How to create a waitlist

Names before it exists.News before they forget.

To create a waitlist, you need four things: a page or popup that collects an email with consent, a confirmation that says when they’ll hear from you, a few short emails before launch, and a launch-day email sent when you said it would be. The software is the easy part. The plan is what keeps a list of strangers interested for six weeks, and the timeline below writes it from your launch date.

Plan my launch What the signup says
One launch date 7 dated steps 5 kinds of waitlist

By the Builderify team

01 One field, one tick box 02 A date they can hold you to 03 Emails at a steady pace
01 / The short answer

What does a waitlist need?
Four parts, in the order people meet them.

A waitlist is a promise: give me your email and I’ll tell you first. Most of the results for this search sell waitlist software, and any of them can collect addresses. What decides whether the list is worth anything on launch day is what you say when people join and how you keep in touch until then.

  1. 01

    A signup with consent

    One field for an email, a tick box that says what they’ll get, and a button. A first name is optional and makes the emails warmer.

  2. 02

    A confirmation that says when

    The thank-you message and a first email, sent straight away, that name the day they’ll hear from you next.

  3. 03

    A few emails before launch

    One to three short updates, spaced so people remember signing up and the last one lands the day before.

  4. 04

    A launch-day email

    The link in the first line, sent at the time you promised, then one reminder a few days later and no more.

02 / Kinds of waitlist

Which kind of waitlist
are you creating?

Name what people are waiting for, because that is what you’re promising. A launch waitlist promises a date, a restock list promises stock, a service list promises a chance at a spot. Each needs a slightly different sentence on the signup and a different last email.

Product launch

Waiting for a date

Promise: The launch date, and first access or a launch price if you’ll really give one.

Watch for: Moving the date without telling the list. Send a short note the day you know.

Sold-out restock

Waiting for stock

Promise: One email the day it’s back. If you don’t know when, say that, and say roughly how many are coming.

Watch for: Collecting addresses and then forgetting. Builderify’s Restock Alert popup collects them; you send the email.

Service with limited spots

Waiting for a slot

Promise: How many spots there are and how they’re given out: first come, or by application.

Watch for: Implying a place is held. A waitlist is a promise to tell them first, not a booking.

Event

Waiting for a ticket

Promise: When tickets go on sale, the price and how many places. The Event Registration popup suits signups for a webinar or a launch date.

Watch for: Using the waitlist for every future event. Ask separately if you want that.

App beta

Waiting for an invite

Promise: When invites go out, and whether they go in batches or all at once.

Watch for: Inviting everyone on day one when you meant to let people in slowly. Say which.

A waitlist for a launch is one email list among several. If you’re also counting down to the day on the page itself, the guide to a countdown timer for a website covers the timer and when to take it down.

03 / Launch timeline

Waitlist launch timeline,
dated from your launch day.

Enter the launch date, the day the waitlist opens and roughly how many signups you expect. The planner dates every step, writes the popup’s lines and the confirmation, gives each email a subject line and prices the whole thing in credits. It starts with a made-up pottery studio; replace each field with yours. Nothing you type leaves your browser.

Launch timeline · a made-up pottery studio
What you’re launching

Dates and times are in your website’s timezone. A launch less than a week away, or a waitlist that opened earlier, gets a shorter plan.

39 days of waitlist · 6 emails each · launch Tue 8 Dec at 10:00

  1. Fri 30 Oct

    Waitlist goes live

    Popup from Friday 30 October to Tuesday 8 December, in your website’s timezone

    Headline: The Harbour mug collection launches Tuesday 8 December Text: Join the waitlist and we’ll email you the moment it goes on sale. Button: Join the waitlist Consent checkbox: Email me about the Harbour mug collection: six emails, the last on Friday 11 December. I can unsubscribe at any time.

  2. Day 0

    Confirmation

    As each person joins: the popup’s thank-you message, and a day-0 email

    You’re on the list for the Harbour mug collection

    You’re on the list. We’ll email you on Tuesday 8 December at 10:00 when the Harbour mug collection goes on sale, with three short updates before then. Every email has a link to unsubscribe.

  3. Tue 24 Nov

    Update 1 of 3

    Tuesday 24 November at 10:00

    The Harbour mug collection: a first look

    What it is and who it’s for, one photo or detail, and the launch date again.

  4. Tue 1 Dec

    Update 2 of 3

    Tuesday 1 December at 10:00

    The Harbour mug collection goes on sale Tuesday 8 December

    The date and time, the price if you have it, and anything waitlist members get first.

  5. Mon 7 Dec

    Update 3 of 3

    Monday 7 December at 10:00

    Tomorrow at 10:00: the Harbour mug collection

    Two lines: when it opens, and the link they’ll use.

  6. Tue 8 Dec

    Launch day

    Tuesday 8 December at 10:00

    The Harbour mug collection is on sale now

    The link in the first line, then the one detail that makes it worth buying today.

  7. Fri 11 Dec

    Last call

    Friday 11 December at 10:00

    Last reminder: the Harbour mug collection

    Once, for anyone who hasn’t bought yet: what’s left or what ends, and when. Then stop.

What it costs in Builderify

Emails per person6
2,400 emails × 0.51,200
400 new leads × 1400
Credits, upper estimate1,600

More than one month’s 250 free credits. One-time packs start at $9 and never expire. It assumes everyone joins before the first update; people who join later get fewer emails. Page loads for the popup are counted separately, at 10 credits per 1,000.

The day before, every time

Whatever the length of the wait, the last update goes out the day before launch. It is the one people act on, because it tells them when to be there.

Short waits get fewer emails

Under three weeks gets two updates, under a week gets one. Three updates in five days reads as pressure, not news.

One last call, then stop

A single reminder a few days after launch catches the people who missed the first email. After that, a waitlist has done its job.

04 / The signup

What to put on a coming soon page
or a waitlist popup.

Five things, and nothing else: what it is, when, what they get for joining, one field and the consent wording. A waitlist landing page is a page with those five on it; a popup is the same five over a page people are already reading.

  1. 1

    What it is

    One sentence a stranger understands. “A stoneware mug that keeps coffee hot”, not a brand name on its own.

  2. 2

    When

    A date, or a month. If you don’t know yet, say how you’ll tell them.

  3. 3

    What they get for joining

    First access, a launch price, a place held for a day. Only what you will actually give.

  4. 4

    One field

    Email, and a first name if you’ll use it. Every extra field costs signups.

  5. 5

    Consent wording

    A tick box that says what you’ll send and roughly how many emails. It’s the line you’ll be glad to have kept.

A coming soon page or a popup?

If the site doesn’t exist yet, a single coming soon page with those five things is the whole site. If the site is live and people already visit it, a popup on the pages where the new thing belongs reaches them without a new page: the product’s collection, the pricing page, the blog post that announces it. Building a popup from scratch is covered in the guide to adding a popup to a website.

The sample signup, taken apart

The thank-you message
You’re on the list. We’ll email you on Tuesday 8 December at 10:00 when the Harbour mug collection goes on sale, with three short updates before then. Every email has a link to unsubscribe.
Why the consent line names a number
“Email me about launches” lets you send anything. “Six emails, the last on a date” tells people exactly what they’re agreeing to, and that is the wording a consent record keeps.
05 / How often to email

How often should you email
a waitlist before launch?

Often enough that nobody forgets signing up, rarely enough that each email has news in it: usually one to three updates, the last the day before. There is no reliable study that gives a best number for a waitlist; this is a common practice, and it is what the timeline above follows. The risk at the long end is real, though: someone who has forgotten why you’re emailing is the person most likely to unsubscribe or report you as spam.

How many updates to send a waitlist before launch, by length of wait
Time from opening to launch Updates before launch When
Under a week 1 The day before launch.
One to three weeks 2 About a week before, and the day before.
Three to six weeks 3 Two weeks before, one week before, and the day before.
Longer than six weeks 3, plus a monthly note A short note about once a month, then the same three.

Around those updates sit three emails that don’t change: the confirmation as each person joins, the launch email at the time you named, and one last call a few days later. The confirmation is the one most people skip, and it does the most work, because it arrives while they still remember the page. The welcome email sequence guide covers what a first email should say.

Send the launch email from a proper sending domain, not a personal inbox. A Gmail account caps how many people you can email in a day and can lock you out for the rest of it, which is the wrong moment to find out; the guide to Gmail sending limits has the numbers.

06 / Skip the line

What is a referral waitlist,
and do you need one?

A referral waitlist gives each person a numbered place in the queue and a personal link; every friend who joins through the link moves them up. The idea is that people who want in badly will recruit others to get there sooner, so the list grows on its own.

It suits things that are genuinely scarce and that people talk about anyway: an app with limited invites, a product with a small first run. It needs software that tracks links and positions, a plan for fake signups made to jump the queue, and a real order of admission, because a place in line you don’t honour is worse than no place at all. Each friend still has to sign up and agree to emails themselves; a referral is not consent.

Builderify doesn’t do this. There are no referral links, queue positions or move-up rewards. If the referral loop is the point of your launch, use a waitlist tool built for it. For most small launches, a plain list everyone joins on equal terms is simpler to run and easier to explain.

07 / Shopify, Squarespace, HTML

How to create a waitlist on
Shopify, Squarespace or plain HTML.

Both Shopify and Squarespace can hide a whole site behind a password page, but that is for a site that isn’t open yet. For a launch on a site that is already selling, keep the site public and collect names with a form or popup on the pages that matter.

On Shopify

  • A store that isn’t open yet: turn on private mode in Online Store › Preferences › Store access. Visitors get a password page, which by default has an Email signup banner meant for exactly this: telling people when the store opens. In private mode every other page is hidden from visitors and search engines.Shopify
  • Where the signups go: the password page’s form is a customer form, so addresses land in your Shopify customers; the documented template tags them “prospect” and “password page”.Shopify Dev Email them with Shopify Email or another email app.
  • A script tag won’t reach the password page. In Dawn, Shopify’s reference theme, the password template uses its own layout rather than theme.liquid,Dawn so anything installed there, a Builderify popup included, doesn’t show on it. Use Builderify’s popup once the store is public: a product launch, a new collection, a restock.
  • Sold-out variants: if you want an email to go out automatically when a variant is back, that is what the back-in-stock apps in the Shopify App Store do.App Store

On Squarespace

  • The lock screen isn’t a signup page. Setting the site to Password Protected in the Site Availability panel shows a lock screen to everyone and hides the site from search engines; customers can’t check out while it’s on.Squarespace Squarespace lists text, a logo, a background and the password field as the lock screen’s contents, with no signup form among them.Squarespace
  • So keep the site public and make one coming soon page with a Newsletter block. Signups are stored in the Contacts panel by default, the block has a Disclaimer field for your consent wording, and it can send a confirmation email.Squarespace
  • Or use a popup on the pages people already visit, with the Builderify script added once in Code Injection.

On plain HTML

  • One page is enough: a heading that says what it is and when, a paragraph on what joining gets them, and a “Join the waitlist” button.
  • The form needs somewhere to send to. A static page can’t store an address on its own. Add the Builderify script tag to the page’s <head> and set the Launch Waitlist popup’s trigger to Manual, so it opens from your own button, or to a short delay.
  • Keep the page indexable. A coming soon page that names the product and the date can start ranking for the name before launch; a password wall can’t.
08 / Consent

Do waitlist emails
need consent?

Someone who joins a waitlist has asked to hear about one thing, and that is what you have permission for. Ask with a tick box that says what you’ll send, keep a record of what they saw, and don’t move them onto your newsletter afterwards without asking again.

Whether you need a tick box at all, and what counts as consent, depends on where your subscribers live: can I email customers without consent? answers it by country. If you email people in the United States, every launch email also has to meet the CAN-SPAM rules on sender details, a postal address and a working opt-out; the CAN-SPAM compliance checklist goes through them.

In Builderify, each signup that joins a list keeps a consent record: how they agreed, the wording they were shown, the page they were on and the time. There is no screen to browse those records yet; they are kept with the contact.

09 / In Builderify

Create a waitlist with Builderify,
in six steps.

A popup collects the names, a lead list holds them, a sequence confirms each signup and Broadcast sends the launch. All of it runs from one script tag on the site you already have.

  1. 01

    Make a list for the waitlist.

    In Leads, create a list just for this launch, so the launch email goes to the people who asked for it and nobody else. Every signup records where it came from and which popup produced it.

  2. 02

    Start from the Launch Waitlist popup.

    In Popups, pick the Launch Waitlist template (“Collect interest before you ship”). Replace the headline, text and button with the lines from the timeline. Its default note promises “one email when your invite is ready”; change it to match your plan.

  3. 03

    Turn on consent and connect the list.

    The template has no consent box to start with. In the Email form’s settings, switch on Consent checkbox, paste your wording and turn on Must be checked. Under Behavior, switch on Save to a lead list and pick the list. People join the list only when they tick the box; without it, submissions stay with the popup.

  4. 04

    Schedule it.

    Give the popup a first and last date in your website’s timezone. Schedules run in whole days, from the start of the first to the end of the last. Page rules keep it to the pages where it makes sense.

  5. 05

    Send the confirmation.

    A Sequence on the list with one email at day 0 goes to each person as they join. Merge tags are first name, last name, full name, email and the unsubscribe link. If someone replies to a sequence email, the sequence stops for them.

  6. 06

    Send the updates and the launch email.

    Use Broadcast to email the whole list from your own verified domain, now or scheduled for the date and time in your plan.

Covered
  • The Launch Waitlist, Event Registration and Restock Alert popup templates, with page rules and dates.
  • A lead list per waitlist, with the source and popup recorded for each signup.
  • A consent record for each person who joins the list.
  • A confirmation email as each person joins, and updates and a launch email from your own domain, scheduled ahead.
Not covered
  • Referral mechanics. No personal links, queue positions or skipping the line.
  • Restock emails by themselves. The Restock Alert popup collects addresses; nothing emails them when stock returns. You send that email with Broadcast.
  • The page itself. Builderify runs on your site. The coming soon page, if you need one, is built on your platform.

A new lead costs 1 credit, charged once per person however many lists they join, and each email sent costs 0.5 credits. Every account gets 250 free credits a month and there is no monthly fee; one-time packs start at $9 and purchased credits never expire. The full rate card is on the pricing page, and more guides are in the guides library.

Questions

Waitlists, before you ask.

Put a signup on your site with one email field and a tick box that says what you will send, store the addresses in an email list, send a confirmation as each person joins, and email the list a few times before launch. In Builderify the Launch Waitlist popup feeds a lead list, from the 250 free credits every account gets each month: a new lead is 1 credit and each email sent is 0.5 credits.

If the store is not open yet, turn on private mode under Online Store, Preferences, Store access. Visitors see the password page, which has an email signup banner by default, and the signups become Shopify customers. If the store is already public, keep it public and collect names with a form or popup on the product or collection page instead.

Usually one to three short updates, with the last one the day before launch, plus a confirmation when each person joins, the launch email and one last call a few days later. That is common practice rather than a measured rule. For a wait longer than about six weeks, add a short note roughly once a month so people remember signing up.

Not with Builderify. It has no referral links, queue positions or move-up rewards, so if the referral loop is the point of your launch, use a waitlist tool built for it. A plain list that everyone joins on equal terms is simpler to run, and Builderify handles that end to end.

No. The Restock Alert popup collects addresses, and saves them to a lead list once you add a consent box and connect the list, but nothing emails them automatically when stock returns. Send that email yourself with Broadcast, scheduled for the restock date or sent the moment the stock is live.

Sources

Shopify’s and Squarespace’s pages were read on 30 October 2026; menus move, so check the current versions before you rely on them. The Builderify details come from the module pages and the rate card on this site. The studio, the product and the dates in the examples are made up.

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