Shopify’s native “continue selling when out of stock” toggle doesn’t label a product as pre-order, show a ship date, take a deposit, or hold fulfilment. That’s the whole reason this category exists. For a small DTC store, every sold-out PDP that still gets paid traffic is a conversion event you either capture or lose, and the difference between those two outcomes is one of the apps below.
Who this is for
This guide is for founder-led and small-team Shopify DTC stores (one to thirty people) running one of three real jobs: a new product launch where you want to validate demand and fund inventory, a hero product that keeps selling out faster than you can restock, or a long-lead-time drop where you’ll charge weeks before you ship. If you don’t do any of those three things, you probably don’t need a pre-order app at all. Shopify’s native out-of-stock settings are enough.
Our pick: STOQ
STOQ wins the default slot for the same reason most quiet, high-trust apps win it: it does both of the related jobs small stores actually need (pre-orders and back-in-stock alerts), and the bill doesn’t surprise you. The free plan is a usable free plan, not a trial. Ten pre-orders and thirty email alerts a month, no transaction fees, and that’s enough to let a store running a single launch or a seasonal restock pull real data before any money changes hands. When you outgrow it, Lite is $10/month, Pro is $29/month, and Unlimited is $69/month, and those numbers are the same at Basic Shopify as they’re at Shopify Plus. Partial payments and deposits are available from the $10 plan, and so is Shopify Markets, which Timesact gates to its PRO tier.
The honest downsides: SMS is billed at $0.025 per message on every paid plan with no bundled allowance, and Lite and Pro both charge a per-pre-order overage ($0.25 and $0.10) once you cross the plan’s cap. A viral launch can push a Lite store toward Pro, and a Pro store toward Unlimited, which is less a bug than a reason to pay attention to the plan math once the first big campaign lands.
The runner-up for long-lead-time drops: PreProduct
PreProduct is a specialist, not a bundled tool, and the specialty is payment timing. If you’re running a pre-launch campaign where product ships four to sixteen weeks out, charging the customer today creates two problems: cash sitting on a card auth that may expire, and a refund risk if timelines slip. PreProduct runs through the native Shopify checkout and offers five payment models (charge-upfront, charge-later on a vaulted card, deposit, capture-only, and multi-step instalments on Shopify Plus), so you can take the commitment at checkout and the money closer to ship. Fulfilment holds mean a 3PL doesn’t pick a pre-order the moment it drops into Shopify Orders.
Pricing is the catch, and PreProduct is upfront about it. Starter is free to install, with a 5% commission on paid pre-order revenue; Scale is $59.99/month with 0% commission on up to $5,000 of monthly pre-order revenue and 0.5% afterwards; Scale Plus is $259.99/month with 0% commission across the board. A small store running one $20,000 launch a quarter will spend less on Starter than on Scale. A store doing $20,000 a month in pre-orders should move. PreProduct doesn’t include back-in-stock alerts, so if you need both jobs covered, STOQ is still the cleaner default and PreProduct is the add-on. If you’re mapping the broader launch stack, the AI product bundle apps we rank for small Shopify DTC stores and the AI SMS marketing platforms we rank for the same stores are where PreProduct’s demand data lands next.
The large-catalog pick: Timesact
Timesact earns its slot on automation. The app automatically switches sold-out variants to pre-order mode, and switches them back when inventory arrives, which is the right design for a store with hundreds of SKUs and frequent stockouts. Per-variant control means one size can run on pre-order while the rest ship, and the free plan is available with no transaction fees. CORE starts from $5/month and PRO from $7/month on the usage-based ladder, the cheapest paid entry in this comparison set.
The reason it’s not the default is pricing structure. Timesact splits pricing across CORE and PRO on usage-based or fixed plans, which means two stores with similar pre-order volume can end up paying different amounts. Shopify Markets, storewide automatic Low Stock and Back in Stock, and analytics beyond a 30-day window are PRO-only. For a store that wants to read its monthly bill off the plan name, STOQ’s flat ladder is easier to live with. For a store running automation across a big catalog, Timesact’s variant logic is worth the extra pricing work.
The budget pick: PreOrder Globo
Globo has been on the Shopify App Store since 2017, and the pricing reflects it: Lite is $9.90/month ($99/year), PRO is $19.90/month ($199/year), and the free plan covers your first 20 presale orders and first 100 restock emails. If you’re running one small launch, replacing the buy button on a single SKU, and you want to spend as little as possible, Globo is the honest answer. It’s Built for Shopify, carries a 4.9-star rating across nearly 2,000 reviews, and the PRO plan removes the pre-sales cap entirely at a price under half of STOQ’s Unlimited.
The trade-offs are shallow but real. The free plan’s 20 presale orders is a one-time allowance, not a monthly reset, so it runs out faster than STOQ’s or Timesact’s monthly free tiers. Partial payment and discount features sit behind the paid plans, and the app is English-first. If your pre-order job is one SKU and one restock, those are fine trades. If your pre-order job is a quarterly launch cadence with international shoppers and SMS alerts, STOQ is still the pick.
How to choose between them
Three quick decisions decide this. First, do you need back-in-stock alerts in the same app? If yes, STOQ, Timesact, or Globo; if no, PreProduct is also in scope. Second, do you charge weeks before you ship? If yes, PreProduct; if no, the other three. Third, do you want flat pricing you can read off the plan name? If yes, STOQ or Globo; if no, Timesact’s usage ladder can be cheaper in month one and more expensive in month six. Price it against your real launch volume before you pick.
Pre-order apps capture the committed-revenue half of a launch. The customer side (knowing what to tell shoppers in the three weeks between pre-order and shipment, what to upsell at the thank-you page, and what to ask them when the product finally lands) lives in neighbouring stacks. We’ve written separately about AI product recommendation apps for small Shopify DTC stores and AI post-purchase survey apps for small Shopify DTC stores, either of which is a sensible next install once your pre-order app is doing its job.
