8 Best Shopify Order Management Tools for 2026

If your Shopify orders are getting messy, you probably don't need a full order management system (OMS) yet. Shopify's admin already handles orders, fulfillment and purchase orders, and its free Flow app can automate the repetitive steps. Most small brands add one focused app when a specific job starts eating the day: a shipping app when labels pile up, a tracking app when customers keep asking where their package is, or a purchasing tool when stockouts start.

Below are eight tools that work with Shopify, ordered from simplest to most involved, with each vendor's published price as we checked it on October 2, 2026. One note up front: Simpl Fulfillment publishes this guide. We're a fulfillment warehouse (a 3PL), not order management software, so we left ourselves out of the list. The section near the end covers when outsourcing fulfillment makes more sense than buying another app.

Do you need an order management system?

Start with what's going wrong, then match it to the cheapest fix:

• Orders are hard to find or keep straight. Use Shopify's admin first: search and filter orders by fulfillment status, payment method or date. Our guide to keeping track of orders as a small business covers the habits that help.
• You repeat the same clicks on every order. Shopify Flow watches your store for events and runs a set of actions in response. It's free on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans.
• Printing labels takes an hour a day. Add a shipping app such as ShipStation for rate shopping and batch labels.
• Customers keep emailing to ask where their order is. Add a tracking app such as AfterShip so they can check for themselves.
• You run out of stock or chase suppliers by email. Start with Shopify's built-in purchase orders. Move to Auto Purchase Orders, Prediko or Thrive Inventory when you want automatic POs or demand forecasts.
• You route orders to several suppliers, or sell wholesale too. That's when Order Desk or Erplain is worth a look.
• The real problem is packing boxes. That's labor, and an app can't do it for you. See the section on handing off fulfillment below.

The 8 tools at a glance

Prices are the lowest published monthly plan, checked October 2, 2026. Several vendors add usage charges on top, so open the linked page before you sign up.

1. Shopify's built-in order management

Before you install anything, use what you already pay for. Shopify's order management covers viewing and tracking orders, processing payments, making changes to orders, and handling returns and refunds. You can search orders by number, customer or product, filter them by fulfillment status, payment method or date, and create orders yourself for phone or email sales.

Two more built-in features cover jobs people used to buy apps for. Shopify Flow is a free app on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans that watches your store for events and runs actions in response, so routine steps happen without you. Purchase orders live in the Shopify admin: you record what you ordered from a supplier, then receive the stock against it when it arrives.

If you relied on Stocky, Shopify's old purchasing and stock-count app, Shopify says Stocky is no longer available as of August 31, 2026. Inventory is now managed in the Shopify admin and Shopify POS, and that help page walks through the move.

Fits when: you run one store and want to keep costs down. Watch out for: once you need demand forecasts or automatic routing to several suppliers, you'll want one of the apps below. For more on keeping stock levels right, see our inventory management tips.

2. ShipStation

ShipStation is a shipping app. It pulls in your Shopify orders, compares carrier rates and prints labels, one at a time or in a batch. Its Shopify App Store listing says you can use its discounted rates or your own carrier accounts across 200+ carriers, including UPS, USPS and FedEx.

The listing shows Starter at $14.99 a month, Standard at $29.99 and Premium at $349.99, plus charges that vary by geography and monthly order volume. Each plan comes with a 30-day free trial. We go deeper in what ShipStation is and how it works.

Fits when: you still pack orders yourself and labels are the slow part. Watch out for: the variable charges on top of the plan price; read the listing before you pick a tier.

3. AfterShip Order Tracking

AfterShip gives customers a branded tracking page and sends delivery updates, so they can check an order's status without emailing you. The free plan covers 50 shipments a month and includes the branded tracking page. Essentials costs $11 a month for 100 shipments plus $0.08 per extra shipment and adds email and SMS notifications. Premium is $70 a month for 500 shipments plus $0.12 per extra.

Fits when: tracking questions take up your inbox. Watch out for: per-shipment overage fees in busy months.

4. Order Desk

Order Desk connects your Shopify store to other services (its App Store listing says more than 300) and automates how orders move between them. Its Rule Builder handles steps you'd otherwise do by hand on each order.

Order Desk's pricing is a base fee plus a per-order fee. Starter is $20 a month plus 25¢ per order (up to 3 integrations and one user), Pro is $60 plus 10¢, and Plus is $125 plus 5¢. The App Store listing shows a 30-day free trial.

Fits when: you send orders to more than one supplier or system. Watch out for: the per-order fee. Above roughly 270 orders a month, Pro costs less than Starter, so do the math for your volume.

5. Auto Purchase Orders

Auto Purchase Orders handles the paperwork side of buying stock. It generates purchase orders from your Shopify orders, emails them to suppliers, updates inventory when stock is received, and syncs POs as bills to Xero and QuickBooks.

There's no free plan. The App Store listing shows Advanced at $39.99 a month for 100 POs, Professional at $59.99 for 250, and an Enterprise plan from $74.99 for more than 250, each with a 14-day free trial.

Fits when: you reorder from several suppliers and type up POs by hand. Watch out for: it's built for the purchasing paperwork. If you also want demand forecasts, look at Prediko or Thrive Inventory.

6. Prediko

Prediko is an inventory forecasting and planning app with purchase orders built in. The idea is to reorder before you run out without overbuying.

Prediko publishes its prices. Its pricing page and App Store listing show Starter at $49 a month for stores with up to $100K in revenue, Scale-up at $119 (up to $500K) and Growth at $199 (up to $2M), each with a 14-day free trial.

Fits when: stockouts or dead stock are costing you money. Watch out for: the plan is set by your revenue, not your order count, so the price rises as sales grow.

7. Thrive Inventory

Thrive Inventory, made by Shopventory, is built for stores that keep stock in more than one location.

Its Shopify App Store listing starts at $59 a month for Starter (up to 1,500 transactions a month), then $129 for Standard (adds purchase orders and up to 2 locations) and $279 for Professional (up to 5 locations, plus stock forecasting). Thrive's own pricing page shows different figures, so confirm the price when you sign up. Both mention a free trial.

Fits when: you sell from more than one location. Watch out for: the App Store listing puts purchase orders on Standard and up, not Starter.

8. Erplain

Erplain keeps sales orders, purchase orders and inventory in one place, with B2B features for wholesale customers.

The price depends on where you look. Erplain's pricing page starts at €29 a month billed annually (€34 billed monthly) for its Business plan. Its Shopify App Store listing starts at $149 a month for Premium, which includes 1,000 orders and multi-location support, with a 14-day free trial.

Fits when: you sell wholesale as well as through your Shopify store. Watch out for: the gap between the two price lists; check which plan you're actually buying.

If you're much bigger

Two names from older versions of this list have changed. Orderhive's Shopify app is no longer available on the App Store, and orderhive.com now redirects to Cin7, whose plans start at $349 a month. Skubana's site now redirects to Extensiv, which sells Extensiv Order Manager through its sales team rather than a public price list. Both are worth a look only if you sell across many channels and locations.

When more software won't help: hand off fulfillment

Here's where Simpl fits. If your orders are organized but you're still spending evenings picking, packing and taping boxes, another app won't give that time back. That's when outsourcing fulfillment to a third-party logistics company (3PL) is worth considering. Our guide on how to choose a 3PL covers what to compare.

Simpl is a 3PL based in Austin, Texas that connects natively to Shopify and Shopify Plus. Orders come in from your store, we pick, pack and ship them, and tracking numbers sync back to the Shopify order. Shopify's own notifications still send the shipping emails your customers see, and you keep real-time visibility into your inventory. More on the service itself is on our ecommerce fulfillment page.

What you'd want to know before talking to us:

• Orders received before 12pm CT ship the same day.
• Order accuracy is 99.99%, and errors are corrected at Simpl's cost (return shipping and re-fulfillment).
• Pricing starts at $7 per order, with a $750 monthly minimum billed pay-the-difference: if a month's orders bill under $750, you pay only the gap. That's about 100 shipments a month at the lightest weight (0.5 lb or under). Heavier shipments cost more each, so fewer of them reach $750. Details are on our pricing page.
• Every client gets a dedicated account manager, a real person reachable by email, with same-day (often faster) responses.
• Onboarding takes 5–7 days.

Subscription brands can use our Kitting and Assembly service to put each box together before it ships; see subscription box fulfillment. Simpl also connects to Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Etsy and TikTok Shop if you sell there too.

Common questions

What's the difference between an OMS and a WMS?

An order management system tracks orders from checkout to delivery and decides where each one goes. A warehouse management system (WMS) runs the warehouse itself: where stock sits, what gets picked and how it's packed. If you use a 3PL, the warehouse side runs on the 3PL's WMS (Simpl uses ShipHero). Our explainer on 3PL warehouse management systems goes further.

Do I need an OMS if I use a 3PL?

Often not. With a 3PL connected to Shopify, your orders still live in the Shopify admin and tracking flows back there. An OMS earns its place again when you sell across several channels and want one place to route every order, or when you split stock between a 3PL and another location.

If packing orders is what's holding your store back, see how Simpl works with Shopify, or tell us about your store.