REZ Preorder alternative: EZ Preorder compared

The short version

At a glance

Deposits that collect themselves

A deposit is only half of a preorder payment. The other half is the balance, and who has to chase it. In EZ Preorder you set a payment completion date, either a fixed day such as your launch date or a number of days after each order, and the app charges the balance to the payment method the customer used at checkout. Customers see the date and the amount due when they pay the deposit.

REZ’s own pages describe this in two ways. Its website says the rest is charged automatically when it is due or fulfilled. Its help center says the remaining balance is collected manually from each order in Shopify admin, on the due date or any time before or after it. If you take deposits in any volume, find out which applies before you commit.

The payment providers differ too. EZ Preorder takes deposits through Shopify Payments and PayPal Express. REZ’s help center says Shopify Payments is required for partial payments and for its preorder discounts. In EZ Preorder, deposits are on the Professional plan ($30), and REZ’s pricing page includes them on every plan.

What you pay, now and later

REZ is the cheaper of the two today. Its plans are Free, Basic at $4.99, Growth at $14.99, Scale at $28.99 and Unlimited at $48.99 a month. REZ lists these as launch prices, next to regular prices of $10, $30, $42 and $62, and says the launch price stays locked for as long as you stay subscribed.

Its paid plans are also metered. Basic includes 100 preorders a month, Growth 400 and Scale 700, and REZ keeps taking preorders past the limit and bills each extra one at $0.25, $0.15 or $0.10.

EZ Preorder’s paid plans are $10, $20, $30 and $50 a month, and below Scale the plan price is the whole bill. Each plan has an allowance, from 50 preorders or $2,000 in preorder sales on Core to 500 or $20,000 on Scale, whichever comes first. When an allowance is used, the Pre-order button stops showing until it resets or you move up a plan, so the bill never rises by itself. EZ Preorder has been on the Shopify App Store since July 2023.

Tools that help a preorder sell

EZ Preorder puts as much into winning the preorder as into taking it. On Growth ($20), badges mark preorder products on collection pages, a preorder page shows everything you have on preorder in one grid, and a featured preorder section puts a preorder product on your home page with its own button.

On Professional ($30) you can add a preorder discount, give a free gift with preorders (on every preorder product or only the ones you pick, with a cap per order), and switch the Pre-order button to send shoppers straight to checkout.

REZ shows its button on product, collection and home pages and has preorder discounts on every plan. It lists no preorder page, no free gift and no direct to checkout button in this app.

Where each feature sits

The lowest plan, and its monthly price, on which each app includes a feature. REZ’s column follows its own pricing page and help center, at its launch prices.

EZ Preorder plans

Start free and move up when your preorders do. Each plan includes everything in the one before it, and plans are billed in USD every 30 days through Shopify.

How EZ Preorder works

• Three rules decide when a product is on preorder. Always, for products that are not released yet. Sold out, to keep selling through a stockout. Specific inventory level, to stop at a set number of preorders. Rules are set per variant, so one size can be on preorder while the rest sell as normal.
• Orders stay ordinary Shopify orders. Shoppers go through your normal Shopify checkout, preorder and in-stock items can share a cart, and you fulfill each order the way you always do.
• A plan is a fixed price with an allowance. Each paid plan covers a number of preorders or an amount of preorder sales per billing cycle, whichever comes first, plus a number of restock alert signups. On Free to Professional there is no charge per order: when an allowance is used, the Pre-order and Notify me buttons stop showing until you move up a plan or the allowance resets with your billing cycle. Scale keeps selling past its allowance, at 1% of each extra preorder and $0.01 per extra signup. How limits work.
• Deposits charge their own balance. On Professional and Scale, shoppers pay a percentage or a fixed amount at checkout and the app charges the rest automatically, on a fixed date or a number of days after each order. Deposits run on Shopify Payments or PayPal Express with Checkout Extensibility, for online store orders, and apply to all of your preorder products once switched on. If a balance charge fails the app does not send a notice yet, so look over unpaid balances after the due date. Partial payments guide.
• Preorders get their own places in your store. On Growth and up, badges mark preorder products on collection pages, a preorder page lists everything you have on preorder, and a featured section puts a preorder product on your home page.
• Restock alerts work per variant. A Notify me button shows on sold out variants, shoppers leave their email, and the app emails everyone waiting on that variant as soon as its inventory is above 0. Each signup counts as one restock alert.
• Customers are kept in the loop. Preorder confirmation emails are on every plan, and if a ship date moves you can email everyone who preordered that product in one go.

Switching from REZ to EZ Preorder

You can set EZ Preorder up on its Free plan, on one product, before you change anything else in REZ.

1. Install EZ Preorder and turn on the app embed. You can start on the Free plan, which covers one preorder product and one restock alert product. The embed is a switch under App embeds in your theme editor.
2. Use one app per product. Two preorder apps changing the same Add to cart button get in each other’s way, so switch REZ off for a product before you test EZ Preorder on it.
3. Add your products and pick a rule. In Preorders, select the products, then choose Always, Sold out or Specific inventory level for each variant and add a note with the ship date.
4. Set up deposits if you take them. On Professional, choose a percentage or a fixed deposit and the date the balance is charged. EZ Preorder collects balances for the orders it takes, so collect any balances still open in REZ before you uninstall it.
5. Add the Notify me button. Add the EZ Preorder - Notify Me block to your product template and add products to the restock list. New signups are collected in EZ Preorder from then on, so send any alerts still waiting in REZ before you remove it.
6. Turn on preorder confirmation emails. It is one switch under Configuration, in Notification Settings, and the template can be edited.
7. Add the selling tools. On Growth, switch on collection page badges and the custom preorder page and add its link to your menu. On Professional, add a preorder discount, a free gift or the direct to checkout button.
8. Place a test preorder. Open the product on your store, check that the Pre-order button shows where your rule says it should, and run it through checkout.

Each step is covered in the EZ Preorder help center.