Quick 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, StockPing, fits a narrower case: you want both the customer-facing back-in-stock signup and merchant low-stock alerts, on every variant, at one flat $6.99/month with no notification tiers — and email is the only channel you need. If you need SMS, or you want a free tier, 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 Shopify apps 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 each one costs at the tier you will really land on, and where each one — ours included — is the wrong choice.
Every price, plan name and review count below was read from the live Shopify App Store listing on 2 August 2026. Pricing in this category changes often; check the listing before you commit.
The comparison
| App | Pricing | Alert channels | Setup time | Best-fit store | App Store rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notify Me! Back in Stock Alert | Free tier (10 restock notifications). Paid $9.90 / $19.90 / $39.90 per month | 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 (3,477 reviews) |
| Preorder, Back In Stock — STOQ | Free tier (30 emails/mo). Paid $10 / $29 / $69 per month; SMS $0.025 each | Email, SMS | Minutes | Stores that need preorders and restock alerts together, with room to grow | 5.0 (3,431 reviews) |
| Amp Back in Stock | Preorder | Free tier (10 notifications/mo). Paid $19 / $49 / $99 per month; SMS $0.015 each | Email, SMS | Minutes | Growing stores that want Klaviyo/Mailchimp and a custom sending domain | 4.9 (823 reviews) |
| Appikon — Back In Stock | Free to install (10 emails/mo). Paid $19.99 / $29.99 / $49.99 per month; SMS $0.05–$0.40 each | Email, SMS | Minutes | Stores already running Klaviyo or Mailchimp and sending in several languages | 4.7 (1,363 reviews) |
| Swym Back in Stock Alerts | $19.99 / $59.99 / $99.99 per month, by alert volume (1k / 10k / 25k). 30-day trial | Email (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 (419 reviews) |
| SC Back in Stock Notify Me | Free tier (50 email alerts). Paid $10 / $20 / $45 per month; SMS $0.09–$0.10 each | Email, SMS | Minutes | Small stores that want unlimited email alerts cheaply, SMS optional later | 4.5 (158 reviews) |
| StockPing — Back in Stock (ours) | One plan, $6.99 per month. 7-day free trial. No free tier | Email only | Minutes; one plan means nothing to choose | Small and mid-size stores that want both directions of alert at a flat price | New listing — no public reviews yet |
Prices are the listed monthly plans in USD, excluding annual discounts. SMS is metered on top of the plan price on every app here that sends it. Ratings and review counts as shown on each listing on 2 August 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 pay for 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 pricing wins. Metered plans charge you more precisely when the app is working hardest, which is a strange incentive for a tool whose whole job is to capture demand from stockouts. StockPing is $6.99/month with one plan and no notification tier; SC's Email Only plan is $10/month with unlimited emails; STOQ's Lite is $10/month covering 1,000 emails or SMS.
Our limitation, stated plainly: StockPing has no free tier, sends no SMS, and its listing is new enough that it has no public reviews yet. If review history is how you decide, the apps above it in the table have thousands and we have none. That will change with time and it does not change today.
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.
StockPing 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: plans scale by alert requests (1k, 10k, 25k 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, starting at $19.99 and reaching $99.99, 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 StockPing is not your app — we send email only. Amp's SMS is the cheapest per message at $0.015, STOQ is $0.025, SC is $0.09–$0.10, and Appikon prices by message length from $0.05 to $0.40. 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 StockPing fits, honestly
StockPing 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, no per-SKU limits and no feature held back for a higher tier, because there is no higher tier. One plan, $6.99 a month, 7-day free trial. 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 free plan, no SMS, no push, no preorders, no wishlist, and no review history yet — the listing shows zero reviews because it is new. 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.
StockPing on the Shopify App Store · All of our Shopify apps
A note on the name
There is a separate, older Shopify app by a different developer that also goes by StockPing. It is an unrelated product from an unrelated company and we make no comment on it either way — we only mention it so you can tell the listings apart. Ours is StockPing — Back in Stock, developer Stelar Digital LLC, at apps.shopify.com/stockping-4. The developer name on the listing is the reliable way to check which one you are installing.
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 gives 10 notifications a month, STOQ 30 emails, SC 50 email alerts, Notify Me! 10 restock notifications — and they cost nothing until you outgrow them. Once you pass those caps, the flat-rate options get cheaper than the metered ones: StockPing is a single $6.99/month plan with no notification tier, SC's Email Only plan is $10/month, STOQ's Lite is $10/month.
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: Amp charges $0.015 per SMS, STOQ $0.025, SC $0.10, Appikon $0.05–$0.40 depending on message length. StockPing 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. StockPing includes both in its single 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. StockPing 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.
Is StockPing related to the other app called StockPing?
No. There is a separate, older app by a different developer that also uses the name StockPing. Ours is StockPing — Back in Stock by Stelar Digital LLC, at apps.shopify.com/stockping-4. The two are unrelated products from unrelated companies; check the developer name on the listing to be sure which one you are installing.
How this page was researched
Every app named here was read from its live Shopify App Store listing on 2 August 2026 — plan names, prices, per-message SMS rates, ratings and review counts came from the listings themselves, not from memory or from another roundup. Nothing here is a paid placement; there are no affiliate links on this page. Pricing in this category moves, so open the listing before you buy.
One human. One AI. A whole company. — stelardigital.com