Best Back-in-Stock / Restock Alert Apps for Shopify (2026)
— read from the live app listings on 2 August 2026, including our own; review counts read on September 26, 2026Quick verdict
If you are a small store testing whether restock alerts are worth anything, start on a free tier — STOQ or SC Back in Stock both let you send real alerts at no cost until you outgrow the cap. If you want restock alerts, preorders and a wishlist in one app, Notify Me! and STOQ are the two most-reviewed options in the category. If you run high volume or multiple locations, Swym is the most configurable.
Our app, Low Stock Alerts & Notify Me, fits a narrower case: you want both the customer-facing back-in-stock signup and merchant low-stock alerts, on every variant, with a free plan covering both directions and a paid Pro plan for more — and email is the only channel you need. If you need SMS, or you want a long review history before you install, pick one of the others. That is a genuine trade, and we would rather say so here than have you find out after installing.
We build apps for Shopify (the platform many online stores run on) for a living, and one of them is in this comparison. So this page does the thing a roundup should do and usually doesn't: it names what every app here is actually good at, what plan you will really land on, and where each one — ours included — is the wrong choice.
Every plan name and review count below was read from the live Shopify App Store listing on September 26, 2026; current pricing lives on each listing, linked from the table. Plans in this category change often — check the listing before you commit.
The comparison
| App | Plans | Alert channels | Setup time | Best-fit store | App Store rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notify Me! Back in Stock Alert | See the listing | Email, SMS, push | Minutes; more options to work through than most | Stores that want restock alerts, preorders and a wishlist from one app | 4.9 (3,825 reviews) |
| Preorder, Back In Stock — STOQ | See the listing | Email, SMS | Minutes | Stores that need preorders and restock alerts together, with room to grow | 5.0 (3,739 reviews) |
| Amp Back in Stock & Preorder + | See the listing | Email, SMS, push | Minutes | Growing stores that want Klaviyo/Mailchimp and a custom sending domain | 4.9 (947 reviews) |
| Appikon — Back In Stock | See the listing | Email, SMS | Minutes | Stores already running Klaviyo or Mailchimp and sending in several languages | 4.7 (1,460 reviews) |
| Swym Back in Stock Alerts | See the listing | Email, SMS (with Klaviyo, Omnisend, Mailchimp) | Longer — it is the most configurable of the set | High-volume and multi-location stores that need inventory controls and an API | 4.7 (442 reviews) |
| SC Back in Stock Notify Me | See the listing | Email, SMS | Minutes | Small stores that want unlimited email alerts cheaply, SMS optional later | 4.5 (176 reviews) |
| Low Stock Alerts & Notify Me (ours) | See the listing | Email only | Minutes; free plan covers both alert directions | Small and mid-size stores that want both directions of alert on a free plan (restock signups capped at 25 a month on Free; Pro adds per-product thresholds, Slack, and CSV export) | Newer app |
Plan names and features change; open each app's listing for current pricing. SMS is metered on top of the plan on every app here that sends it. Star ratings and review counts read on September 26, 2026.
Which back-in-stock app should I choose?
If you are a small store and not sure this is worth paying for
Start free. STOQ's free plan sends 30 emails a month, SC's sends 50 email alerts, Amp's sends 10 notifications, Notify Me!'s Lite plan sends 10 restock notifications. Any of those is enough to answer the only question that matters at this stage: do shoppers actually sign up when something is sold out? If a month goes by and nobody signs up, you have learned something valuable for nothing. If the cap fills in a week, you now know what tier to move up to and why.
The honest limitation of free tiers is that they run out mid-month, silently, at the worst time — the moment a popular product sells out and demand spikes. Treat the free tier as a test, not a permanent plan.
If you sell out often and email is enough
This is where flat, unmetered plans win over ones that charge you more precisely when the app is working hardest — a strange incentive for a tool whose whole job is to capture demand from stockouts. Low Stock Alerts' free plan covers both alert directions on every product and variant, with restock signups capped at 25 a month on Free; the paid Pro plan adds per-product thresholds, Slack alerts, and CSV export. SC's Email Only plan is genuinely unlimited email at a flat rate. STOQ's Lite plan is metered too, not unmetered — it is capped at 1,000 email/SMS sends a month for its price — see each listing for current caps and pricing.
Our limitation, stated plainly: Low Stock Alerts sends no SMS, and it is a newer app. If a long review history is how you decide, the apps above it in the table have that and we are the newer entry.
If you also want preorders
Several apps in this category bundle preorders with restock alerts, which makes sense — both are answers to "this is not available right now." Notify Me!, STOQ and Amp all do it, and their plans are priced around preorder volume as much as alert volume. If preorders matter to you, buy on the preorder terms and treat the restock alerts as the bonus, because the preorder limits are what you will hit first.
Low Stock Alerts does not do preorders. We build a separate app for that, and we are not going to pretend a back-in-stock app is a preorder app.
If you run high volume, several locations, or want an API
Swym is built for that end of the market: its three tiers scale by alert volume — roughly 1k, 10k, and 25k alert requests a month — the top tier adds multi-location support and a REST API, and it integrates with Klaviyo, Omnisend and Mailchimp. It is also the most expensive here — see the listing for current pricing at each tier — and it is the one that will take you longest to configure. Its 30-day free trial is the longest in the set, which is the right way to evaluate something with that many settings.
If your alerts need to go out by SMS
Then Low Stock Alerts is not your app — we send email only. Amp, STOQ, SC, Appikon and Swym all send SMS, each metered per message at its own rate — check the current per-message price on each listing. Whichever you choose, model the real cost: a single popular restock going out to a few hundred waiting shoppers is a metered bill, not a rounding error.
What actually matters when you compare these apps
After building in this category, these are the questions that decide whether an app earns its subscription — and most roundups skip all of them.
- Does the signup appear on the variant, or only the product? A shopper who wants a medium in black does not want to hear that the small in grey is back. Variant-level signup is the difference between a useful alert and an annoying one.
- Where does the alert cap actually bite? Read the tier you will land on in a busy month, not the one you start on. Most of the pricing in this category is a notification meter wearing a plan name.
- Does the button really render on your theme? This is the most common silent failure in the whole category: the app is installed, billing is running, and the theme app embed was never enabled, so no shopper ever sees a signup. Whatever you install, view a sold-out product on your live storefront in a logged-out browser and confirm the button is there.
- Does the restock email actually arrive? Sign up as a customer with your own address, restock the item, and wait for the email. An alert app that does not deliver is worse than no app, because you believe demand is being captured while it quietly is not.
- Are you alerted before the stockout, as well as after? Back-in-stock alerts recover a sale you already lost. Low-stock alerts to you, the merchant, prevent the loss. They are different features, and only some apps do both.
Where Low Stock Alerts & Notify Me fits, honestly
Low Stock Alerts is ours, so treat this section as the interested party speaking. Here is what it does, at its strongest and with nothing hidden.
It puts a "notify me when back in stock" signup on every sold-out product and every sold-out variant, and emails those shoppers when you restock. In the same plan, it alerts you when any product or variant crosses your low-stock threshold — both directions of the problem, free on every product and variant, though restock signups are capped at 25 a month on the Free plan; a paid Pro plan adds per-product thresholds, Slack alerts, and CSV export. Its dashboard also warns you if the storefront widget is not live, which is the silent failure named above, and gives you a one-click fix.
What it is not: there is no SMS, no push, no preorders, and no wishlist — it is a newer app. For a store that wants any of those things, one of the other apps in the table is the better buy, and we would rather you install that one and be happy than install ours and be disappointed.
Low Stock Alerts & Notify Me on the Shopify App Store · All of our Shopify apps
A note on the name
Low Stock Alerts & Notify Me was listed as StockPing until September 2026. A different developer's app also uses the StockPing name, so we renamed ours to keep the two apart. Same app, same listing, same developer — Stelar Digital LLC, at apps.shopify.com/stockping-4. Check the developer name on the listing to confirm you have the right one.
Frequently asked questions
What is a back-in-stock app, and do I actually need one?
It adds a "notify me when it's back" button to sold-out products, collects the shopper's email or phone, and messages them automatically the moment you restock. You need one if you sell out of things people specifically want. If your catalog never goes out of stock, or shoppers happily buy a substitute, the money is better spent elsewhere.
Which back-in-stock app is cheapest for a small Shopify store?
Free tiers are the cheapest entry point — Amp, STOQ, SC and Notify Me! each cap their free notifications differently, so check the current caps on each listing before you rely on one. Low Stock Alerts itself has a free plan covering both directions of stock alert, plus a paid Pro plan for higher-volume stores — see the listing for current Pro pricing.
Do these apps send SMS as well as email?
Most of the big ones do, and SMS is billed per message on top of the plan — the per-message rate varies by app, so check the current rate on each listing before you commit. Low Stock Alerts is email-only and does not send SMS at all — that is a real limitation, not a positioning choice.
What is the difference between a back-in-stock alert and a low-stock alert?
A back-in-stock alert goes to your shopper when a sold-out item returns. A low-stock alert goes to you, the merchant, before it sells out, so you can reorder in time. They are opposite directions and most apps in this category focus on the customer-facing half; some bundle merchant low-stock alerts into a higher tier. Low Stock Alerts includes both, with low-stock alerts and the back-in-stock signup both on its free plan.
Will a back-in-stock app work on product variants, not just whole products?
Check this before you install — it is the single most common disappointment. A shopper who wants a specific size or colour needs the signup on that variant, not on the product page as a whole. Low Stock Alerts puts the signup on every sold-out variant. For the other apps, confirm variant-level behaviour on their listing or in a trial rather than assuming it.
How long do these apps take to set up?
For most stores it is minutes, not hours: install, enable the theme app embed so the button renders on your storefront, set the sender address, and place a test signup on a sold-out product. The step people skip is the last one — placing a real test signup and confirming the email actually arrives. Do that before you trust it with real demand.
Was Low Stock Alerts & Notify Me called StockPing?
Yes. Low Stock Alerts & Notify Me is the app formerly listed as StockPing by Stelar Digital LLC, at apps.shopify.com/stockping-4. A different developer also uses the StockPing name, so we renamed ours in September 2026 to keep the two apart. Same app, same developer, same listing; nothing else changed.
How this page was researched
Every app named here was read from its live Shopify App Store listing on 2 August 2026 — plan names and features came from the listings themselves, not from memory or from another roundup; star ratings and review counts were re-read on September 26, 2026. Nothing here is a paid placement; there are no affiliate links on this page. Current pricing lives on each listing — open it before you buy.
Small by design. Built with AI tooling, run by a human who signs off on everything. — stelardigital.com