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WooCommerce & WordPress Plugin Docs

Waitlist

Waitlist adds a waitlist form to out-of-stock and backorder WooCommerce products. A shopper leaves an email, and when you set the product back to In stock Waitlist emails everyone waiting through your site’s own wp_mail. There is no external service, no account, and no third party, subscriber data stays in one custom table in your database.

How it works

Section titled “How it works”

Waitlist hooks woocommerce_single_product_summary (priority 32) and renders the form in PHP, in the normal page flow, so it adds no layout shift. On a simple product the form shows only when the product is out of stock or on backorder. On a variable product the form is output hidden and revealed by WooCommerce’s own variation script once the shopper selects an unavailable variation, storing that variation ID.

Notifications fire on woocommerce_product_set_stock_status when the new status is instock. Waitlist looks up pending subscribers for that product (and, for a variation, its parent), emails each one with wp_mail, and marks them notified so nobody is contacted twice. There is no queue or cron to run.

Free edition

Section titled “Free edition”
  • Signup form on out-of-stock and backorder products, added automatically or placed with the [restock_waitlist] shortcode or the Elementor widget.
  • Variation-aware waitlists, the form appears for the selected unavailable variation and stores its ID.
  • Automatic restock email, a plain-text wp_mail notification with an editable subject, intro and closing, and a {product_name} placeholder.
  • My Account > Waitlists tab for logged-in customers, listing active signups with stock status and a leave-waitlist button.
  • Required consent checkbox on every signup; guest signups can be turned off entirely.
  • Admin subscriber list with Total/Waiting/Notified counts, a per-product filter, and CSV export.
  • Accessible by design, visually hidden email label, aria-live result announcements, aria-busy during submit, built with WCAG 2.2 AA in mind.
  • Theme-overridable form and My Account templates, plus two template filters for developers.

The free edition is the full GPL product, not a trial with hidden limits. It declares compatibility with WooCommerce HPOS (Custom Order Tables) and Cart/Checkout Blocks.

Waitlist Pro

Section titled “Waitlist Pro”

Waitlist Pro is a separate add-on that requires the free Waitlist plugin installed and active. It adds demand analytics, double opt-in, scheduled sends and category segmentation. None of those are needed for the core waitlist flow, which is complete in the free edition. See Waitlist Pro.

Screen Purpose
Waitlist > Demand Analytics Pending signups per product, products with demand, fulfilled signups, most-demanded out-of-stock products, and the two PRO CSV exports.
Waitlist > Double Opt-In Optional email confirmation before a shopper joins the waitlist. Confirmation links expire after seven days.
Waitlist > Scheduled Sends Stagger back-in-stock emails in configurable batches instead of one burst when stock returns.
Waitlist > Segmentation Include or exclude product categories before notifications send. Works with immediate sends and scheduled batches.

Beyond the basic free subscriber CSV, Waitlist > Demand Analytics offers two exports:

  • Export demand CSV, per-product pending counts with SKU, stock status, categories and product URL.
  • Export subscribers CSV, every pending signup with product metadata for CRM or purchasing workflows.

Requirements for Waitlist Pro: WordPress 6.4+, WooCommerce 8.0+, PHP 8.1+, the free Waitlist plugin active, and an active Waitlist Pro licence.

Planned for PRO: per-variation waitlist targeting (beyond the free variation signups).

Go-to-market engineering: demand telemetry and intent signals

Section titled “Go-to-market engineering: demand telemetry and intent signals”

For go-to-market engineering and RevOps teams, out-of-stock items are not lost traffic; they are high-intent demand signals:

  • Quantified unmet demand: Accurately measures purchase intent per SKU and variation to inform inventory forecasting and procurement.
  • Automated conversion velocity: Triggers instant notification cycles upon restocking, turning captured waitlists into immediate revenue without manual outbound outreach.

Polski overlap

Section titled “Polski overlap”

Polski for WooCommerce can include a waitlist in Other storefront modules. Do not run both, if that module is enabled, do not also install Waitlist. See Standalone storefront plugins in Polski.

Next steps

Section titled “Next steps”
  • Getting started, install, the first signup, and the first restock email.
  • Configuration, every setting and its option key.
  • Using waitlists, the full storefront flow, variations, and the subscriber list.
  • FAQ, guests, GDPR, storage, jQuery and uninstall.