Classic Mode vs Smart Mode: What’s the difference?
Stockie runs in one of two modes, decided by your plan.
Classic mode - you set the thresholds, and Stockie alerts you when stock reaches or falls below them. On Free, Basic and Advanced.
Smart mode - Stockie measures how fast each product sells, works out when you will run low, and calculates reorder points and order quantities for you. On Pro and Pro Plus.
You do not switch modes directly. Changing your plan changes the mode.
Classic mode
You decide the number. A threshold of 10 on a variant means you hear about it when stock hits 10.
It suits stores where you already know your levels, where demand is steady enough that a fixed number stays right, or where you simply want an alert rather than a recommendation.
Everything in Classic mode is about notifications: which products they watch, what thresholds trigger them, who receives them and when.
Smart mode
Stockie calculates the numbers instead.
It measures sales velocity from your history, applies your lead time and safety stock, and produces a reorder point per variant per location - plus a suggested quantity to order. Forecast & replenishment starts working, Reports open up, and notifications can fire on calculated reorder points rather than fixed thresholds.
That section is in your navigation on every plan. On Classic mode it is there but not yet doing anything - moving to Pro is what fills it in.
It suits stores where demand varies, where the catalogue is too large to keep thresholds current by hand, or where you want ordering decisions made from data rather than memory.
Notifications still work in Smart mode. You are not giving anything up - you are adding the forecast.
What Pro Plus adds
Both Pro and Pro Plus are Smart mode. Pro Plus adds the operational side:
- Purchase orders - raise, send, receive and track orders with suppliers
- Inventory adjustments - correct stock with reasons attached
- Stocktakes - count stock and push the corrections to Shopify
- Transfers - your Shopify transfers mirrored in Stockie, with reporting and exports. Transfers is switched on per store, so contact us if you would like it on yours
If you want Stockie to forecast, Pro is enough. If you want it to run your ordering and counting as well, that is Pro Plus.
Which fits you
Classic mode is likely enough if your thresholds rarely change, your catalogue is small enough to maintain by hand, or you raise purchase orders somewhere else entirely.
Smart mode earns its place when keeping thresholds current has become a job in itself, when demand moves enough that a fixed number is wrong most of the time, or when you want ordering suggestions instead of alerts.
Pro Plus is the answer when you want the ordering and counting to happen in Stockie rather than in a spreadsheet beside it.
Switching modes
Your mode follows your plan, so switching means changing plan.
Moving up to Smart mode. Your notifications carry across. The forecast is not instant - Stockie needs to build it from your sales history, and the Forecast & replenishment page fills in once the first forecast has run. Notifications on forecasted products start sending from then too.
Moving down to Classic mode. Your data stays in Stockie. Suppliers, supplier SKUs, forecast settings, purchase orders and everything else you have set up are kept, and the forecast stops running. Move back up to Pro and it is all still there.
Your notifications are not deleted, but some can change:
- Anything the new plan cannot support is switched off rather than removed. It stays in your list, and re-enabling it is a matter of adjusting it to fit the plan or moving back up.
- Notifications over the new plan's limit are switched off. Free includes one notification and Basic includes five.
- If your catalogue is larger than the new plan covers, every notification is switched off. Free covers up to 250 variants and Basic up to 8,000.
- Dropping below Advanced resets per-variant thresholds. Item-specific thresholds are an Advanced feature, so every notification using them is switched to its default threshold instead. The notification keeps sending - on a different number from the one you set.
The threshold reset is the quiet one, so it is worth checking your thresholds after a downgrade rather than assuming they survived.
Dropping below Pro Plus works the same way. Purchase orders, adjustments, stocktakes and their settings are kept, and are there again when you move back up.
See Changing plans and what downgrading disables for the detail.