Agentless asset discovery is attractive because nothing has to be installed. It is also the reason remote-first teams end up with a register that looks full and is mostly fiction: it can only see what it can reach, and a laptop asleep on home broadband is not reachable.
TL;DR
- Agentless scanning reaches devices over the network. No network, no device.
- On an office estate that is a genuine advantage, particularly for printers, switches and forgotten servers.
- On a distributed fleet it typically sees a minority of machines and reports the rest as nothing at all.
- The dangerous part is not the gap. It is that stale records are presented identically to current ones.
- The measurable test is the seven-day check-in rate against headcount.
- Below roughly 70 per cent you have a sample rather than an inventory, and tuning the scanner will not change that.
What agentless asset discovery does well
It finds things nobody told you about. The switch in a cupboard, the printer somebody plugged in, the server still running a service nobody owns. Nothing else surfaces those.
It needs no software on the endpoint. Which matters for devices you do not control: contractor machines, network appliances, anything where installing an agent is impossible or unwelcome.
It is fast to stand up. Point it at a subnet and results arrive the same day, with no deployment project.
So the approach is sound. The question is whether your assets sit where it can see them.
The measurement that settles it
What to do: export your current scan results, count devices that reported within the last seven days, and divide by the number of people who have a company laptop.
| Seven-day check-in rate | What you have | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Above 85 per cent | A working inventory | Keep scanning, tighten the detail |
| 70 to 85 per cent | Usable with a known gap | Identify the missing group and handle it separately |
| 40 to 70 per cent | A sample presented as a record | Add agents or lifecycle events |
| Below 40 per cent | Fiction | Stop relying on it for any decision |
Remote-first companies that have never measured this are usually startled by the result. The number is not a reflection on the tool; it is a statement about where the laptops are.
Why a silent gap is worse than a visible one
A missing device is a problem you can solve. A device that last reported four months ago and still appears in the register as though current is a problem you do not know you have.
That is how teams end up telling an auditor they have 312 devices under management when the real figure is 180 and the rest are last-known-good guesses. Nobody lied. The system presented stale records and current records in the same list with the same confidence.
Checklist for making the gap visible:
- Show last-seen date on every record, in the default view
- Flag anything beyond thirty days rather than listing it normally
- Report two numbers: devices known, and devices confirmed in the last week
- Never quote the first number without the second
- Reconcile against payroll or your directory monthly, not annually
That last step catches the case scanning never will: somebody left, nobody retrieved the laptop, and no scan can tell you about a device that stopped appearing because it is in a drawer.
The three ways to close the gap
Install an agent. Software on the device reports in over the internet regardless of network. Solves reachability properly. Fails on anything you cannot install on, and carries its own deployment and consent questions for contractor hardware.
Record at lifecycle events. Create the record when the device is ordered, shipped, assigned, returned or wiped. Accurate by construction because the data enters when somebody knows the truth. Blind to anything acquired outside those routes.
Reconcile against people. Compare the device list to your directory monthly and chase the differences. Unglamorous, cheap, and the only method that catches a leaver whose laptop never came back.
Most teams need the second and third. The first is worth it when you have real control of the endpoint and a genuine need for live technical detail.
What the options publish
Read from each vendor’s own page on 16 October 2026, with script and style blocks stripped first. That stripping matters: one page in this set appears to carry several prices and carries none, because every apparent figure is a minified code identifier.
| Option | Published pricing | Coverage model |
|---|---|---|
| Lansweeper | No figure published; free tier available | Agentless and agent, network-dependent |
| Device42 | No figure published | Discovery plus dependency mapping |
| AssetTiger | $15 a month unlimited items, $20 a month to 500 assets, then $40, $75, $140 and $275 | Manual records only |
| Snipe-IT | Free self-hosted; hosting from $399.99 a year | Manual records only |
| RemoAsset | No figure published, quote-based with a demo required | Lifecycle events |
RemoAsset. Relevant here because it closes the gap by a different route: the record exists because the device was ordered, shipped and later retrieved, so there is nothing to reach. Disclosure that should shape how you read this: RemoAsset is owned by the same people who publish this site. Where it struggles, stated plainly: pricing is quote-based and requires a demo, so it cannot be benchmarked against the two published ladders without a call; and it is a newer platform with a smaller footprint than the legacy global resellers. It performs no discovery at all, so it will never find the switch in the cupboard, and anything bought outside it is invisible to it.
Check the published figures against the source: AssetTiger and Snipe-IT both publish openly.
Final thoughts
Agentless asset discovery is the right tool for an estate that sits behind a network you control, and the wrong one for laptops in people’s homes. Neither statement is a criticism of the technology.
Measure the check-in rate before you decide anything. If it is high, invest in depth. If it is low, no amount of scanner configuration will raise it, and the honest response is to feed the register from events and reconcile it against people.
What is agentless asset discovery?
Scanning that identifies devices over the network without installing software on them, typically using protocols the device already answers. It is quick to stand up and works on hardware you do not control, such as printers, switches and contractor machines. Its limitation is structural rather than fixable: it can only report on devices it can reach at the moment it scans.
Why does it struggle with remote teams?
Because a laptop on somebody’s home broadband in another country is frequently asleep, behind a router you do not control, and connected to your network only when its owner remembers a VPN. The scan finds a minority of the fleet. The damaging part is that the records it already holds continue to appear as though current, so the register looks populated while being substantially out of date.
How do we measure the gap?
Export your scan results, count devices that reported within the last seven days, and divide by the number of people holding a company laptop. Above 85 per cent you have a working inventory. Between 40 and 70 per cent you have a sample being presented as a record. Below 40 per cent it should not be informing any decision, however complete the list looks.
Should we deploy agents instead?
Agents solve reachability properly, because the device reports over the internet rather than waiting to be found. They are worth it where you genuinely control the endpoint and need live technical detail. They do not help on contractor or personal hardware, they carry deployment and consent questions, and they still tell you nothing about a laptop sitting in a drawer after somebody left.
What catches a leaver whose laptop never came back?
Only reconciliation against people. No scan can report on a device that has stopped appearing, because absence looks identical to being switched off. Comparing the device list against your directory or payroll monthly and chasing every difference is unglamorous and is the single method that surfaces unreturned equipment while it is still recoverable.
Can we combine approaches?
Yes, and most teams should. Scanning where it works, lifecycle records for devices that are shipped and retrieved, and a monthly reconciliation against people to catch what both miss. The important discipline is deciding which source is authoritative for each population, so nobody has to reconcile two systems that disagree and then guess which one to believe.
