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Three types of app that get mixed up

Search the App Store for a low stock alert app and you get three different kinds of product back. Installing the wrong kind is the most common mistake merchants make here.

1. Apps that alert your own team

These tell you when stock is running down, by email or Slack, with thresholds, locations and a list of recipients. This is the kind of app this page is about. Stockwell is one of them, alongside apps such as Stockbot, Stockie, LSA Low Stock Alert, Merchbees and iAlert.

2. Back in stock apps

These tell your customers when a sold out item comes back. Completely different job. Worth having, but it wins back a sale you already lost rather than stopping you losing it. Do not install one of these expecting alerts for your own team.

3. Full inventory systems

Purchase orders, suppliers, forecasting and sometimes syncing stock across sales channels. Apps such as Assisty, Sumtracker, Prediko, Qoblex and Fabrikator sit here and they usually include alerts as one feature among many. The right answer if you need all of that. Expensive if the alert was all you wanted.

What the main alerting apps cost

A price snapshot rather than a ranking. These are four apps from the first category above, the ones whose listings publish enough detail to line up. Figures read on 25 August 2026.

Price is the easiest thing to compare here, also the least useful, because those four plans do not cover the same things. The capability by capability version, including the rows where we come off worst, is on the full comparison page.

Six questions to ask before you install

Every app here advertises low stock alerts. These six questions bring out the differences you would otherwise discover two months after installing.

1. Can each SKU have its own threshold?

The most important question of the six. One number for the whole store warns you too late on fast sellers and all day long on slow ones, which is exactly how alerts end up muted. If the app only does store wide numbers, it will stop working for you as your catalog grows.

2. Is each location checked on its own?

This only matters if you hold stock in more than one place. Then it matters completely. An app that adds your locations together will tell you everything is fine while one site sits empty.

3. How many email addresses does the plan allow?

Alerts that reach one person fail every time that person is on holiday. The number of addresses is very often what separates the price tiers, so check it against how many people actually need to know.

4. Instant alerts, a daily summary, or both?

Instant alerts catch sudden drops. A daily summary catches the slow drain and shows you everything running low in one place. Most stores want both. On plenty of apps, ours included, instant alerts are a paid feature while the daily summary is free.

5. What happens when stock sits right on the threshold?

Nobody advertises this and it gets annoying fast. Stock crossing your number back and forth can email you again and again about one product. Ask whether the app stops repeating until the stock has genuinely recovered.

6. What access does it ask for?

An alerts app needs to read your products, your stock and your locations. It does not need your customer data, your order data or permission to change anything. Anything asking for more deserves a question.

What Stockwell does and what it does not do

Stockwell only does the first of the three. A threshold per SKU, every location checked on its own, several email addresses, instant alerts, a daily summary and a history of what was sent. The free plan covers 50 SKUs with one address and the daily summary. Instant alerts and per location checking are on the paid plans.

It is the wrong tool if you need purchase orders, supplier records, demand forecasting, stock counts, barcode scanning or stock synced across sales channels. We do none of that and we are not planning to. If that is what you came for, one of the full systems above is the honest answer.

Four things to do before you install anything

1. Try Shopify Flow first if you are on a paid plan. It is free and it might be all you need. Knowing exactly why it is not enough for you is the best preparation there is for choosing an app.
2. Count the people who actually need the email and check that number against the plan tiers.
3. Check the price on the App Store listing itself. App prices change and any figure quoted in an article, including this one, may already be out of date.
4. Test it on one product before switching it on across the whole catalog.

If the internal alert is what you need

Stockwell does that one job: a threshold per SKU, every location checked on its own and alerts that reach your whole team. Free plan for 50 SKUs, no card needed.

Get it on the Shopify App Store Free plan covers 50 SKUs with a daily summary. Paid plans add instant alerts and more recipients. No card needed to start.