Stocky vs Shopify's Native Purchase Orders: Is Free Enough?

August 2026 · 6 min read

When Shopify announced Stocky's retirement (final shutdown: August 31, 2026), it moved basic purchase-order creation into the Shopify admin itself — free, on every plan. Which raises the obvious question for every migrating store: is the free native version enough, or do you need an app?

The answer splits cleanly on one question: did you use Stocky as a filing cabinet or as a brain?

What Shopify's native purchase orders do

• Create a purchase order with supplier, line items, and costs
• Receive inventory against it, fully or partially
• Track incoming quantities on the product page
• Free, on every Shopify plan, no app to install

If that list covers your reality — you place the occasional order, record it, and receive it when the boxes arrive — stop here and use the native tools. Genuinely. An app adds nothing but a subscription to that workflow.

What the native version doesn't do

This is the "brain" half of Stocky that did not move into the admin:

• No reorder points. Nothing tells you it's time to order. Native POs record decisions; they never prompt one.
• No lead-time math. The question that actually prevents stockouts is "will I run out before my supplier can deliver?" — sales velocity times lead time plus safety stock. Native has no concept of any of those numbers.
• No awareness of inbound stock in suggestions. There are no suggested quantities at all, so nothing subtracts what you've already got on order — the classic double-order trap.
• No Stocky history import. Your years of PO records, costs, and supplier details don't transfer. (Whatever you choose, export that data this week — here's the checklist — because Stocky access goes read-only shortly after shutdown.)
• No supplier lead-time records to drive any of the above.

The five-minute test

Answer three questions about the last six months:

1. Did you run out of a product you could have reordered in time?
2. Did you ever double-order because you forgot something was inbound?
3. Do you reorder on a gut-feel schedule rather than from actual sales velocity?

Zero yeses: native POs are enough, enjoy the free tools. One or more yes: the "brain" features were the ones paying for themselves, and losing them costs more than any app charges. A single prevented stockout on a $30 product that sells daily covers a year of most PO apps.

If you need the brain

That's the gap Restockly exists for: purchase orders plus reorder points computed from your real sales velocity and each supplier's lead time, suggested quantities that subtract inbound stock, and one-click import of your Stocky CSV so your history survives. $19/month flat, 14-day trial, and we do Stocky migrations personally, free.

And if you want the full field — the $50–100/month forecasting suites, the free-with-upsell apps, all of it — we compared every real option honestly here: Stocky alternatives compared, including the free ones.