How pre-orders work

A release on metal.club has a lifecycle: draft → scheduled → released. Pre-orders sit inside that lifecycle. You upload a record ahead of time, set a release date, and decide when fans can start buying — long before the music is public.

Used well, this is a campaign engine, not a settings page. You can drip a record out track by track over weeks, notify the people who committed early at each reveal, and turn release day into a payoff instead of a cold launch. This guide walks the whole thing, in the order you’d actually use it.

Schedule a release ahead

Everything starts with a future release date. When you upload (or edit) a release, set the release date to a day in the future and publish it. The release is now scheduled: it has a public page, but it is not yet on sale.

— A scheduled release shows a “Coming soon” treatment on its page, with a countdown to the date.
— Fans can pre-save it — a free signal that notifies them the moment it goes live.
— It appears on the Drops page under “Dropping soon”.

A scheduled release is the foundation. Opening pre-orders is a single switch on top of it.

Open pre-orders

In your release editor there is a Pre-orders section (it appears only while a release is future-dated and not yet released). One button — Open pre-orders — flips the release from “coming soon” into an active pre-order.

The moment you open pre-orders, three things change automatically:

— The release page switches from “Coming soon” to “Pre-order”, and the Buy controls go live.
— Drops moves it from “Dropping soon” into the Pre-orders section.
— It starts appearing in the main new-releases grids (homepage and Discover) carrying a “Pre-order” label — the same grids released records sit in, so pre-orders aren’t hidden away.

Closing pre-orders reverses the first two: the page returns to “Coming soon” and it leaves the main grids. It never affects anyone who already bought (see Practical notes).

Physical pre-orders

Physical formats have their own pre-order control, separate from the release-level switch. On any vinyl / CD / cassette format in the release editor, turn on “Pre-order (ships later)” and set a “Ships on / around” date.

Tip

Vinyl that ships weeks or months after the digital release is completely normal, and fully supported. The per-format ship date is independent of the release date — a record can be digitally out and released while its vinyl is still a pre-order shipping in the spring.

— The ship date is a soft “on or around” — it can be before or after the digital release date, so you don’t over-promise an exact day.
— It is editable at any time. Manufacturing slips; when it does, change the date and the fan’s expectation updates.
— A pre-order format doesn’t show as “sold out” when stock is zero — it’s taking orders ahead of stock arriving.

Digital pre-orders

When pre-orders are open, fans can buy the digital release ahead of time. Payment is taken now, at checkout — this is a real purchase, not a reservation. The record lands in their collection immediately as a pre-order they own.

What they can actually play and download before release day is date-driven:

— Tracks you’ve given an early preview date unlock for them as each date passes (see the campaign below).
— Everything else stays locked until the release date, then the whole record unlocks at once.

Note

The lock is enforced server-side, per track, by date — not by hiding a button. A pre-order buyer genuinely cannot pull down an unreleased track early, which is what makes the staggered reveal below meaningful rather than cosmetic.

The staggered-single campaign

This is the part that turns a pre-order into a campaign. In the release editor, every track can carry its own “Preview from” date. Set them in sequence and the album releases itself, one track at a time, up to launch:

Track 1 — previews from 1 May

Track 3 — previews from 15 May

Full album — releases 1 June

(Track 2 stays locked until release day — you choose exactly which tracks preview, and when.)

Here’s what happens on its own as those dates pass:

— On each preview date, that track becomes publicly streamable and unlocks in the collections of everyone who pre-ordered. The album literally unfolds into buyers’ libraries as the campaign runs.
— Each reveal notifies the people who committed — your pre-order buyers and pre-savers get told a new track is streaming now. You don’t send anything; it fires from the date.
— On release day, the whole record unlocks, and pre-order buyers get a distinct “your full album is now available” notification — the payoff for backing it early.

Important

Think of the preview dates as your single schedule. Instead of cutting three standalone singles and hoping people connect them to the album, you drop them into the pre-order — each one lands in the inbox and the collection of the exact fans who already bought in, and pulls new listeners onto the public stream at the same time.

What fans see at each stage

Coming soon

Scheduled, pre-orders not yet open. A countdown and a Pre-save button. Not on sale, not in the main grids.

Pre-order

Pre-orders open. A “Pre-order” heading and live Buy controls; any revealed tracks are streamable; a “Pre-order · releases [date]” line. Carries the “Pre-order” tag in the homepage and Discover grids.

Released

Live. The full record streams and downloads, the page reads “Own this record”, and everyone who pre-ordered already has it.

Practical notes

— Dates are editable as campaigns slip. Release date, per-format ship dates, and per-track preview dates can all be changed after you’ve opened pre-orders. Move a date and everything downstream — page treatment, grids, what’s unlocked — follows.
— Closing pre-orders never touches existing buyers. If you close pre-orders, you only stop taking new ones. Everyone who already ordered keeps their order and still receives the release and every scheduled unlock, exactly as before.
— Reveal and release-day notifications process within 24 hours of their date. Fans can always buy, stream, and download the instant a date passes — that part is immediate; the notification that goes out with it lands within a day.

New to the platform? Start with Your first release. Want the “why” behind all of this? See metal.club for artists.