PreOrder Pilot – Preorders & Backorders for WooCommerce

Description

Take preorders (pre-orders) on coming soon products, new launches and out-of-stock items awaiting restock, as an alternative to plain WooCommerce backorders.

PreOrder Pilot is a free WooCommerce pre-order plugin that helps you sell products before stock arrives. Accept full payment now, give shoppers an expected availability date and manage paid pre-orders inside WordPress.

Use it for upcoming product launches, new collections and products awaiting restock. Enable pre-orders on unlimited simple products without creating an account, entering a license key or writing code.

From coming soon to a paid order

1. Choose your product. Open PreOrder Pilot, choose Add preorder and select a simple WooCommerce product.
2. Set clear expectations. Add an optional availability date and choose the pre-order button wording.
3. Start taking pre-orders. Customers pay through your usual WooCommerce checkout and receive a pre-order confirmation email.
4. Release when ready. Find paid pre-orders in their dedicated status and move them to Processing when products are ready to fulfil.

Why choose PreOrder Pilot?

• Start simply. A guided setup and one dashboard keep product settings and pre-orders easy to manage.
• Sell without a product cap. The free plugin supports unlimited simple products and orders, with no time limit.
• Make delivery expectations clear. Pre-order details follow the customer from the product page through cart, checkout and confirmation emails.
• Work inside your store. Use your WooCommerce checkout, payment gateways and email settings. The free plugin requires no account and makes no remote requests.
• Keep paid pre-orders easy to find. A dedicated Pre-ordered status separates them in your order workflow until you release them.

The free plugin collects full payment at checkout. Deposits, pay later, variable products and automatic stock rules belong to the separate optional Growth add-on, described below.

Features

Everything below is free, with no product limit and no license key:

• Pre-orders for any number of simple products, each with an optional expected availability date.
• A custom pre-order button label and an availability message on the product page, in the cart, at checkout, in the order and in emails.
• Full payment at checkout using your normal WooCommerce gateways.
• A dedicated Pre-ordered order status (HPOS and legacy storage), so paid pre-orders are easy to find and are not shipped by mistake.
• A “Pre-order confirmation” customer email built on WooCommerce emails. Edit it under WooCommerce → Settings → Emails, or override the template in your theme.
• A reusable customer email design with a store logo, banner, accent color and sender name. Replies go to the store’s WooCommerce contact address.
• An admin dashboard with pre-order totals, a product list with search, an order list, and bulk enable, pause, set-date and mark-released actions.
• Mark a product released and its pre-ordered orders move to Processing.
• WooCommerce Classic and Cart/Checkout Blocks support.
• Built-in German, French, Greek, Spanish, Turkish, Polish, Italian, Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese translations for the dashboard and customer messages.
• No account, no telemetry and no remote requests. Everything runs inside your store.

Free vs Growth

The free plugin supports simple products and full payment at checkout. Variable products, deposits, pay later, automatic stock rules and back-in-stock alerts require the separate Growth add-on.

PreOrder Pilot is complete on its own. PreOrder Pilot Growth is a separate, optional paid plugin that extends it through the public hooks below. It adds:

• Deposits (fixed or percentage) and pay-later orders, with balance payment links and reminders.
• Mixed-cart rules: allow, block, or split pre-order items into their own order.
• Variable products and per-variation settings.
• Automatic pre-orders when out of stock, and automatic release on restock.
• Pre-order rules by product category.
• Quantity limits with atomic reservations, start and end dates, and discounts.
• Extra customer emails: release date changed, product released, balance reminder, and “email me when available” alerts.
• CSV export of pre-orders and subscribers.
• Countdown timers, a launch calendar and per-country allocations.
• Marketing webhooks for Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Omnisend and similar tools.

This free plugin contains none of the Growth code and never limits or locks its own features.

Supported app languages

Use PreOrder Pilot in English, German, French, Greek, Spanish, Turkish, Polish, Italian, Portuguese (Portugal) or Portuguese (Brazil). The nine translations are included in the plugin and work immediately, without waiting for a separate language-pack download. They cover the dashboard, settings and default customer messages, including messages used by the optional Growth add-on. Choose your dashboard language in your WordPress user profile.

For developers

Actions: preorder_pilot_loaded, preorder_pilot_settings_saved, preorder_pilot_release_date_changed, preorder_pilot_product_released, preorder_pilot_order_confirmed, preorder_pilot_product_panel_end, preorder_pilot_settings_fields.

Filters: preorder_pilot_setting_defaults, preorder_pilot_sanitize_settings, preorder_pilot_validate_settings, preorder_pilot_is_active, preorder_pilot_modes, preorder_pilot_supported_product_types, preorder_pilot_availability_message, preorder_pilot_product_field_definitions, preorder_pilot_snapshot, preorder_pilot_cart_item_data, preorder_pilot_email_classes, preorder_pilot_admin_tabs, preorder_pilot_use_preorder_status.