Anticipo lets you sell a product weeks or months before it lands, then hands the whole launch back to you as a normal WooCommerce order on release day.
- Live demo: Free version | Pro version
- Documentation: Free version | Pro version
- Support: propluginslab.io/support
Customers pay in full at checkout and the order waits in a dedicated Pre-ordered status, out of your fulfilment queue. On the release date a background job releases every waiting order, reduces stock, moves the orders into your normal workflow and emails the customers. None of it needs anyone logged in.
What you can do
- Turn any simple or variable product into a pre-order from a Pre-order tab on the product. External products get the pre-order button text, badge, message and countdown only, because they are bought on another site.
- Set a release date and time in your store timezone, stored in UTC so a timezone change never moves a launch.
- Take pre-orders with no announced date at all, then fill the date in later and have every waiting customer emailed automatically.
- Set a cut-off date so orders close before release while you confirm quantities with a supplier.
- Reduce stock on release day rather than at checkout, so your inventory figures stay honest.
- Decide whether pre-orders can share a basket with in-stock items, or must be bought on their own.
- Give each product its own button text and availability message, or set them once for the whole store.
- Show a pre-order badge and a live countdown to release, with the badge wording set store wide or per product (“Coming soon”, “Limited edition”).
- List every product currently taking pre-orders on any page with the
[anticipo_preorder_products]shortcode, soonest release first. - Release or cancel any pre-order by hand, individually or in bulk.
- Filter the Products list to show only the products taking pre-orders, or only those that are not.
On release day
Releases run in the background through WooCommerce Action Scheduler in small batches, so a launch with thousands of orders never blocks a page load. A nightly sweep catches anything that was missed, so a launch interrupted by a server restore recovers on its own.
Emails
Five emails, each a real WooCommerce email class you manage from WooCommerce, Settings, Emails: pre-order confirmed, release date changed, pre-order released and pre-order cancelled for the customer, plus a new pre-order notice for the store. Every one has an editable message with merge tags and a table of the products pre-ordered, in HTML and plain text, both overridable from your theme.
Customers can see their pre-orders
A Pre-orders tab in My Account lists everything a customer has reserved, its status and when it arrives.
Built to stay fast
Pre-orders live in their own indexed database table rather than in order meta, so nothing turns into a slow meta query as you grow. Product settings are read from the object WooCommerce has already loaded and cached for the request. The CSS and JavaScript are not loaded at all on pages with no pre-orders.
Works with what you already run
High Performance Order Storage and legacy order storage. Cart and Checkout Blocks, with the cart rules enforced through the Store API. WPML and Polylang, with release emails sent in the language the customer originally ordered in. Any payment gateway, because a pre-order is an ordinary WooCommerce order.
For developers
Over twenty documented hooks, a helper function API, six overridable templates and an activity log of every action taken on every pre-order. Full documentation is built into the plugin under WooCommerce, Pre-orders, Documentation, and in the docs folder.
External services
This plugin does not connect to any external service. It makes no outbound HTTP requests and sends no data anywhere.
Pro version
Anticipo Pro is a separate plugin for stores that want more than full payment up front. It replaces this plugin rather than unlocking it, and keeps every existing pre-order and setting when you switch. It adds:
- Deposits and pay on release billing, collected through a linked WooCommerce order and a secure payment link, and a saved Stripe card charged automatically on release.
- Allocation limits and per customer limits, with a live “82 of 100 claimed” progress bar.
- Pre-order pricing: a discount or premium that stops applying the moment the product releases.
- Per variation release dates, pre-orders while on backorder and release when stock arrives.
- Scheduled release reminders, and bulk date shifting that emails every affected customer.
- Reports, a release calendar, CSV export, bulk editing and a REST API.
- Customer self cancellation.
Everything described in this readme is included in the free plugin and is not limited in any way.
More plugins from ProPluginsLab
Free on WordPress.org:
- Back In Stock Notifier for WooCommerce – Waitlist and restock email alerts for out of stock products.
- Recovero – Cart Recovery for WooCommerce – Recover abandoned carts with automated emails.
- Affireo – Affiliates for WooCommerce – Run an affiliate and referral program.
- Storefold – Multivendor Marketplace for WooCommerce – Turn your store into a multivendor marketplace.
- Dispatchio – Shipment Tracking for WooCommerce – Add tracking numbers and shipment updates to orders.
- Presentero – Gift Cards for WooCommerce – Sell and redeem digital gift cards.
- Kitero – Product Configurator for WooCommerce – Build composite products and kits.
- Plusero – Extra Fees for WooCommerce – Add conditional checkout fees and surcharges.
- Inputo – Name Your Price for WooCommerce – Let customers choose what they pay.
- Mercenza – B2B for WooCommerce – Sell wholesale with customer groups, wholesale prices and trade accounts.
- Visuaro – Product Designer for WooCommerce – Let customers design custom products in the browser.
- Christmas Snow – Festive Snowfall Effect – Add a lightweight snowfall effect to any site.
Pro plugins at propluginslab.io:
- Recovero Pro
- Anticipo Pro
- Affireo Pro
- Storefold Pro
- Dispatchio Pro
- Presentero Pro
- Kitero Pro
- Plusero Pro
- Inputo Pro
- Mercenza Pro
- Visuaro Pro
- Back In Stock Notifier Add-ons – 26 add-ons incl. Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Twilio SMS, WPML, or all of them in the Bundle.
Screenshots
Each row shows the order, product, customer, quantity, pre-order status, release date, value and when it was placed.
The summary at the bottom shows the open pre-orders already booked for this product.
The status is Pre-ordered, and the order note shows it moved there from Pending payment.
A page using the shortcode. One product uses its own badge text instead of the store wide wording.
The badge, availability message, countdown and button text all come from your Display settings.
Customers see each reservation, its release date and its status.
The General box at the top holds the main on/off switch and the Mixed carts policy.
The preview shows how the confirmation looks to the customer. Use Send a test email to check it in your inbox.
The Pre-order tab sits in the Product data box, between Attributes and Advanced.