How to take pre-orders online with a page and a payment link
Pre-orders turn interest into commitment before you've made the stock, which helps you size a production run and fund it. You don't need a whole shop to take them. A clear product page, a checkout link from your payment provider and a habit of keeping buyers informed will do, as long as you're honest about dates and limits from the start.
Decide the terms before the page
Most pre-order problems are terms problems that surface late. Settle these on paper first, because they shape every line of the page.
- When you charge
- Now, at order, is simplest and is what a standard checkout link does. Charging later, at dispatch, needs a provider feature built for it; check your provider's own documentation before promising it.
- The delivery window
- A month or a range of weeks, not a single day. Give the earliest date you're confident of, not the one you hope for.
- The cap
- How many you can make in the first run. Decide what happens when you reach it: close, or move to a second batch with a later date.
- Cancellations and refunds
- Whether buyers can cancel before dispatch, and how quickly you refund. Consumer rules for distance selling vary by country, so check yours.
Build the pre-order page
- Describe the product to Anticode. One or two sentences: what it is, who it's for, and that this is a pre-order. The Architect will ask a few questions and show a plan; a landing page or a small online store layout usually fits.
- Put the terms beside the button. Price, the delivery window, whether you charge now, and the cancellation policy belong right next to the buy button, not in a footer.
- Show the real thing. Prototype or sample photos are fine if labelled as such. Show your own in a products collection whose image field holds each photo's hosted address, or upload them to an app build.
- Create the checkout link. In Stripe Payment Links, Shopify, Lemon Squeezy, Gumroad, PayPal or Whop, create a product at the pre-order price.
- Point the buy button at it. Add it as your payment link in Anticode and the buy and pricing buttons open it. There's one payment link for your whole account (or Team workspace), so every buy button on every site you run opens the same checkout. The payment, receipt and refund all happen there.
- Add a fallback for the undecided. A newsletter sign-up for "tell me when it ships" catches people who won't pay yet. Connect it to Kit or Mailchimp if you'll write to them from there.
- Publish and place one test order with your provider's test mode or a real small purchase you refund.
Running the pre-order period
Orders live in your payment provider's dashboard, not in Anticode, so that's where you count them against your cap. Anticode doesn't track stock or stop selling at a number. When you're near the limit, either use whatever quantity limit your provider offers, or change the page: ask for it in a sentence ("replace the buy button with a waitlist sign-up and say the first batch has sold out") and publish.
Send updates on a schedule you announce on the page: when production starts, when there's a delay, when items ship. Use your email tool or your provider's customer list. Anticode doesn't email buyers. A short note about a two-week slip, sent early, keeps far more goodwill than silence.
What goes wrong
- Dates slip and nobody says so. Buyers who hear nothing ask for refunds. Write the delay email before you need it.
- Overselling. No stock count on the page means you watch the provider's order count yourself.
- Mixed messages. The page says one date, the checkout another. Keep both in step whenever you change either.
- A free-plan surprise. A free site keeps a monthly allowance of form submissions visible (100 by default) and holds the rest until you upgrade. Payments through the provider aren't affected, but a busy sign-up fallback can be.
How you know it worked
You hit or knowingly missed the cap you set, every buyer received at least one update before their item shipped, and refund requests were rare and handled quickly. Page views by source in Anticode's analytics, set against orders in your provider, tell you which channel was worth repeating for the next batch.
What Anticode doesn't do here
Anticode's own on-site pay pages are built but switched off, so today sites take payment only through payment links from your provider. There's no cart, inventory, shipping or tax handling, and no order emails to buyers. If you need those, run the pre-order on a store platform and use Anticode for the story around it. See payment links, the pre-order page guide, and how to run a limited product drop.
Questions people ask
Can I take pre-orders on Anticode without a payment provider?
No. Payment happens through a checkout link from Stripe Payment Links, PayPal, Gumroad, Lemon Squeezy, Shopify or Whop, so you need an account with one of them.
Does Anticode keep a list of pre-orders?
No. Orders are in your payment provider. Anticode keeps form submissions, such as waitlist sign-ups, but not payments.
How to take pre-orders online for more than one product?
Anticode holds one checkout link per account, so link to a page at your provider that lists every product, such as a store or product list. For many variants with sizes and stock, a store platform is a better fit.