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Shopify low stock alerts: the complete guide
Running out of a product costs you more than the sale you missed. This guide covers every way to be warned before it happens on Shopify, what each one really covers, where each one stops working as you grow and how to pick the number that decides when you hear about it.
By Fazeel Tanveer, Founder · Last reviewed 20 August 2026
Pick your route in one line
- Under about 30 SKUs and one location. The inventory view in Shopify admin, checked on a set day each week, is enough.
- You are on a paid Shopify plan and comfortable building a workflow. Shopify Flow sends the email at no extra cost.
- Hundreds of SKUs, several locations, or more than one person needs to know. A dedicated alerts app is the point where the free routes stop paying for themselves.
On this page
Why stockouts cost more than the missed sale
The lost order is the visible cost. It is usually the smallest part.
- The customer often does not come back. Retail studies put it at roughly four in ten shoppers who go to a competitor when they find a product sold out.
- Paid traffic keeps spending. Ads usually keep running against a product page that cannot convert, so you pay for the click twice over.
- Search results push you down. Marketplace and on site search bury items nobody can buy. Winning that place back takes longer than the restock does.
- The rush order costs more. Restocking in a hurry means paying for fast freight and a worse price per unit.
Studies of what a stockout really costs usually land between one and a half and three times the lost sale once you add all of this up. Treat that as a rough range rather than a hard number, because it swings a lot by category. Either way the point holds: the warning costs far less than the stockout.
What Shopify gives you without an app
More than people assume, but with one specific gap.
In Shopify admin under Products › Inventory you can
see quantities per variant per location, filter to items below a level
and export the view. Shopify has also been moving stock counts and
transfers into admin itself, which covers the day to day handling.
The gap is that all of it is a place you have to go. Nothing arrives on its own. The failure is never that the number was wrong, it is that the week you were busy is exactly the week nobody opened the screen. Our guide to the native inventory limits goes through what is and is not covered in detail.
Shopify Flow, the free automation route
Shopify Flow is a free app available on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans. It can watch an inventory level and email you when it drops under a number you choose. For a lot of stores that is a real free answer.
It is a real option and we are not going to pretend otherwise. It also has limits that show up as your catalog grows: workflows run per variant rather than per product, the threshold is one fixed number rather than something you can tune product by product and you end up with a separate workflow for every group of products.
The full setup, including the trigger and condition to use, is in our Shopify Flow low stock alert walkthrough.
When a low stock alert app is worth paying for
Paying for an app makes sense once any one of these is true:
- Different variants need different thresholds. A fast selling size with a six week lead time and a slow one you can restock in two days should not share one number. An app that holds the threshold per SKU (variant) rather than per product is what lets them differ.
- You hold stock in more than one place. Total stock looking healthy while one warehouse sits at zero is the classic way to miss a stockout. See alerts across every location.
- More than one person needs to know. Alerts that land with one individual fail the week that person is away.
- You want a daily list as well as instant emails. A morning summary shows you what is slowly draining, which one off alerts on their own do not.
- The alert has to land where your team already works. An email nobody opens until the afternoon is a slower warning than a message in the Slack channel the buying team watches all day. Apps differ on which plan Slack sits on, so check that before you commit.
How to choose your low stock threshold
The threshold decides whether the alert is useful or noise. A single store wide number is the usual starting point and the usual reason people turn alerts off two weeks later.
The version that works is built on how long a restock takes:
Threshold = average units sold per day × days to restock + a safety buffer
Say you sell four a day and it takes ten days to get more. Four times ten is forty, plus a small buffer, so the alert should fire around fifty. Not at ten because ten is a round number. Worked examples for both parts are in how to set a low stock threshold and the safety stock formula.
Admin view vs Shopify Flow vs an alerts app
| Admin view | Shopify Flow | Alerts app | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | Free on paid plans | Free tier upward |
| Arrives on its own | No | Yes | Yes |
| Threshold per SKU | No | Per workflow | Yes |
| Separate per location | Yes | Fiddly | Yes |
| Several recipients | No | Per workflow | Yes |
| Setup effort | None | Moderate | Low |
No column is right for everybody. The right one depends on how many SKUs you have, how many places you hold stock in and how many people are on the hook when something runs out.
Know before a SKU hits zero
Stockwell watches every variant at every location and emails your team when stock falls under the level you set. Install it from the Shopify App Store and the first alert is running in a couple of minutes.
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.
Common questions
Does Shopify have built in low stock alerts?
No. Shopify shows you low stock in the admin inventory view and lets you filter and export it, but it never emails you on its own. To get something that arrives without you opening a screen you need Shopify Flow, which is free on paid plans, or a low stock alerts app.
What is a good low stock threshold?
Base it on how long a restock takes, not on a round number. Multiply the units you sell per day by the days it takes to get more in, then add a buffer. A product selling four a day that takes ten days to restock wants a threshold near fifty, not the ten most stores start with.
Can I get a low stock alert for a single location?
Yes. You should. Going by the total across every location hides the case where one warehouse is empty while another is overflowing. Shopify counts stock per location, so your alerts should be checked per location too.
Is Shopify Flow enough for low stock alerts?
For a simple catalog in one location, often yes. It costs nothing on a paid Shopify plan. It gets awkward once different products need different numbers or you are looking after a pile of workflows, because Flow fires per variant rather than per product.