Slack inventory alerts for your ecommerce team
If your buying and ops conversation already happens in Slack, that is where a reorder alert belongs. Restoc is built to fire a message to a Slack incoming webhook the moment a SKU crosses its reorder point, alongside email, on the Growth plan at $59 a month.
The decision happens in the channel, so the alert should too
You know the shape of the day. Someone drops a supplier email into the ops channel. Someone else asks whether the 8 oz candle will hold until the next container. A third person has a tab open on the Shopify admin, scrolling the inventory list, counting on their fingers.
The job you are trying to get done is small and it repeats: know which SKUs are close to running out, and know it early enough that a purchase order still helps. Right now a lot of teams are doing that reorder math by hand, in a spreadsheet one person maintains, and the answer only surfaces when someone remembers to look.
That is the part Slack is good at and a spreadsheet is bad at. A spreadsheet waits to be opened. A channel is already open. Running out of a hero SKU is a real hit to the week, and the difference between catching it and missing it is usually not analysis, it is attention. Restoc is built on that assumption: work out the reorder point quietly in the background, then put one short message in front of the people who can act on it.
This page is about the Slack side specifically. If you want the maths behind the reorder point, or what the email version looks like, those are separate pages.
How a reorder alert reaches your channel
- Connect the store once
Restoc installs through Shopify OAuth and reads inventory levels and sales history through webhooks plus a scheduled sync job. It is a web app. There is no mobile app and no browser extension, so the channel is where most people will actually meet it.
- Set the velocity window, lead times and safety stock
Pick a store-wide sales velocity window of 7, 14 or 30 days. Enter lead time per SKU, or set it once per vendor: Restoc syncs each SKU's Shopify vendor, and a vendor lead time fills in every SKU from that supplier that has none of its own. Then set a store-wide safety stock percentage on top of lead-time demand, which is what covers items that sell in bursts rather than evenly.
- Paste an incoming webhook URL
In Slack, create an incoming webhook for the channel the team watches. In Restoc, save that URL in alert settings, which checks the format before it saves. Slack delivery is part of the Growth plan and above.
- Send one test message first
Alert settings has a send test alert button, so the channel sees a sample message before a real stockout depends on it. What a test proves and what it does not is covered on its own page in this section.
- Let the background job watch the crossing
When a SKU crosses its reorder point, the alert is fired by a background job through Slack and email. The job is built to be idempotent, so a re-run of the same crossing is not meant to post the same message twice.
- Take the order from the weekly report
The channel message is the nudge. The weekly reorder report lists the SKUs below their reorder point with a suggested order quantity, the safety stock units behind it and the vendor to order from, viewable in the app and exportable as CSV.
Why a channel beats an inbox for a team
One destination, not five inboxes
A webhook posts into a channel, so buying, ops and whoever is covering this week all see the same crossing at the same time. Nobody has to be forwarded anything.
Email stays on as the backstop
Slack does not replace email alerts, it sits alongside them. Reorder alerts go to your account email from the moment you connect a store, until you change the address or switch email off in alert settings.
Built to post once per crossing
The alert job is idempotent. A crossing is meant to produce one message, not a drip of repeats every time the job runs, which is the thing that teaches a channel to ignore a bot.
The threshold is calculated, not guessed
The crossing is measured against a reorder point built from your own sales velocity, the lead time on that SKU and your safety stock percentage, so the message arrives at a point that reflects how that SKU actually sells.
Lead times set by vendor, not typed 500 times
A settings screen lists each vendor on your catalogue and takes one lead time for each. Any SKU from that supplier without its own lead time uses it, so a new team member can get the numbers right without a week of data entry.
Capacity for a real catalogue
Growth tracks up to 1,000 SKUs, enforced at sync time, which is five times Starter's 200. A team with sizes and colours across a few hundred products is the shape this tier was priced for.
Billed on the Shopify invoice
Three tiers run through Shopify's subscription billing, so the charge lands on your Shopify invoice rather than as a separate card payment someone has to expense.
Where Slack sits in the plans
| Plan | Price | Tracked SKUs | Alert channels |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $29 / month, or $290 / year | 200 | |
| Growth | $59 / month, or $590 / year | 1,000 | Email and Slack webhook |
| Pro | $99 / month, or $990 / year | 2,000 | Email and Slack webhook |
What the Growth plan includes, and what it costs to try
Growth is $59 a month, or $590 a year, which is ten months' price for twelve. It covers up to 1,000 tracked SKUs and one location, and it is the tier where Slack alerts through an incoming webhook are included alongside email.
Everything the smaller tier does comes with it: a reorder point per SKU from your sales velocity and lead time, a store-wide velocity window of 7, 14 or 30 days, email alerts on a crossing, the weekly reorder report with suggested order quantities and a CSV export, and a dashboard showing current stock, days of inventory remaining, safety stock units and reorder status per active SKU.
Every plan carries a 60-day free trial. The trial is set up so that at least one full weekly reorder cycle completes before the first charge, which means you get to see a real report, and the channel messages that led to it, before you pay anything. Billing settings shows the days left and the date of that first charge, so nobody on the team has to guess. Pro adds a per-SKU velocity window override and a 2,000 SKU cap, which is the control to reach for when a handful of products sell nothing like the rest.
What the Slack side does not do
Being plain about the edges is cheaper for both of us than a surprise in week two.
- It is an outbound incoming webhook. Restoc posts to the channel you point it at. It does not read your messages, reply in a thread, or add a slash command.
- One webhook, one destination. There is no per-SKU routing to different channels and no on-call rota logic.
- Safety stock is one store-wide percentage, not a figure per SKU. The per-SKU control is the velocity window override on Pro.
- One location per plan. Multi-location stock is covered on a separate page, including what is not there yet.
- Web app only. There is no Restoc mobile app, so Slack on a phone is how most people will see an alert away from a desk.
- Slack is a Growth feature. On Starter, alerts are email only.
Questions
Which plan includes Slack alerts?
Growth, at $59 a month or $590 a year, and Pro at $99 a month or $990 a year. Starter, at $29 a month, sends email alerts only. Every plan has a 60-day free trial.
Do I need to install a Slack app, or just a webhook?
A Slack incoming webhook. You create it in Slack for the channel you want, then paste the URL into Restoc's alert settings, which checks the format before saving. There is no Slack app to approve and no scopes to review.
Can I send a test alert before the team relies on it?
Yes. Alert settings has a send test alert button that fires a sample message through your webhook, so you can confirm delivery before a real stockout. What a test proves, and what it does not, has its own page in this section.
Will the alert also go to email?
Yes. Slack sits alongside email rather than replacing it. Reorder alerts are emailed to your account address from the moment you connect a store, until you change that address or switch email alerts off in Settings, Alerts.
If a SKU hovers around its reorder point, does the channel get spammed?
The alert job is built to be idempotent, so one threshold crossing is meant to produce one message rather than a repeat on every run. There is a separate page on how one alert per crossing works.
What does the message tell the team to do?
The alert tells you a SKU has crossed its reorder point. The order itself comes from the weekly reorder report, which lists the SKUs below their reorder point with a suggested order quantity, the safety stock units behind it and the vendor, and exports as CSV.
Does the reorder point allow for SKUs that sell in bursts?
That is what the safety stock percentage is for. It is set once for the store and added on top of lead-time demand, so the crossing happens earlier than a pure average would put it. The units it adds are shown on the dashboard, the weekly report and the CSV, so the number is never a black box.
Is there a mobile app for the alerts?
No. Restoc is a web app, with no mobile app and no browser extension. Slack and email are how an alert reaches someone who is not at a desk.