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 the product is restocked, the plugin emails everyone who signed up for it. The emails are sent through a background process, so a large waitlist does not slow down your store.

The plugin is for WooCommerce store owners who want to keep shoppers who arrive at a sold-out product. You manage subscribers under Instock Notifier > All Subscribers and configure the form, messages, sending rules and extras such as Auto Coupon, bot protection and Estimate Stock Arrival under Instock Notifier > Settings.

The subscription confirmation email and the back in stock email are standard WooCommerce emails. You edit them under WooCommerce > Settings > Emails, where they use your store's email styling. The plugin works with simple and variable products (at product and variation level), grouped products, simple and variable subscriptions (WooCommerce Subscriptions) and product bundles (WooCommerce Product Bundles).

The plugin is free and installs from WordPress.org. It needs WooCommerce, so install and activate WooCommerce first.

Instock Notifier > All Subscribers lists everyone who joined a waitlist. Each row shows:

• Email: the subscriber's name and email address.
• Status: for example MAIL SENT, SUBSCRIBED or UNSUBSCRIBED.
• Product: the product (or variation) and its Current Stock Status.
• Registered User: whether the subscriber has an account on your site.
• Subscribed on and Mail Sent on: when they signed up and when the back in stock email went out.

Use the links above the table (All, Mail Sent, Subscribed, Unsubscribed) to switch between statuses. You can narrow the list with All dates, Filter by product category, Filter by stock status and Filter by products, then click Filter. Use Search Subscribers to find an address.

The stock status filter includes "In stock but below notification threshold", which helps you find subscribers the automatic sender skipped. Select rows and use Bulk actions to send the back in stock email manually or delete entries.

The Instock Notifier menu shows a badge with the number of new subscribers since your last visit. You can change or hide this counter in Troubleshoot Settings (Experimental).

Instock Notifier > Settings opens on the Frontend Form tab. Here you control how the subscribe form looks on out-of-stock products.

• Frontend Subscribe Form Display Type: show the form directly on the product page (Inline Subscribe Form) or behind a button that opens a popup (Pop-Up Subscribe Form). When you choose the popup, a popup design setting appears.
• 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 settings and fields keep working.
• Title for Subscribe Form, Placeholder for Name Field, Placeholder for Email Field and Button Label: change the text shoppers see.

Click Save Changes after editing any tab.

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

• Hide Name removes the name field. Show Phone adds a phone field.
• Hide Subscribe Form for Guests and Hide Subscribe Form for Members limit the form to logged-in or logged-out visitors.
• 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 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. Leave the field empty to show the form on all out-of-stock products.
• Hide Subscribe Form on Regular Products out of stock, Hide Subscribe Form on Sale Products out of stock and Hide Subscribe Form on Free or Zero Price Out of Stock Products exclude those product groups.

Two options help with variable products. Some themes disable out-of-stock variations, and the plugin overrides that so the variations can be selected. Enable Don't overwrite disabled out of stock variations from theme configuration to keep your theme's behaviour. If you hide out-of-stock products in WooCommerce (WooCommerce > Products > Inventory > Out of stock visibility), out-of-stock variations also disappear from the dropdown. Enable Ignore WooCommerce Out of Stock Visibility Settings for Variation to keep them selectable.

The Message Settings tab holds the text shoppers see after they submit the form:

• Success Subscription Message and Email Already Subscribed Message support the {product_name} and {only_product_name} placeholders.
• Name Field Empty Error, Email Field Empty Error and Invalid Email Error cover the name and email fields.
• Invalid Phone Number Error, Phone Number too short error and Phone Number too long error apply when you show the phone field.

The same email address is never added twice to one product's waitlist. When someone tries, they see the Email Already Subscribed Message.

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

At the top, Customize Subscription Confirmation Email and Customize Back In Stock Email open the two WooCommerce email screens. You edit subject, heading, content and email type there.

• From Name, From Email and Reply To Email set the sender details. Leave Reply To Email empty if you do not need a reply-to address.
• Additionally Send this Subscription mail as a copy to specific email ids: enable it and enter addresses in the box below, separated by commas, to get a copy of each new subscription. Edit Copy Subscription Mail Subject and Copy Subscription Mail Message with placeholders such as {subscriber_name}, {subscriber_email} and {product_name}.
• Consider Only Published Product Status: only send back in stock emails for published products, not private or draft ones.
• Minimum stock quantity threshold value: the email only goes out when stock reaches at least this quantity. For example, with 5 you must set the product's stock to 5 or more.
• Keep Subscription Entry to Subscribed Status even Instock Email Sent (Unless it is Unsubscribed) is marked Not recommended. Subscribers then stay on the list after the email is sent and are notified on every 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 others stay on the waitlist for the next restock. Fair Sending: Subscribers to Notify per Unit in Stock sets how many people to notify per unit. This applies only to automatic emails for products that manage stock quantity. Manual and bulk sends are never limited.

Auto Coupon creates a unique discount coupon for each subscriber when their back in stock email is sent. The coupon only works for the exact product or variation the person subscribed to. It is off by default.

To use it:

1. Tick Enable Auto Coupon.
2. Set Discount Type (Percentage discount, Fixed product discount or Fixed cart discount) and Coupon Amount. Enter 10 for 10% with a percentage discount. Set 0 to turn coupon creation off.
3. Set Coupon Valid For (days) (0 means no expiry), Coupon Code Prefix and Usage Limit per Coupon. Codes look like PREFIX-XXXXXXXX.
4. Add one of {coupon_code}, {coupon_amount}, {coupon_expiry} or {coupon_box} to the Back In Stock - Product Available email under WooCommerce > Settings > Emails. No coupon is created unless the email contains one of these placeholders.

Other options:

• Minimum Spend: optional minimum cart total.
• Do Not Create Coupon for Products on Sale: if the product is already on sale, the email is sent without a coupon.
• Coupon Cannot Be Used on Sale Items, Cannot Be Combined with Other Coupons, Restrict Coupon to Subscriber Email and Allow Free Shipping apply the matching WooCommerce coupon rules.

{coupon_box} adds a ready-styled coupon block with the discount, the code, the expiry date and a shop button. You can change its wording with Coupon Block Heading, Coupon Block Subtext, Coupon Block Expiry Line and Coupon Block Button Label. Leave them empty to keep the default text. Coupon Block Colour matches your WooCommerce email colour or your website colour, or uses a colour you pick under Custom Accent Colour. Coupon Block Background sets the block's background colour.

Back in stock emails are sent in the background. This tab controls how.

• Background Process Engine: choose WooCommerce Background Process or Default Background Process.
• Limit Email Sending Speed: send automatic emails gradually if your host or SMTP service limits how many you can send. Emails over the limit go out in the following minutes, nothing is skipped. Set the rate in Maximum Emails per Minute. Pick a value slightly below your provider's limit (for example, 600 per hour is 10 per minute). Manual sends, bulk sends and subscription confirmation emails are never delayed.
• Auto-retry Stuck Emails: if a background task fails or never runs (for example when the server cron is not firing), a recovery task tries to send those emails again. Leave it off unless you actually see stuck entries.
• Retry Frequency and Maximum Retry Attempts control how often and how many times it retries.
• Status After All Retries Fail: Mail Not Sent (recommended) keeps the entry visible so you can send it manually. Subscribed (retry on next restock) puts it back on the waitlist. You can also choose Unsubscribed.

Add a captcha to the subscribe form to stop spam signups.

1. Under Bot Protection through, choose Google reCAPTCHA or Turnstile (Cloudflare).
2. For Google reCAPTCHA, tick Enable Google reCAPTCHA in Subscribe Form, choose v2 or v3 under Select Google reCAPTCHA version and enter the site key.
3. To verify the response on the server, tick Verify Google reCAPTCHA response in Server Side - this will ignore nonce validation and enter the secret key. The secret key is only needed for this option.
4. For Turnstile, enable Turnstile in the subscribe form and enter your Turnstile site key and secret key.

The screen notes that server-side validation is required for Google reCAPTCHA v2 and Turnstile to work properly. Turning on bot protection also resolves the "Something went wrong, please try again after some time" error.

Let shoppers say how many units they want.

• Display Quantity Field in the Front-End Subscription Form adds the field to the form.
• Quantity Field Placeholder and Quantity Field Empty Error set its text.
• Quantity Field Optional lets shoppers leave it empty.

Use the {cwginstock_quantity} placeholder in your mail settings to show the requested quantity in emails.

Keep your subscriber list tidy by removing old entries automatically.

Tick Enable Auto Delete and set the number of days. Subscribers with the status MAIL SENT, UNSUBSCRIBED or PURCHASED are deleted after that many days. Entries still waiting are not affected.

You set how often the delete task runs with Delete Subscriber Cron Recurrence in Troubleshoot Settings (Experimental).

Add a consent checkbox (GDPR) to the form.

1. Tick Enable I Agree in Subscribe Form.
2. Edit the text shown next to the checkbox. You can include links to your terms and privacy policy, for example <a href="...">terms</a>. Replace the sample link addresses with your own pages.
3. Set the I Agree Error Message shown when a shopper submits without ticking the box.

Show shoppers when a product is expected back, right inside the subscribe form.

• Tick Enable Estimate Stock Arrival.
• Rule Priority: when more than one rule matches the same product, apply the First Matched Rule or the Last Matched Rule.
• Display Message Place: show the message before or after the heading, the input field or the submit button.

You create the rules themselves on the Estimate Stock Arrival screen in the Instock Notifier menu.

This tab collects options for fixing conflicts and fine-tuning behaviour. Leave them at their current values unless you have a specific problem.

• Frontend Subscribe Form Submission via: switch from WordPress AJAX(default) to WordPress REST API Route if subscribing fails because of caching.
• Enable if Subscribe Form Layout Problem/Input Field Overlap: use this if the form layout breaks on the frontend.
• Enable Accessibility Compliance for Subscribe Form: adds accessible labels, screen-reader messages and safe submit behaviour.
• Additional Class Name for Subscribe Button(seperated by commas): add your theme's button classes.
• Hide Subscriber Count(Admin Side) and Admin Menu Counter Shows: control the badge on the Instock Notifier menu.
• Enable this option if you have updated the stock from a third-party inventory plugin: only needed when stock changes outside WooCommerce (for example an ERP writing to the database). Subscribers are notified when a product changes from out of stock to in stock, checked at the scheduled recurrence.
• Delete Subscriber Cron Recurrence: how often the delete subscribers task runs.
• Trigger mail to variable product subscribers when any other variation of that product is back in stock: notify all variation subscribers when any variation is restocked.
• Force load Template from Plugin - This option ignores the template override from theme: ignore a form template copied into your theme.
• Enable Cache Buster: adds a cache buster to the add-to-cart link in the back in stock email.
• Show Subscribers Count adds a column to Products. Remove View Subscribers Link in Product List Table(Admin Dashboard -> Products) removes the link there.
• Disable sending emails on staging environments: stops emails from staging copies of your site.
• Disable Prefilled Data for Logged-in Users: stops the form from filling in the name and email of logged-in users.
• Trash Subscribers upon Product Deletion: trashes subscribers when their product or variation is deleted.
• Auto Purge W3 Total Cache on Stock Status Update: clears the product page's W3 Total Cache when its stock status changes.

Instock Notifier > Status gives you a quick health check:

• CRON STATUS shows whether WP-Cron is active. Background sending depends on it.
• Settings Configuration shows whether the Success Subscription Mail and Back In Stock Email are enabled, and whether their subjects and messages are present.
• 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 whether the subscribe form template is overridden by 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 it.
• Delete All Posts & Related Data removes all subscription posts and their data. Use it only when you really want to clear your waitlists.

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

The plugin adds two emails to WooCommerce > Settings > Emails. You can also reach them from the buttons on the Mail Settings tab.

• Back In Stock - Subscription Confirmation is sent right after someone subscribes.
• Back In Stock - Product Available is sent when the product they subscribed to is back in stock.

Each 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 back in stock email also supports {coupon_code}, {coupon_amount}, {coupon_expiry} and {coupon_box}. These need Auto Coupon to be enabled under Instock Notifier > Settings > Auto Coupon.

If you disable an email here, subscribers stay subscribed until you enable it again.

When a product is out of stock, shoppers see an Email when stock available box below the stock status. By default it has a name field, an email field and a Subscribe Now button. For logged-in customers, the name and email are filled in automatically (you can turn this off in Troubleshoot Settings (Experimental)).

After submitting, the shopper sees your success message and, if enabled, receives the subscription confirmation email. When the product is back in stock, they receive the back in stock email with links to the product and to add it to the cart.

Depending on your settings, the form can also show:

• a phone field, a quantity field or an I Agree consent checkbox
• a Google reCAPTCHA or Cloudflare Turnstile check
• an estimate stock arrival message
• a popup instead of the inline form, in one of several designs

On variable products, the form appears for out-of-stock variations. You can also add a Subscribe Now button to shop and category pages under Visibility Settings.