Debutly Pre-Orders for WooCommerce

Upfront, when they place the order, like any other order. The order then waits in the “Pre-ordered” status until the release.

WP-Cron releases the product at the release time (an hourly check catches anything missed). Every “Pre-ordered” order whose pre-order items are all released moves to “Processing” (or “Completed” if it only has virtual downloadable items) and the customer receives the “Pre-order available” email. WP-Cron runs when your site gets visits; for exact timing on low-traffic sites, set up a real cron job for wp-cron.php .

Yes. Use “Release now” in the product’s Pre-order tab (or inside the variation) or in WooCommerce > Pre-orders.

They stay “On hold” until you confirm the payment, as usual. When you have the money, change the status to “Pre-ordered” (or to “Processing” if the product is already released).

Yes by default. The whole order then waits as “Pre-ordered” until its pre-order items are released. If you prefer separate orders, untick “Mixed carts” in the settings.

If you manage stock, each pre-order reduces it like a backorder, so it can go below zero. When the goods arrive, add the stock as usual. If you do not manage stock, nothing changes. By default the plugin skips WooCommerce’s “Product out of stock” and “Product backorder” admin emails for pre-order products (WooCommerce 11.0+ for the backorder one); you can switch them back on in the settings.

Yes. The pre-order label, the limit and the mixed-cart rule are applied through the Store API that the blocks use, and the order status logic is the same for every checkout.

Yes, in WooCommerce > Settings > Emails (“Pre-order received” and “Pre-order available”). To change the layout, copy the templates from debutly-pre-orders/templates/emails/ to yourtheme/woocommerce/emails/ .

Yes, an optional add-on with early-bird prices, a release countdown, “new release date” emails, CSV export, automatic pre-orders when a product sells out and a units-per-order limit. This free plugin works on its own and nothing in it is locked. The plugin shows a short note about the add-on only on its own screens.

Nothing is removed unless you tick “Remove data” in the settings. If you do, the settings and product pre-order data are deleted and orders still “Pre-ordered” are moved to “On hold” so they stay visible.