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Tickets Please

Stock Alerts

Selling out unexpectedly is a missed opportunity. Stock alerts notify you by email when a ticket’s remaining capacity drops below your configured threshold or hits zero, giving you time to adjust capacity, open a waitlist, or add another event date.

How Stock Alerts Work

Tickets Please monitors ticket capacity after every change — purchases, cancellations, manual capacity edits, and refunds. When remaining capacity crosses a threshold, the system sends an email alert to the site administrator.

Two alert types exist:

  • Low stock alert — Triggered when a ticket’s remaining capacity drops to or below the low stock threshold.
  • Sold out alert — Triggered when a ticket’s remaining capacity reaches zero.

Both alerts are sent to the email address configured in Settings > General > Administration Email Address.

Configuring the Low Stock Threshold

Set the threshold at Events > Settings > Payments in the Low stock threshold field. The default is 10.

  • Set a higher number (e.g., 25 or 50) for high-demand events where you need more lead time to react.
  • Set to 0 to disable low stock alerts entirely. Sold out alerts still fire when capacity reaches zero.

The threshold applies globally to all tickets. Individual tickets cannot have different thresholds.

Alert Triggers

Stock alerts fire in these scenarios:

  1. Ticket purchase — A buyer completes checkout and capacity decreases.
  2. Manual capacity change — An administrator edits a ticket’s capacity in the admin, and the new remaining amount crosses the threshold.
  3. Bulk operations — Multiple attendees are created or deleted, changing the remaining capacity.

The system checks the threshold after each capacity-affecting operation. If the remaining capacity was already below the threshold before the operation, no duplicate alert is sent (see debounce behavior below).

Debounce: Preventing Duplicate Alerts

A transient-based debounce mechanism prevents you from receiving the same alert repeatedly:

  • After a low stock alert fires for a specific ticket, the system sets a transient that suppresses the same alert for 1 hour.
  • After a sold out alert fires for a specific ticket, the same 1-hour suppression applies.
  • If capacity is restored (e.g., a refund frees up a seat) and then drops again, a new alert fires only after the previous transient expires.

This means you receive at most one low stock alert and one sold out alert per ticket per hour, regardless of how many individual transactions occur.

Alert Email Content

Each alert email includes:

  • The ticket name and its parent event name.
  • The current remaining capacity (e.g., “8 tickets remaining” or “Sold out”).
  • A direct link to the ticket edit screen in the WordPress admin.
  • The event date so you can assess urgency.

Emails use the low_stock_alert and sold_out_alert email types within the Tickets Please notification system.

Monitoring Without Email

If you prefer to monitor stock levels in the admin rather than via email:

  • The Tickets list table shows remaining capacity for each ticket.
  • The Event edit screen’s ticket meta box displays capacity status.
  • The Attendees management screen shows total attendees versus capacity for each event.

Stock alerts are a supplement to these admin views, not a replacement.

Common Questions

Can I send stock alerts to multiple email addresses? Stock alerts are sent to the WordPress admin email by default. Use the tickets_please_email_headers filter to add CC or BCC recipients:

add_filter( 'tickets_please_email_headers', function ( $headers, $email_type ) {
    if ( 'low_stock_alert' === $email_type || 'sold_out_alert' === $email_type ) {
        $headers[] = 'Cc: manager@example.com';
    }
    return $headers;
}, 10, 2 );

Do alerts fire for RSVP tickets? Yes. RSVP tickets with a defined capacity trigger the same low stock and sold out alerts as paid tickets.

What happens if I increase the threshold above the current remaining capacity? The next capacity-affecting action triggers a low stock alert if one has not been sent within the debounce window.

Can I disable sold out alerts but keep low stock alerts? Not from the settings panel. Both alert types are controlled by the same threshold mechanism. To suppress sold out emails specifically, use the tickets_please_email_headers filter to conditionally return an empty recipient for the sold_out_alert type.

Do alerts work with WooCommerce-managed tickets? Yes. Tickets Please manages capacity independently from WooCommerce stock. Alerts fire based on the plugin’s own capacity tracking, regardless of the payment provider.

Why did I not receive an alert when a ticket sold out? Check your spam folder first. Then verify that the low stock threshold is not set to 0 (which disables alerts). Finally, check whether a previous alert for the same ticket was sent within the last hour — the debounce mechanism may have suppressed it.

Next Steps