Back In Stock Notifier for WooCommerce | WooCommerce Waitlist Pro documentation

Back In Stock Notifier for WooCommerce shows an email subscription form on out-of-stock products. When a product comes back in stock, the plugin emails everyone who subscribed. It is for WooCommerce store owners who want to keep in touch with shoppers who found a product sold out.

The form works for guests and logged-in customers. It supports simple and variable products (at product and variation level), grouped products, simple and variable subscriptions (WooCommerce Subscriptions) and product bundles (WooCommerce Product Bundles). Restock emails go out through a background process. The subscription confirmation email and the back in stock email use the WooCommerce email system, so you edit them under WooCommerce > Settings > Emails.

You manage everything from the Instock Notifier admin menu. There you can view and filter subscribers, change the form text and visibility, set up bot protection, optional auto coupons, sending limits and auto-delete rules, and check the plugin status.

Back In Stock Notifier for WooCommerce is a free plugin on WordPress.org. It needs WooCommerce, so install and activate WooCommerce first.

Instock Notifier > All Subscribers lists every waitlist entry. Use it to see who is waiting for which product and whether they have been notified.

The table has these columns:

• Email: the subscriber's name and email address.
• Status: for example Subscribed, Mail Sent or Unsubscribed.
• Product: the product (with SKU) and its Current Stock Status.
• Registered User: whether the subscriber has an account on your site.
• Subscribed on and Mail Sent on: when the entry was created and when the back in stock email went out.

At the top you can switch between status views (All, Mail Sent, Subscribed, Unsubscribed) and search subscribers. You can also filter by date, by product category, by stock status and by product. The stock status filter includes "In stock but below notification threshold". It helps you find subscribers who were skipped by the automatic sender so you can notify them by hand. Use Bulk actions to act on several entries at once, including sending the back in stock email manually.

The Instock Notifier menu shows a badge with new subscribers since your last visit. The badge clears when you open this list.

Go to Instock Notifier > Settings. The settings page is split into tabs. The first tab, Frontend Form, controls how the subscribe form looks when a product is out of stock.

• Frontend Subscribe Form Display Type: show the form inline on the product page, or as a pop-up (Pop-Up Subscribe Form). A popup design setting appears only when you choose the pop-up option.
• Subscribe Form Design: choose Default (classic), Card, Minimal, Compact (single row), Bold or Outline. "Default (classic)" keeps the original look and loads no extra stylesheet. The other designs restyle the same form, so your fields and settings keep working.
• Title for Subscribe Form, Placeholder for Name Field, Placeholder for Email Field and Button Label set the text shoppers see.

Click Save Changes after each tab.

The Visibility Settings tab decides where the form appears and which fields it contains.

• Hide Name removes the name field. Show Phone adds a phone field.
• Hide Subscribe Form for Guests and Hide Subscribe Form for Members hide the form for visitors who are not logged in, or for logged-in users.
• Show Subscribe Form on Backorders also shows the form on products that allow backorders.
• Show Subscribe Now Button in Catalog Page(shop/category) adds a Subscribe Now button to shop and category pages. Hide Read more Button in Catalog Page(shop/category) hides the Read more button there.
• Show/Hide Subscribe Form for specific products, categories and tags: pick items and choose Show or Hide. When these fields are empty, the form shows on all out-of-stock products.
• You can hide the form on regular, sale, or free/zero price products that are out of stock.
• Don't overwrite disabled out of stock variations from theme configuration: some themes disable out-of-stock variations. By default the plugin makes them selectable. Enable this to keep your theme's behavior.
• Ignore WooCommerce Out of Stock Visibility Settings for Variation: WooCommerce can hide out-of-stock products from the catalog (WooCommerce > Products > Inventory > Out of stock visibility). That also hides out-of-stock variations from the variation dropdown. Enable this so variable products ignore that setting.

The Message Settings tab holds the messages shoppers see after they submit the form. It covers the success message, the "already subscribed" message and the error texts for empty or invalid name, email and phone fields.

The Success Subscription Message and Email Already Subscribed Message support the {product_name} and {only_product_name} placeholders.

The Mail Settings tab controls who the emails come from and when back in stock emails are sent.

Email Notifications: the two emails are WooCommerce email templates. Use Customize Subscription Confirmation Email and Customize Back In Stock Email to open them (see the next section).

Sender: set From Name, From Email and an optional Reply To Email.

Copy of subscriptions: enable Additionally Send this Subscription mail as a copy to specific email ids to get an email each time someone subscribes. Enter the addresses separated by commas and edit the copy's subject and message. You can use {subscriber_name}, {subscriber_email} and {product_name}.

Sending rules:

• Consider Only Published Product Status: only published products trigger the back in stock email. Private and draft products are skipped.
• Minimum stock quantity threshold value: when you manage stock by quantity, the email is only sent once stock reaches this number. For example, with 5 you must set the stock to 5 or more.
• Keep Subscription Entry to Subscribed Status even Instock Email Sent (Unless it is Unsubscribed): marked Not recommended. Subscribers stay subscribed after the email. They are notified again on each restock until they purchase or unsubscribe.
• Fair Sending: Notify only as many Subscribers as Units in Stock: on a small restock, only the earliest subscribers are notified. The rest stay on the waitlist for the next restock. This applies only to automatic emails for products that manage stock quantity. Manual and bulk sends are not limited.
• Fair Sending: Subscribers to Notify per Unit in Stock: how many subscribers to notify for each unit. With 2, restocking 5 units notifies the first 10 subscribers.

The plugin adds two emails under WooCommerce > Settings > Emails:

• Back In Stock - Subscription Confirmation: sent to the subscriber right after they subscribe.
• Back In Stock - Product Available: sent to subscribers when the product is back in stock.

Each one has Enable/Disable, Subject, Email heading, Additional content and Email type (Plain text, HTML or Multipart). The Email preview shows the email with sample content, and Send a test email sends it to you.

Both emails support these placeholders: {product_name}, {product_id}, {product_link}, {shopname}, {email_id}, {subscriber_email}, {cart_link}, {only_product_name}, {only_product_sku}, {product_price}, {product_image}, {subscriber_name}, {subscriber_phone}, {subscriber_firstname}, {subscriber_lastname} and {product_table}. {product_table} shows the subscribed product in an order style table.

The Product Available email also supports {coupon_code}, {coupon_amount} and {coupon_expiry}. They only work when Auto Coupon is enabled.

If you turn off one of these emails, subscribers keep the Subscribed status until you turn it back on.

The Auto Coupon tab can create a unique discount coupon for each subscriber when their back in stock email is sent. A coupon only works for the exact product or variation the person subscribed to.

To use it:

1. Tick Enable Auto Coupon (it is off by default).
2. Choose the Discount Type (Percentage discount, Fixed product discount or Fixed cart discount) and the Coupon Amount. Set the amount to 0 to disable coupon creation.
3. Set Coupon Valid For (days) (0 means no expiry), the Coupon Code Prefix (codes look like PREFIX-XXXXXXXX), the Usage Limit per Coupon and an optional Minimum Spend.
4. Choose the sale and usage rules: Do Not Create Coupon for Products on Sale, Coupon Cannot Be Used on Sale Items, Cannot Be Combined with Other Coupons, Restrict Coupon to Subscriber Email and Allow Free Shipping.
5. Add {coupon_code}, {coupon_amount} or {coupon_expiry} to the Back In Stock - Product Available email under WooCommerce > Settings > Emails.

A coupon is only created when one of these placeholders is in the email.

Back in stock emails are sent in the background. This tab lets you choose how that works.

• Background Process Engine: choose WooCommerce Background Process or Default Background Process.
• Limit Email Sending Speed and Maximum Emails per Minute: send automatic emails gradually if your host or SMTP service limits how many emails you can send. Emails over the limit go out in the following minutes. Nothing is skipped. Manual sends, bulk sends and confirmation emails are never delayed. For example, a provider limit of 600 emails per hour means at most 10 per minute.
• Auto-retry Stuck Emails: if a background task fails or never runs (for example when the server cron is not firing), subscribers can be left without an email. When you enable this, a recovery task finds those entries and tries again. No task is scheduled while it is off.
• Retry Frequency, Maximum Retry Attempts and Status After All Retries Fail control the retries. "Mail Not Sent" keeps the entry visible so you can send it manually. "Subscribed" puts it back in the pool for the next restock.

The Bot Protection tab adds Google reCAPTCHA or Cloudflare Turnstile to the subscribe form. Turning on either one also fixes the "Something went wrong, please try again after some time" error.

Google reCAPTCHA

1. Set Bot Protection through to Google reCAPTCHA.
2. Tick Enable Google reCAPTCHA in Subscribe Form.
3. Choose v2 or v3 in Select Google reCAPTCHA version and enter the site key.
4. To also check the response on the server, tick Verify Google reCAPTCHA response in Server Side - this will ignore nonce validation and enter the secret key.

Turnstile

Set Bot Protection through to Turnstile, enable Turnstile in the subscribe form, then enter your Turnstile site key and secret key.

Server-side validation is required for Google reCAPTCHA v2 and Turnstile to work properly and securely.

Tick Display Quantity Field in the Front-End Subscription Form to let subscribers say how many units they want. You can set a Quantity Field Placeholder, the Quantity Field Empty Error message, and make the field optional with Quantity Field Optional.

To show the requested quantity in your emails, add {cwginstock_quantity} to the email content.

Keep your subscriber list tidy by deleting old entries automatically. Tick Enable Auto Delete and enter the number of days. Only entries with the status MAIL SENT, UNSUBSCRIBED or PURCHASED are deleted.

You can change how often this cleanup runs with Delete Subscriber Cron Recurrence on the Troubleshoot Settings (Experimental) tab.

Add a consent checkbox (for GDPR compliance) to the subscribe form. Tick Enable I Agree in Subscribe Form and edit the text shown next to the checkbox. The text accepts HTML links, so you can link to your terms and privacy policy. Set the I Agree Error Message that appears when a shopper submits without ticking the box.

Estimate Stock Arrival shows a message on the subscribe form telling shoppers when you expect the product back. You create the rules under Instock Notifier > Estimate Stock Arrival. This tab turns the feature on and controls how the message is shown.

• Enable Estimate Stock Arrival turns the feature on.
• Rule Priority decides which rule applies when more than one rule matches the same product: First Matched Rule or Last Matched Rule.
• Display Message Place sets where the message appears in the form: before or after the heading, the input field or the submit button.

This tab collects options that fix specific problems. Most stores can leave them alone.

• Frontend Subscribe Form Submission via: switch from WordPress AJAX(default) to WordPress REST API Route if shoppers see "Something went wrong" when subscribing.
• Enable if Subscribe Form Layout Problem/Input Field Overlap: use only if the form layout breaks on your theme.
• Enable Accessibility Compliance for Subscribe Form: adds accessible labels, screen-reader messages and safe submit behavior.
• Additional Class Name for Subscribe Button(seperated by commas): adds CSS classes to the button.
• Hide Subscriber Count(Admin Side) and Admin Menu Counter Shows: control the badge on the Instock Notifier menu (new subscribers since your last visit, or the total).
• Enable this option if you have updated the stock from a third-party inventory plugin: only needed when stock is updated outside WooCommerce, for example by an ERP writing straight to the database. Subscribers are then notified when a product changes from out of stock to in stock, checked on a schedule. Leave it off if you update stock through WooCommerce.
• Delete Subscriber Cron Recurrence: how often the delete subscribers job runs.
• Remove View Subscribers Link in Product List Table(Admin Dashboard -> Products) and Show Subscribers Count control what appears in the Products list.
• Trigger mail to variable product subscribers when any other variation of that product is back in stock.
• Force load Template from Plugin - This option ignores the template override from theme.
• Enable Cache Buster: adds a cache buster to the add-to-cart link in the back in stock email.
• Disable sending emails on staging environments, Disable Prefilled Data for Logged-in Users, Trash Subscribers upon Product Deletion and Auto Purge W3 Total Cache on Stock Status Update.

Instock Notifier > Status is a health check for the plugin.

• CRON STATUS shows whether WP-Cron is active. Background sending depends on it.
• Settings Configuration shows whether the two emails are enabled, whether their subjects and messages are present, and whether "Keep Subscription Entry to Subscribed Status" is on.
• EMAIL STATUS has a Test Email button and shows the address the test is sent to.
• ACTIVE ADD-ON(S) lists active add-ons and tells you if the subscribe form template is loaded from your theme.
• Want to change the UI of Backend Admin Settings? switches the settings page between Default UI and Tabbed UI. Click Change Settings UI to apply.
• Delete All Posts & Related Data removes all subscription entries and their data. You are asked to confirm first. This cannot be undone, so export your subscribers first if you might need them.

Instock Notifier > Plugins & Add-ons lists ProPluginsLab WooCommerce plugins and Back In Stock Notifier add-ons. The list loads automatically through a daily sync. Click Refresh to load it now, or Visit ProPluginsLab to browse the website.

The plugin's own admin screens also show a banner about Bundle Add-ons. You can dismiss it for 30 days, and it is hidden when Bundle Add-ons is active.

When a product is out of stock, shoppers see a subscribe box below the Out of stock notice on the product page. By default it has the title Email when stock available, a name field, an email field and a Subscribe Now button. For logged-in customers, the name and email are filled in for them.

After the shopper submits, they see your success message. If they are already on the waitlist for that product, they see the "already subscribed" message instead, because the same email is never added twice to one waitlist.

What else appears depends on your settings:

• A pop-up form instead of the inline box (Frontend Form).
• A phone field, a quantity field or an I Agree consent checkbox.
• A reCAPTCHA or Turnstile check (Bot Protection).
• An estimated stock arrival message (Estimate Stock Arrival).
• A Subscribe Now button on shop and category pages (Visibility Settings).

The subscriber then receives the subscription confirmation email, and later the back in stock email when the product is restocked.