Matrixify is a Shopify import and export app people use to load orders from a structured CSV or Excel file. POinbox starts free (5 successful drafts); paid plans from $29/mo. It reads the purchase order a customer actually sent, as a PDF, email, Excel, CSV, or Word file, and opens a Shopify draft for review. Use Matrixify when the file is already clean. Use POinbox when the buyer sent their own document. POinbox is not Matrixify.
At a glance
| Dimension | POinbox | Matrixify |
|---|---|---|
| Primary job | Customer PO files and emails → draft | Structured import and export, including orders |
| Best input | PDF and email PO layouts, plus Excel, CSV, Word | Clean CSV or Excel templates |
| Review | Uncertain lines and price-difference flags before create | Import validation on your columns |
| B2B companies and locations | Yes. POinbox matches companies and locations. | Only if your file and their mapping include those fields. Verify. |
| Price | Free: 5 drafts lifetime · Starter $29/mo (40) · Growth $79/mo (120) · Enterprise custom | Verify on Matrixify’s site or listing |
The wider split is Shopify order import: PDF and email vs CSV.
Where they actually differ
Inputs
POinbox is built for the document a buyer sends: PDF, emailed PO, Excel, CSV, Word. Matrixify is built for a table you control. A branded PDF is a bad Matrixify file. A migration spreadsheet is a bad reason to use POinbox.
What gets created
POinbox opens a draft after review. Matrixify’s order import writes whatever your file and settings say. Confirm on their docs whether you are creating orders, drafts, or both. This page will not invent their current object model.
B2B
POinbox lists matching of Shopify customers, B2B companies, and company locations. That is a wholesale draft concern. Matrixify can move many Shopify resources if you map columns. Company location is not its headline job.
Pricing mismatches
POinbox uses catalog pricing and flags PO vs store price differences. A CSV importer uses the price in the file unless you design the sheet not to. If the buyer’s PDF price is wrong, a CSV you copied from the PDF will import the wrong price on purpose.
Using both
Yes. Matrixify for partners and migrations that are already tabular. POinbox for the PDF inbox. There is no one-click migrate between them, and there does not need to be.
Who POinbox is for
Wholesale teams whose buyers email purchase orders and who want a draft plus flags. POinbox starts free (5 successful drafts); paid plans from $29/mo. It flags a price that disagrees with the catalog. Test it on a real purchase order.
Who Matrixify is for
Stores that import and export at volume: products, customers, orders, and the rest of the Shopify admin surface their sheets already describe. If your order file is clean, Matrixify is the tool. EZ Importer sits in the same CSV bucket. Verify its current scope before you treat it as identical.
When Matrixify is the better choice
Keep Matrixify, and do not add POinbox for this reason alone, when:
- The buyer already sends a clean order CSV.
- You are migrating history or bulk-editing orders.
- You need broad import and export beyond purchase-order documents.
POinbox is not a Matrixify alternative for that work. It is an alternative only for unstructured customer POs.
Adding POinbox next to Matrixify
Install it. Upload one PDF you already entered by hand. Compare the matched company, the flagged lines, and the prices. Keep Matrixify installed. Nothing in this setup exports your Matrixify config into POinbox.
Process context: ways to process customer POs.
A PDF forced into columns
Matrixify wants rows. A buyer PDF wants to be read. The translation looks like this. Someone creates a sheet with the columns the importer documents: email or customer id, SKU, quantity, price, maybe a note. They type twenty lines from the PDF. They put the PO number in whatever column they hope becomes a note. They upload. Validation passes because the SKUs exist. The order is created at the PDF’s prices, including the stale one. The company location is whatever the customer record defaulted to, because the sheet never had a location column anyone filled.
That can be the right system when the sheet is an export, not a transcription. A partner who dumps orders nightly in your column names should stay on Matrixify. A migration of old orders should stay on Matrixify. Verify their current price and whether they create orders or drafts. This page will not quote a number that may have changed.
POinbox starts from the PDF. It proposes the company and location, uses catalog prices, and flags the stale one and any line it is not sure about. You create a draft after that, not a silent order. It will not import your product catalog, your blog, or last year’s orders. If that is the project, you are in the wrong comparison. PDF and email versus CSV is the same split without the product names in the headline.
A week with both installed
Monday’s migration file goes to Matrixify. Tuesday’s PDF from an account that will not export goes to POinbox. You compare the Tuesday draft to a hand entry you trust. You do not uninstall Matrixify to “standardize.” Standardization is how the migration file gets dragged through a PO review screen, or the PDF gets retyped into columns again.
There is no migrate button between them. Mappings you built in Matrixify do not become customer-specific SKU matches in POinbox. Test the PDF app on real files. Keep the CSV app for the files that are already tables. EZ Importer, if you use it, stays in the table camp. Confirm it before you treat it as a Matrixify clone.
What Matrixify is better at, in one sitting
Open Matrixify’s docs and list the resources you actually import: products, customers, orders, draft orders, redirects, metafields. If that list is longer than “this buyer’s PO,” Matrixify is the platform and POinbox is a narrow door beside it. People get this comparison wrong by asking which app is more powerful. Powerful at turning a spreadsheet into Shopify records is Matrixify. Powerful at reading a purchase-order layout is the other job, and Matrixify will not become that by adding a column called Notes.
A fair test of POinbox is not “can it import 5,000 orders.” It will not, as a migration tool, and it should not be asked. A fair test of Matrixify is not “can it read this PDF.” You would be testing your patience at retyping. Install POinbox only for the documents that fail the spreadsheet test. Leave Matrixify in place for everything that already passes it. POinbox is not a migration tool, and it is not Matrixify.
POinbox has a Free plan (5 successful drafts lifetime), then paid plans from $29/mo. If that changes, the App Store page is where the new price will show. Do not budget a number this article invented.
One more boundary, because it causes bad installs. A CSV that is a purchase order, with columns the buyer happened to send, their codes, and their prices, can go through POinbox so you still get catalog pricing and flags. A CSV that is your import template, built so every column already matches Shopify, stays in Matrixify. The file extension can match. The shape of the file does not. If you are unsure, open the first row. Template headers you wrote belong to the importer. A buyer’s own export, or a PDF they attached, belongs in PO review before a draft exists.