soda is built to replace the part Kigu leaves where it is: the trading. If you want your books cleaner, Kigu is aimed at you. If you want the deals themselves to happen somewhere verified, binding and on the record, keep reading.

I'm writing this because dealers ask me how we compare to the new wave of dealer software, and I'd rather answer straight than leave it to guesswork. Everything I say about Kigu comes from its own public website as of October 2026, and each fact is cited. For the wider picture across every category, see how watch dealer platforms compare.

What Kigu is

Kigu calls itself "the operating system for watch dealers".^[1] Its product page describes five connected areas: sourcing, inventory, deal operations, sales and P&L, and reporting.^[3]

The headline feature is sourcing from WhatsApp. Kigu connects to your account as a linked device and uses AI to pull the brand, model, reference, price and currency out of group messages and turn them into structured, searchable records.^[3] Around that sit reference-level inventory (with a CSV import that includes a Chrono24-export preset), purchase and sales document drafts, consignments from agreement to settlement, and per-piece P&L across 30 currencies with stored exchange rates.^[3] Its homepage also shows a live market view of dealer asks, offers and price trends.^[1]

Kigu is clear about what it is not. Its grey-market page says it is "not a public marketplace" but "private inventory and P&L software", and that "your data is scoped to your org — not published or shared".^[4] Its product page says it "does not publish, sync or reprice listings on any marketplace", and that its Chrono24 support is a "one-time import, not a live marketplace sync".^[3]

Pricing, as listed on their site in October 2026: one Pro plan at $59 a month or $590 a year, with a 7-day free trial.^[2]

Why I built Soda differently

I sold watches for years before building Soda, and I'm still in many paid dealer groups. The trade runs on group chats, screenshots and trust that can't be checked. A tool that reads those chats more efficiently is useful, but the chat is still where the risk lives: who you're really talking to, who claimed the watch first, whose bank details are real.

So I didn't build a better way to read the group. I built the place the group was never meant to be: one trade-only marketplace where every dealer is a verified business, every listing is structured, and every deal has a record. Built by watch dealers who've lived every one of these headaches.

Kigu vs Soda at a glance

The deal still happens in the group

This is the core difference. Kigu's sourcing works by reading WhatsApp groups and structuring what's posted there.^[3] That makes the group more useful to you. It doesn't change what the group is: a chat where anyone an admin approved can post, where "SOLD" is a comment, and where payment details arrive as a message.

On Soda, the trade itself moves into a system. Nobody trades until our team has reviewed their ID, a selfie holding the ID and business documents. Every dealer appears with their real full name, company and rank, and their profile shows the verification date, completed deals, completion rate, ratings, vouches and strikes. The marketplace puts every verified dealer's public listings and auctions behind one search bar that understands references typed any way, nicknames and small typos.

From "SOLD" to a commitment

Records are only as good as the deal behind them. If the deal was a comment in a chat, the record is a guess.

On Soda, a buyer taps Mark as Sold to commit at the listed price. The first confirmed buyer wins, there's a backup queue, and the seller confirms within 24 hours. Offers are binding for 24 hours, 48 hours or 7 days. Trade offers put items on both sides with cash either way, and cash moves before shipping. Backing out has consequences: strikes sit on a visible record.

Your books, built from real deals

What Soda gives you is a back office that fills itself in as you trade.

The inventory manager keeps your cost and margin private to your company, with bulk actions, private inventory, a safe sale to one dealer, and export to CSV or Excel whenever you want it. Invoices take about five seconds in your own style, Letter or A4, as a PDF. Every completed deal keeps its agreed price, shipping proof and documents in one place.

On pricing data, the two products look at different things. Kigu's live market view shows dealer asks, offers and trends.^[1] Our price history shows what watches sold for in completed deals on Soda, alongside asking prices on the platform, with no third-party data.

Reaching retail buyers too

Kigu says it doesn't publish or sync listings anywhere.^[3] On Soda's Team plan, one watch in your inventory can also be published to your own Shopify store, eBay US and a Chrono24 feed, with a wholesale price for dealers and a separate end-user price for retail. The Chrono24 feed is imported about once a day. And because dealers still post in groups, Quick Copy writes a formatted WhatsApp or Facebook post from any inventory item, ready for you to paste.

Who Soda is for

Soda is trade-only. It's for verified watch businesses that buy and sell with other dealers and want those deals to be safer and faster: listing, finding, committing, paying and recording in one place. If you only need private books for a business that trades entirely offline, a bookkeeping tool may be all you need. If your days are spent in group chats chasing watches and checking who's who, you're who I built this for.

Our plans have the same features; Team adds employee seats. Solo is $80 USD a month and Team is $150 USD a month, with no commissions and no initiation fee. Full details are on pricing. For what to look for in any tool, see watch dealer software: what to look for.

The bottom line

Kigu, by its own description, is private inventory and P&L software that reads WhatsApp groups into records, not a marketplace. Soda is a verified, trade-only network with binding deals, live auctions, verified payment details, inventory, invoices and retail publishing on the Team plan. One organises the trade you do elsewhere. The other is where the trade happens.

Trade where the record is the deal

I built Soda for the people who actually do this work, so the deal and the record are the same thing. Run your whole business from one tab. See how we compare, see all features, then apply for access or book a demo.