A Quick Introduction to Shopify Preorder Apps
A Shopify preorder app allows merchants to sell products before they are in stock or officially launched, creating a flexible and revenue-driving shopping experience. Instead of losing potential sales due to stockouts or upcoming product launches, preorder functionality lets customers place orders in advance and secure their purchase early. This feature is especially useful for online stores launching new products, managing high-demand inventory, or accepting backorders without missing sales opportunities.
For Shopify merchants, preorder apps help increase sales, improve inventory planning, and capture demand that might otherwise be lost. They can also create urgency and excitement around upcoming launches while helping businesses better forecast stock needs. Many preorder apps offer advanced features such as preorder buttons, partial payments, back-in-stock notifications, mixed cart support, product-based preorder rules, and automated messaging for customers. As a result, a Shopify preorder app is not just a convenience feature — it becomes a powerful tool for boosting revenue, managing demand, and improving the overall customer buying experience.
How Does a Shopify Preorder App Benefit Merchants?
A Shopify preorder app helps merchants capture lost sales that might otherwise disappear when products are out of stock or not yet available. Instead of turning customers away, merchants can continue accepting orders through preorders, generating revenue in advance while keeping demand strong. This is especially useful for product launches, limited-edition releases, and backordered items. Preorder apps also support better inventory planning by helping merchants forecast demand, reduce stock issues, and make smarter purchasing decisions.
Beyond increasing sales, top Shopify preorder apps improve cash flow and create a better customer experience. Many apps include features such as preorder buttons, partial payments, backorder management, estimated shipping dates, and automated notifications, making it easier to manage upcoming or unavailable inventory. By creating urgency around product launches and keeping customers engaged, preorder apps become a powerful tool for boosting conversions, managing demand, and supporting long-term store growth.
In this article, we’ll explore the top 5 Shopify Preorder Apps that help merchants boost engagement, improve conversions, and grow their online business.
1. Preorder Guru – Advanced Preorder & Back in Stock Solution for Shopify
Preorder Guru is a powerful and easy-to-use Shopify preorder app designed to help merchants increase sales, capture demand early, and manage out-of-stock products more effectively. The app integrates seamlessly with all popular Shopify themes, ensuring quick setup and a smooth shopping experience across any store design. It allows merchants to enable preorders, backorders, coming soon campaigns, partial payments, and back-in-stock alerts, making it ideal for stores launching new products or managing inventory shortages. With customizable preorder buttons, badges, messaging, and multi-language support, Preorder Guru helps create a branded and localized shopping experience for customers worldwide.
Preorder Guru is extremely easy to set up, requiring only a few minutes for configuration, with full support provided. Merchants can add preorder buttons on product pages, collection pages, and selected products using flexible rules and automation. The app supports pre-sales, pay later options, deposits, waitlists, notify me buttons, coming soon countdown timers, and advanced back-in-stock notifications, along with integrations and customization options to fit different business needs. Additional features such as email alerts, translations, storefront customization, and flexible preorder settings make it a complete preorder solution for modern Shopify stores. Preorder Guru is compatible with almost all Shopify themes and is continuously improving to support even more, ensuring seamless integration and a hassle-free experience for merchants and customers alike.
Additionally, Preorder Guru is free to use on all Shopify partner development stores without paying anything. Billing is bypassed, so you can install the app and use all features on Shopify development and test stores to fully test everything before going live.
Key Features of Preorder Guru
- Preorders for Shopify stores
- Back in stock alerts
- Email alert notifications
- Button customization
- Preorder campaigns
- Full payment options
- Partial payment / deposits
- Scheduled preorders
- Unlimited product support
- Preorder fulfillment triggers
- Shipping notes
- Detailed reports and analytics
- Buttons on product, collection, and home pages
- Custom preorder badges
- Preorder confirmation emails
- Mixed cart warnings
- Inventory limits and controls
- Fixed or percentage discounts
- Custom CSS/JS support
- Coming soon campaigns
- Countdown timers
- Multi-language support
- Email via your own domain (SMTP)
- No transaction fees
- Free for Shopify development stores
Pricing Plans
- Free Plan – Essential preorder features at no cost for new and development stores.
- Basic Plan – $8.99/month – Advanced preorder tools for growing stores, including partial payments, coming soon, and back-in-stock alerts.
- Premium Plan – $19.99/month – Full-featured preorder solution for high-volume stores with advanced automation and customization.
Pros
- Supports preorders, backorders, and coming soon campaigns
- Partial payment and pay-later options available
- Highly customizable buttons, badges, and messaging
- Multi-language support for global stores
- Works with most Shopify themes
- 24/7 customer support
Cons
- API integrations not supported currently
2. Preorder, Back In Stock ‑ STOQ
STOQ is a Shopify app designed to help merchants recover lost sales and capture demand through preorders, backorders, partial payments, and back-in-stock alerts. Merchants can add preorder or notify me buttons to out-of-stock products, create waitlists, and automatically send restock alerts through email or SMS when inventory returns. With support for presales, deposits, and customizable preorder settings, STOQ helps stores turn unavailable inventory into revenue opportunities.
The app also offers features like Klaviyo sync, multiple location support, analytics, B2B preorders, market support, and branded customization options to fit different store needs. With preorder management, waitlist tools, and automation features, STOQ provides merchants with a solid solution for managing product demand and improving customer engagement.
Key Features:
- Unlimited products
- Customizable preorder widget
- Preorder limits and controls
- Full and partial payment options
- Shipping information settings
- Preorder management tools
- Free forever plan
- 0% transaction fees
- Preorder notifications
- Auto-collect balance payments
- Start and end dates for preorders
- Multi-language support
- Advanced fulfillment controls
- Klaviyo email integration
Pricing Plans
Free – $0
Lite – $10/month
Pro – $29/month
Ultimate – $69/month
Pros
- Strong back-in-stock and waitlist features
- Supports Klaviyo sync, Shopify Markets, and multi-location selling
- Offers deposit payments and advanced preorder controls
Cons
- Some users report bugs and inconsistent preorder button behavior
- Plan changes and inventory management issues have caused concerns for some merchants
- May have compatibility challenges with highly customized Shopify themes
3. Notify! Back in Stock | PreOrder
Notify Me! is a feature-rich Shopify app designed to help merchants recover lost sales and improve customer engagement through back-in-stock alerts, preorders, low stock alerts, and wishlist functionality. Merchants can add Notify Me, PreOrder, or Wishlist buttons to product, home, and collection pages, allowing shoppers to join waitlists, save products for later, or place preorders with options like discounts, notes, and partial payments. With automated restock alerts via email, SMS, and push notifications, the app helps bring customers back when products become available.
Beyond alerts and preorders, Notify Me! also offers B2B and D2C preorder support, guest wishlists, low stock counters for urgency, inventory forecasting, and integrations with other store tools to streamline restock and backorder workflows. With multilingual support, automation, and advanced recovery features, Notify Me! provides merchants with a versatile solution for managing demand, boosting conversions, and improving the customer shopping experience.
Key Features:
- Automated email, push, and SMS alerts
- Low stock widget and alerts
- Theme-matching widgets and buttons
- Preorders with no transaction fees
- Preorder confirmation via email and SMS
- Wishlist functionality with guest support
- Complete widget and email customization
- Fixed and percentage preorder discounts
- Low inventory notifications
- Page builder integrations
- Widgets on collection pages
- Templates for restock and preorder emails
- Unlimited plans available inside the app
- Free for Shopify development stores
Pricing Plans
Lite – Free
Kickstart – $9.90/month
Starter – $19.90/month
Standard – $39.90/month
Pros
- Combines back-in-stock alerts, preorders, and wishlist features in one app.
- Strong customization and automation tools with email, SMS, and push notifications.
- Supports integrations, low stock alerts, and advanced preorder features for growing stores.
Cons
- Pricing can be expensive for small businesses, according to some users
- Some users have raised concerns about pricing changes and billing transparency
- Certain merchants feel some advanced features may be bundled even if not needed
4. Preorder Now Presale Timesact
Timesact is a Shopify app built to help merchants capture more sales through preorders, presales, waitlists, and back-in-stock notifications. Merchants can turn sold-out products into preorder opportunities, launch coming soon campaigns, and add pre-order or notify me buttons to product pages to collect demand before inventory arrives. With features like partial payments, automatic discounts, preorder limits, order tagging, shipping dates, countdown timers, and customizable preorder badges, Timesact helps merchants drive conversions while managing inventory more effectively.
The app also includes back-in-stock email alerts, inventory-based preorder automation, product tag controls, and flexible settings for presales and restocks. Merchants can automatically enable or disable preorder offers based on stock levels and use waitlists to recover missed sales. Combined with guided onboarding, email and chat support, and advanced preorder management tools, Timesact offers a comprehensive solution for stores looking to improve launches, manage demand, and boost revenue.
Features Lists:
- Presale orders and preorder management
- Back-in-stock email alerts
- Custom email domain support
- Coming soon campaigns
- In-stock and preorder order support
- No transaction fees
- Customizable preorder branding
- Remove Timesact branding
- Email, chat, and video call support
- Inventory-based preorder controls
- Partial payment support
- Automatic discounts for preorders
- Order tagging and shipping dates
- Countdown timers and preorder badges
- Higher plans available inside the app
Pricing Plans:
Free – $0
Flexible – From $1/month
Fixed – $1/month
New Users Plan – $19/month (or $168/year)
Pros
- Strong presale and back-in-stock features
- Supports partial payments, countdown timers, and inventory controls
- Helpful onboarding and multi-channel support
Cons
- Some users report order limits can be restrictive during high-demand sales
- Concerns from some merchants around pricing clarity and usage-based costs
- A few users mention reliability issues and missed preorder communication
5. PreOrder Globo | Back in Stock
PreOrder Globo | Back in Stock is a comprehensive solution for managing pre-orders, back-in-stock alerts, coming soon products, and backorders on Shopify. Merchants can easily enable pre-orders for out-of-stock or upcoming products, offer partial payments or discounts on presales, and display custom delivery notes to keep customers informed. The app also helps recover missed sales with “Notify Me” back-in-stock alerts and automatic restock notifications. With flexible pre-order scheduling, order tagging, and customer email updates, it helps boost conversions, improve inventory management, and enhance the shopping experience.
Features Lists:
- First 100 restock emails
- Unlimited products
- 100 presale orders per month
- 1,000 restock emails
- Unlimited presale orders per month
- 5,000 restock emails
- Partial payment support
- Pre-order discounts
- Editable email templates
- Remove branding
Pricing Plans:
Free – Free to install
Lite – $9.90/month or $99/year (Save 17%
Pro – $19.90/month or $199/year (Save 17%)
Pros
- Offers generous features including unlimited products, restock alerts, pre-order management, and scalable order/email limits.
- Includes advanced tools like partial payments, pre-order discounts, editable email templates, and branding removal to support better customer experience and conversions.
Cons
- Recent updates have caused functionality issues, including broken pre-order buttons, overselling, theme conflicts, and inconsistent product availability.
- Limited reliability with key features like partial payments, multi-product pre-orders, and compatibility with Shop Pay, affecting customer experience.
- Support responsiveness and issue resolution have been inconsistent, with users reporting unresolved problems and backend usability concerns.
Conclusion: Which Shopify Preorder App Is Best?
Choosing the right Shopify preorder app depends on your store’s size, budget, and feature needs. Apps like STOQ, Notify Me!, Timesact, and PreOrder Globo all offer useful tools such as back-in-stock alerts, partial payments, waitlists, and preorder automation, but they can differ in pricing, flexibility, support quality, and long-term value. Some merchants have also raised concerns around plan limitations, reliability, or support responsiveness, which can be important when choosing a solution for growing stores.
Among the options compared, Preorder Guru stands out as the most balanced and cost-effective choice. It combines advanced preorder functionality, affordable pricing, strong customization, multi-language support, inventory controls, and responsive support without forcing merchants into expensive pricing tiers as they scale. With support for preorders, backorders, coming soon campaigns, deposits, and free testing on Shopify development stores, it offers strong value for both new and established merchants.
If you’re looking for a reliable, scalable, and feature-rich Shopify preorder solution, Preorder Guru is an excellent choice. It delivers the right mix of functionality, flexibility, and long-term value for merchants who want to boost sales, manage demand, and improve customer experience. Along with this, Preorder Guru offers a dedicated 24/7 support team, helping merchants with setup, customization, and ongoing support whenever needed.