Best Shopify back in stock and preorder apps 2026: 8 verified and ranked

Short answer: the two biggest apps in this category are effectively tied, and the one we would install first is STOQ, which puts a Notify Me button on sold out variants and emails the waitlist the moment stock lands. 5.0 stars across 3,424 reviews, free plan, 24 storefront languages.

Craftshift builds Shopify apps. We do not build a back in stock or preorder app, so nothing in the ranking or the table below is us ranking ourselves. One of ours appears near the end for a related reason: Rubik Variant Images can hide or grey out sold out options in the variant picker so shoppers stop selecting sizes that do not exist. That is a display fix, not a waitlist. It is not in the table because it does not belong there.

Every app here does the same two jobs: collect an email address against a sold out variant, and take money before stock exists. So why do the prices differ by a factor of twenty? Metering. Some charge a flat fee and allow unlimited preorders. Others cap preorders per month and bill ten to twenty five cents on every one above the cap. That detail decides what this costs at volume, and almost nobody puts it in the comparison.

Ratings, review counts and prices were read off the App Store listings in July 2026. The order is by review volume, largest first, the one signal we can show rather than assert.

In this guide

• The metering trap
• The comparison table
• Notify Me! Back in Stock Alert
• STOQ
• Preorder Now Presale Timesact
• PreOrder Globo
• REZ Preorder, Back In Stock
• Essent Preorder Back in Stock
• Amp Back in Stock
• PreProduct
• What a waitlist app will not fix
• How to choose
• FAQ

The metering trap, and why the sticker price lies

Picture a store that takes 900 preorders in a drop month. On STOQ’s Pro plan at $29 the first 400 are included and the remaining 500 cost ten cents each, so the real bill is $79. On PreOrder Globo’s PRO plan at $19.90 there is no preorder cap at all, so the bill is $19.90. Same month, same orders, four times the price.

Now flip it. A store taking 15 preorders a month pays nothing on three of these apps and $19 on Amp. Metering is not a scam, it is a pricing shape, and it is the right shape for small stores. But the headline price tells you almost nothing until you know your own volume.

So do the arithmetic first. Take last quarter’s sold out product sessions, guess a conversion rate you would be happy with, and price two candidates against that number. Our free profit margin calculator is a blunt instrument here, but it beats guessing, and if a flat plan with no per-order fee saves you sixty dollars in a drop month, that is the decision made in ten minutes.

The best Shopify back in stock and preorder apps compared

Checked on the Shopify App Store, July 2026. “Overage” is what you pay per preorder once the plan’s monthly cap is reached.

App	Rating (reviews)	Free plan	Cheapest paid	Overage per preorder
Notify Me! Back in Stock Alert	4.9 (3,453)	10 alerts, 5 preorders	$9.90/mo	$0.20, $0.15 on top tier
Preorder, Back In Stock (STOQ)	5.0 (3,424)	10 preorders, 30 emails	$10/mo	$0.25, $0.10 on Pro
Preorder Now Presale Timesact	5.0 (1,927)	50 restock emails/mo	$1/mo	None, priced by Shopify plan
PreOrder Globo | Back in Stock	4.9 (1,795)	Unlimited products	$9.90/mo	None
REZ Preorder, Back In Stock	5.0 (1,299)	20 preorders, 30 emails	$4.99/mo	$0.25 down to $0.10
Essent Preorder Back in Stock	5.0 (1,182)	10 preorders	$5/mo	$0.25 down to $0.10
Amp Back in Stock | Preorder	4.9 (821)	Unlimited registrations	$19/mo	None
PreProduct	4.9 (101)	Free to install	$29.99/mo	Not published

Notify Me! Back in Stock Alert: the widest feature spread

Notify Me! holds the largest review count in the category, 3,453 at 4.9 stars, with the Built for Shopify badge. It is three apps in one: restock alerts by email, SMS and web push, preorders with partial payments and B2B catalogue support, and a guest wishlist that works without a customer login. It also ships an “only X left” low stock counter.

Honest limitation: the free Lite plan is thin, at 10 restock notifications and 5 preorders a month. Paid starts at $9.90 with a $0.20 per preorder overage above 500, dropping to $0.15 on the $39.90 tier. And 4.9 sits a hair under STOQ’s 5.0 on a near identical sample size.

STOQ: the one we would install first

Listed as Preorder, Back In Stock and built by Artos Software, STOQ carries 5.0 stars across 3,424 reviews and the Built for Shopify badge. Its free tier is the most usable in the roundup: 10 preorders a month, 30 emails, and unlimited waitlist registrations, so you can measure demand for nothing before you pay anything. Deposits, partial payments, split shipping, Klaviyo sync, multiple locations, 24 storefront languages.

Honest limitation: the metering. Lite at $10 covers 100 preorders and charges $0.25 for each one after that, which is the highest overage rate here. Pro at $29 covers 400 and drops the rate to $0.10. If your drops are spiky, model the bad month, not the average one.

Preorder Now Presale Timesact: cheapest entry, oddest pricing

Timesact is 5.0 across 1,927 reviews with the Built for Shopify badge, and it is preorder-first: coming soon badges, presale campaigns, product drops, restock alerts. A plan starting at $1/month gets you 25 restock emails plus a custom sending domain, which is the cheapest paid tier of any app in this roundup by a factor of five.

Honest limitation, and it is a strange one: the Fixed plan is priced by your Shopify plan, not by your usage. $19/month on Basic, $39 on Grow, $59 on Advanced, $99 on Plus. Grow your store and the app bill rises even if your preorder volume does not. We have opinions about that model, and none of them are warm. Read the tier you land on before installing.

PreOrder Globo: no per-order fee, ever

PreOrder Globo sits at 4.9 across 1,795 reviews with the Built for Shopify badge, and it is the pick for anyone who hates variable bills. Free covers unlimited products. Lite at $9.90 includes 1,000 restock emails. PRO at $19.90 gives unlimited presales per month and 5,000 restock emails, with no per-preorder charge at any tier.

Honest limitation: the email allowance becomes the meter instead, and 5,000 restock emails is a real ceiling for a big waitlist. The feature set is narrower than STOQ’s on payments. No wishlist, no B2B catalogue handling. For high preorder volume across few products, that trade is obviously worth it.

REZ Preorder, Back In Stock: the cheapest metered plan

REZ is 5.0 across 1,299 reviews with the Built for Shopify badge. Free covers 20 preorders and 30 emails a month, double STOQ’s free preorder allowance. Basic at $4.99 covers 100 preorders and 500 emails, Growth at $14.99 covers 400, Scale at $28.99 covers 700. Overages start at $0.25 and fall to $0.10 as you climb.

Honest limitation: email overage is billed separately at $1 per 100 messages, so a big restock blast can cost more than the plan. And 1,299 reviews is roughly a third of the two leaders. A smaller sample is a smaller sample.

Essent Preorder Back in Stock: the quiet middle option

Essent runs 5.0 across 1,182 reviews with the Built for Shopify badge. Free covers 10 preorders a month with unlimited Notify Me signups. Lite at $5 covers 50, Starter at $9 covers 100, Essentials at $25 covers 500, with the same descending overage pattern ($0.25 down to $0.10). Partial payments and deposits are included rather than gated.

Honest limitation: nothing about it stands out. That is the review. It is priced within a dollar or two of REZ at every tier and does roughly the same things, so pick on free tier allowance and move on. Fifty preorders for five dollars is the best value point here.

Amp Back in Stock: unlimited from the first paid tier

Amp is 4.9 across 821 reviews with the Built for Shopify badge, and its listing says it has been at this since 2011, the oldest app on this page. Its structure is the simplest: free covers unlimited waitlist registrations, Starter at $19 gives unlimited preorders, Growth is $49 and Pro is $99. Alerts go by email, SMS and push, with demand insights on what people are waiting for.

Honest limitation: $19 is the highest entry price here, so a small store pays four times what REZ charges for the same first hundred preorders. Unlimited pricing only wins above roughly 200 preorders a month. Below that you are subsidising a ceiling you never reach.

PreProduct: preorders as a payments problem

PreProduct is 4.9 across 101 reviews and it does not carry the Built for Shopify badge, which is worth saying plainly since every other app on this list does. It treats preorder as a cash flow question rather than a waitlist one: pay now, pay later, or deposits taken against a vaulted card or a payment link, with fulfilment holds so preorder lines do not leak into your normal picking flow.

Honest limitation: free to install, then $29.99, $59.99 and $259.99, and 101 reviews is the smallest sample here. It is also not really a restock alert app, so if notifications are your actual need, one of the seven above serves you better and cheaper. Shortlist it only if deferred payment is the point.

What a waitlist app will not fix

Every app above starts working after the shopper has already hit the wall. They picked Medium, the button said sold out, and now you are collecting an email as consolation. Fine. But how many of those shoppers would have bought a different size, or a different colour, if the picker had not let them select a dead option in the first place?

That part is variant display, and it is what we build. Rubik Variant Images (5.0 stars, 410 reviews, free to install) assigns a separate image set to each variant and can hide or cross out sold out options in the swatch picker, so shoppers are steered to what you can actually ship. It is not a preorder app.

It sends no restock emails. It sits upstream of the app that does. There is a demo store and a getting started guide if you want to watch the behaviour before installing.

The mechanics of that are written up in full on our variant images site: hiding out of stock or unavailable variants, step by step. If your colours live as separate products instead of variants, the grouped equivalent is covered in out of stock handling for combined listings. On our own site, handling out of stock variants covers the theme-level options that cost nothing.

How to choose in about a minute

Three questions, in this order.

1. How many preorders in your worst month? Under 50, take a free or five dollar plan (STOQ, REZ, Essent). Over 200, take a flat plan and stop counting (PreOrder Globo at $19.90, Amp at $19).
2. Do you need to take money before stock exists? If yes, deposits and partial payments are the feature to check, and STOQ and PreProduct go deepest. If you only need an email captured, the cheapest plan that sends enough emails wins.
3. How big is your restock blast? Email allowances are the hidden second meter. PreOrder Globo includes 5,000 on PRO; REZ bills $1 per 100 above its cap. A 20,000-address waitlist changes the maths completely.

An opinion to close on: preorder is oversold as a growth tactic. It is a cash flow tool and a demand signal, superb at both. But taking money for stock you have not secured, then missing the date, does more damage to a small brand than the lost sale would. Set the availability date conservatively. If your catalogue is also groaning under variant counts, our variant combination calculator is the next stop.

FAQ

Which back in stock app should I use on Shopify?

STOQ for most stores: 5.0 stars across 3,424 reviews, a free tier covering 10 preorders and unlimited waitlist signups, and paid plans from $10. Take PreOrder Globo at $19.90 instead if you want unlimited preorders with no per-order fee. If the underlying complaint is that shoppers keep selecting sizes that are already gone, that is a picker problem, and Rubik Variant Images (5.0 stars, 410 reviews) hides or crosses out sold out variants so they never get that far.

Does Shopify have a native back in stock notification?

No. Shopify has no built-in restock alert or preorder button on the Online Store. You can approximate a preorder by leaving inventory tracking off and editing the button label, but there is no waitlist, no automatic email on restock and no deposit handling. That is why this category has eight apps with over 800 reviews each.

What is the cheapest Shopify preorder app?

Timesact has the lowest paid tier at $1/month for 25 restock emails and a custom domain, though its Fixed plan is priced by your Shopify plan and reaches $99 on Plus. Among conventional plans, REZ at $4.99 and Essent at $5 are the cheapest real entry points. Four apps here have a free tier that will carry a store doing under 20 preorders a month.

Should I hide sold out variants or leave them visible?

Leave them visible but clearly disabled, in most cases. Hiding them entirely makes a range look thinner than it is and removes the signal that the size exists at all, which is exactly the shopper you want on a waitlist. Crossing out beats hiding. Our guide to sold out variants in the Horizon theme shows both.

Do restock emails hurt deliverability?

They are among the best performing emails you can send, because the recipient asked for exactly this message about exactly this product. The risk is sending from a shared domain. Timesact bundles a custom sending domain on its $1 tier; STOQ syncs the list to Klaviyo so you can send from your own.

Can I run preorders and back in stock alerts in the same app?

Yes, and you should. Seven of the eight apps above do both, which is why the category has effectively merged. Running a separate preorder app and a separate alert app means two widgets fighting over the same button on the same product page, and that is a support ticket waiting to happen.

Related reading

• How to handle out of stock variants on Shopify
• Displaying inventory count per variant
• Preorders and combined listings
• Bulk archiving old out of stock products
• Best Shopify apps for apparel stores
• Free Shopify SKU generator

Pick the plan shape that matches your worst month, not your average one. Then check the picker is not sending people to a dead end before the waitlist ever loads.