Timesact Preorder Review (2026)Free, Then Fixed Past 100 Orders
By Daan Haket · Researched and written with an AI assistant · who does what
The Fixed price depends on your Shopify plan, not on what you use.
Shopify stores that take pre-orders, deposits or back-in-stock sign-ups on a modest or seasonal volume and want to start free, pay a few dollars a month in quiet months and switch to a fixed price when a launch runs past a hundred or so orders.
you run Shopify Plus with steady high pre-order volume and object to a price set by your Shopify plan; most of your checkout traffic goes through Shop Pay or other accelerated buttons and you cannot test that path first; or you only need back-in-stock emails, which lighter apps cover.
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What Timesact Preorder costs at your size
What each plan costs a month on annual billing (monthly billing below it), per order a month from Timesact Preorder’s own pricing page. The cheapest plan at each size is in bold. On annual billing the cheapest plan changes from Free to None between 0 and 50 orders a month. Free stops at 20 orders a month.
| Orders a month | Free | CORE Flexible | PRO Flexible |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50 orders a month | not available | not published $11 monthly | not published $17 monthly |
| 300 orders a month | not available | not published $73 monthly | not published $87 monthly |
| 1,000 orders a month | not available | not published $107 monthly | not published $127 monthly |
| 5,000 orders a month | not available | not available | not available |
| 20,000 orders a month | not available | not available | not available |
Prices read 2026-10-21; tax excluded unless the vendor says otherwise. Calculated by our cost engine; the same numbers are in our open data.
Pricing (2026)
✓ Pricing re-verified 21 Oct 2026
| This tool | $23 | 40th cheapest of 60 |
| Cheapest | $2.99 | MX AI |
| Median | $15 | |
| Most expensive | $199 | Auware |
Lowest paid entry price per account a month, billed monthly, in USD, among the 60 e-commerce growth apps we have researched (read between 2026-08-19 and 2026-11-08). Only tools priced in the same unit and on the same billing are compared. This is not a market survey, and cheapest is not best.
Two families of plans, all billed in USD through Shopify every 30 days with no transaction fees. Free costs $0 and covers 20 orders a month on unlimited products, unlimited email sending and sign-ups, unlimited coming-soon and low-stock states, and support, with Timesact branding on the storefront; the App Store card labels it Free (New Users). Flexible plans are usage-based: CORE Flexible starts at $5 a month for 10 orders and adds deposits, split payments, $0-down pre-orders, CSV upload, pre-order by product tag, SMS, 30 days of analytics and branding removal, at $0.20 per order past the volume you pick; PRO Flexible starts at $7 for 10 orders and adds market and location targeting, storewide automatic back-in-stock and low-stock, charge on fulfilment and analytics without a time window, at $0.30 per order past your volume.
The volume selector on the pricing page lists CORE Flexible at $11 for 50 orders, $17 for 100, $37 for 250, $73 for 500 and $107 for 1,000, and PRO Flexible at $17, $27, $57, $87 and $127 for the same volumes. SMS costs from $0.02 a message for US numbers, only if you use it. Fixed plans cover unlimited orders at one price, marked as a limited-time deal, and the price follows your Shopify subscription: CORE Fixed is $23 a month on Basic Shopify, $47 on Grow, $73 on Advanced and $117 on Plus ($17, $37, $57 and $93 a month billed yearly; the listing puts the Basic yearly price at $204), and PRO Fixed is $27, $57, $87 and $147 ($21, $43, $67 and $117 billed yearly).
A Merchandising add-on (hiding sold-out products, merchant alerts by email and Slack) is $10 a month on any plan, Free included. Plans change, so check the live price on their site before you buy.
Category context: E-commerce. Across the 50 tools in this category that we researched with a public US-dollar price, the median entry price is $19 a month (lowest paid plan as listed, per seat where the vendor prices per seat). Timesact Preorder’s entry price of $5 a month sits below that median. Compare pricing conditions in the Software Cost Atlas →
What the pricing page doesn’t say
CORE Fixed is $23 a month for a store on Basic Shopify and $117 for a store on Shopify Plus, and the pricing page lists the same unlimited orders and the same CORE features at every level. A Plus store therefore pays five times what a Basic store pays for identical capability. Timesact says so openly, but it means the break-even point moves with your store's size: on Basic, CORE Flexible at $17 for 100 orders is cheaper than Fixed and $37 for 250 is dearer, so Fixed wins somewhere between the two; on Plus, Flexible at $107 for 1,000 orders is still cheaper than the $117 Fixed price.
Several reviewers describe checkout gaps. A two-star review from October 2025, by a store that had used the app for more than two years, says pre-orders did not work for orders placed through Shop Pay, the Buy Button or other accelerated checkout buttons. A merchant who edited their review in February 2026 wrote that the second payment on a split-payment pre-order was charged to customers on the estimated arrival date without a notification to the customer or the store; the co-founder replied publicly and said they had tried to reach the merchant.
If you plan to take deposits, test the full flow, including the balance charge and the emails around it, on a test order before you launch a pre-order campaign. The Fixed plans are labelled a limited-time deal, and the page does not say when the deal ends or what the price becomes afterwards. Yearly billing brings CORE Fixed down to $17 a month on Basic, but if you lock in a year, ask in writing whether the price holds at renewal.
Watch the video review
The video version of this review, from our YouTube channel.
What Timesact Preorder does
Shopify pre-orders, deposits and split payments, back-in-stock and coming-soon sign-ups.
Flexible for quiet months, Fixed for launches
The free plan is a real one: 20 orders a month on unlimited products, unlimited email sign-ups and restock emails, coming-soon and low-stock states, badges and translations. What it does not include are the payment options most pre-order campaigns want, namely deposits, split payments and $0-down pre-orders, which start on CORE Flexible at $5 a month. Free also keeps Timesact branding on your storefront. The choice after that is about volume.
Flexible charges for the orders you expect: CORE is $11 for 50, $17 for 100 and $37 for 250, plus $0.20 for each order past the volume you picked. Fixed is one price for unlimited orders, from $23 a month on Basic Shopify. Timesact's own FAQ says Fixed usually works out lower above about a hundred orders a month, and the numbers on the page bear that out for a Basic store.
Because you can switch plans from inside the app at any time, a seasonal store can sit on Flexible most of the year and move to Fixed for the month of a launch. PRO is worth its extra $2 to $30 a month only if you sell in several markets or from several locations, want storewide automatic back-in-stock and low-stock rules rather than per-product settings, need to charge pre-orders on fulfilment, or want analytics beyond 30 days.
Our monthly capture read this vendor's pricing page in September 2026 and again in October 2026, and the amounts were the same both times, including $87, $93, $117 and $147 from the pricing above. We keep watching, and the registry records what moves.
How to actually use Timesact Preorder
Install from the Shopify App Store; it starts on the Free plan, and the vendor offers a free guided setup call on every plan. Choose one product for the first test and pick the experience you need, whether pre-order, back in stock, coming soon or low stock, then check how the button, badge and mixed-cart warning look on your theme. If you want deposits or split payments, move to CORE Flexible and place a test order that goes through each path your customers use, including Shop Pay or another accelerated checkout if you offer one, since a reviewer reported problems there.
Check which emails the customer receives when the balance is charged. Once your monthly order count settles, compare your Flexible bill against the Fixed price for your Shopify plan in the app's Account tab and switch if Fixed is lower.
Where this section comes from: our research notes (120 words)
The Shopify App Store listing at apps.shopify.com/timesact-discount-pre-order (plans, features, integrations, the developer Kairock Partners SRL, the launch date of 1 June 2020 and the review count), its review pages sorted by newest and filtered to one to three stars, and the vendor's pricing page at timesact.com/pages/pricing, including the volume selector values and yearly prices from the page source and every billing FAQ answer, all read in a headless browser on 25 September 2026.
We have not installed the app. The variant-ID answer comes from https://help.timesact.com/en-us/article/adding-products-i0fcwr/ and the subscription answer from https://timesact.com/blogs/news/shopify-pre-orders-december-optimization, both read 21 October 2026. The same day the pricing page (including the volume selector) and the Shopify listing were re-read without a browser and every amount was unchanged.
Timesact Preorder vs Notify Me, side by side
Each column shows the vendor’s own published entry price, read on the date shown. Entry prices can cover different services or units, so check what each one buys. We do not average them into a score.
Both names above are affiliate links: we may earn a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you. Neither changes what this table says.
The natural comparison is Notify Me: Notify Me is the closest comparison in our own dossiers, because it also combines pre-orders and back-in-stock alerts and also charges $0.20 per pre-order past the plan limit. Its ladder (read 23 September 2026) runs on flat tiers with caps: a free Lite tier whose allowances are mostly lifetime rather than monthly (5 pre-orders over the life of the store), Kickstart at $9.90 a month and Starter at $19.90 with 500 alerts and 500 pre-orders, and Standard at $39.90 with 1,500 of each. Timesact's Free plan resets every month at 20 orders, its Flexible plans let you buy exactly the volume you expect from $5, and its Fixed plans remove the cap entirely from $23 on Basic Shopify. A small store testing pre-orders gets more for nothing from Timesact; a store whose main need is back-in-stock alerts and wishlists, with pre-orders on the side, fits Notify Me's structure better..
Frequently asked questions
What does Timesact Preorder cost?
Free covers 20 orders a month. CORE Flexible starts at $5 a month for 10 orders with $0.20 per extra order; PRO Flexible starts at $7 with $0.30 per extra order. Fixed plans cover unlimited orders from $23 a month (CORE) or $27 (PRO) on Basic Shopify, rising with your Shopify plan to $117 and $147 on Plus. Billed in USD through Shopify, read on 25 September 2026.
When is Fixed cheaper than Flexible?
For a Basic Shopify store, somewhere between 100 and 250 orders a month: CORE Flexible is $17 for 100 orders and $37 for 250, against $23 for CORE Fixed. For a Plus store the Fixed price is $117, so Flexible stays cheaper up to about 1,000 orders ($107). You can switch plans in the app at any time.
Does Timesact take a cut of sales?
No. The pricing page and FAQ say it never takes a percentage of a sale on any plan. The only usage charges are the per-order amount on Flexible plans past the volume you chose and SMS messages, from $0.02 each for US numbers, if you use them.
Can editing my Shopify variants break a pre-order?
Yes, and the vendor warns about it. Timesact's help article on adding products (help.timesact.com, read 21 October 2026) says that when you edit a variant Shopify can give it a new ID, and the customer-experience template then loses its link to it. After any variant change, open the pre-order template and check the product is still attached before you send traffic to it.
Can a customer buy a subscription and a pre-order in one purchase?
No. Timesact's own article on December pre-orders (timesact.com, read 21 October 2026) says Shopify does not allow subscription and pre-order selling plans on the same purchase. If you sell subscriptions, keep the pre-order product separate from them; no plan upgrade changes this, because the limit is Shopify's.
Is this a hands-on review of Timesact Preorder?
This is a researched assessment, not a hands-on test. Where we've used a tool ourselves, we say so explicitly. We name what each tool is good and bad at, and we earn a commission only if you sign up, at no cost to you.
- Read 2026-09-25, re-read 2026-10-21 without changes, on timesact.com/pages/pricing, including its volume selector and yearly toggle, and on the Shopify App Store listing apps.shopify.com/timesact-discount-pre-order, which shows the same figures.
- A dated screenshot of that pricing page, kept on this site as the receipt.
Others in this category
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