Klaviyo flows every store should run, plus an honest review

Klaviyo flows are automated emails and texts that send when a shopper does something: signs up, browses, starts checkout, buys or goes quiet. Every online store should run eight core flows: welcome, browse abandonment, cart and checkout abandonment, post-purchase, winback, back in stock, price drop and sunset. Build the welcome series and abandoned checkout first, because they reach people at the moment they’re most likely to buy.

Below you’ll find the trigger, timing and content for each flow, how to add SMS, what Klaviyo costs next to cheaper tools, an honest take on where it’s overkill, and the numbers to watch once your flows are live.

What Klaviyo flows are, and how they differ from campaigns

A campaign is a one-time send to a list or segment, like a Black Friday email. A flow runs in the background and sends to each person when they meet its trigger. Once it’s built, it keeps working on every new subscriber and every abandoned checkout without anyone pressing send.

Every flow has three parts: a trigger (what starts it), filters (who’s excluded, such as anyone who has already bought), and a series of messages separated by time delays. A common mistake in Klaviyo email marketing is a missing filter, not bad copy: a customer gets “you left something behind” an hour after paying.

The 8 Klaviyo flows every store should run

1. Welcome series

Klaviyo’s welcome series guide recommends a list-triggered flow of three emails over about a week: the first right away, the second three days after sign-up and the third four days after that. Email one introduces your brand and delivers any sign-up offer, email two gives people a reason to trust or follow you, and email three shows best sellers.

Put a split for “has placed order at least once” before any discount so existing customers don’t get a first-order coupon. A plain subject line works: “Your code is inside, plus what we’re about.”

2. Browse abandonment

This flow triggers on Viewed Product, so it only reaches visitors Klaviyo can identify, such as past subscribers, buyers and email clickers. Wait at least an hour, keep the tone lighter than a cart email, and filter out anyone who started checkout or ordered after entering the flow, or who received it within the last month. One or two emails is plenty. Try: “Still thinking about the [product]? Here’s what people usually ask before buying.”

3. Cart and checkout abandonment

Run this on Started Checkout, and consider a separate, softer flow on Added to Cart. Klaviyo’s abandoned cart guide suggests the first message two to four hours after checkout starts and a second 20 to 48 hours later, with two or three messages in total. It also warns against a coupon in the first email, since that teaches people to abandon on purpose.

• Filter: Placed Order zero times since starting this flow.
• Show the actual cart contents with a return-to-cart button, and nothing else competing for the click.
• Save any incentive for the last message, or offer it only to people who have never bought.
• Turn off your store platform’s own abandoned checkout email so customers don’t get two.

4. Post-purchase

Trigger on Placed Order and split first-time buyers from repeat customers. Keep order and shipping confirmations as transactional messages with no marketing in them. Then time the rest around delivery: a thank-you, setup or care tips as the order arrives, a review request once they’ve used it, and a cross-sell for something that pairs with what they bought. Never offer an incentive for positive reviews.

5. Winback

Trigger on Placed Order with a long delay, set a little past your normal time between orders. To find that number, build a segment of customers with two or more orders in the last two years, export it and average the time between orders. Send up to three emails: a light touch with best sellers and an offer, a reminder with a deadline, and a last-chance note with an easy unsubscribe.

6. Back in stock

Shoppers subscribe from the product page, and Klaviyo holds them until inventory returns. One email is usually enough. Turn off Smart Sending for it so every subscriber hears, and set a restock minimum and batch size so a long waitlist isn’t chasing three units. It needs a supported platform such as Shopify, BigCommerce or Magento 2, or a synced catalog.

7. Price drop

This flow fires when a product someone viewed or started checkout on gets cheaper by an amount you set, in dollars or percent. Send the first message right away and a reminder a day later to anyone who hasn’t bought. People who bought the item recently are excluded, and you choose how far back the viewing window reaches.

8. Sunset

The sunset flow is the one stores skip, and it costs them. Klaviyo’s sunset flow guide defines unengaged profiles as those created at least 180 days ago that have received at least five emails in the last 72 weeks with no opens, clicks, site visits or orders. Send them one to three plain, personal emails asking whether they still want to hear from you, then flag non-responders and suppress them. The same guide notes that inactive profiles still count toward your Klaviyo bill, so this flow saves money as well as protecting deliverability.

Adding SMS to your Klaviyo flows

SMS works best as a second touch inside flows you already run, not as a separate program. Good spots: a text in the cart flow after the first email, a restock alert and a price drop alert. Use a conditional split so texts go only to people who have consented to SMS, and everyone else gets email.

• Get consent specific to texting. An email opt-in doesn’t cover it, and purchased lists don’t count.
• Show your SMS disclosure everywhere you collect numbers: pop-ups, checkout and printed QR codes.
• Send during daytime hours in the recipient’s time zone, and include an opt-out such as “Reply STOP.”
• Keep each text to one message and one link.

Texting rules vary by state and country, so have counsel review your program before launch.

What Klaviyo costs, and cheaper alternatives

Klaviyo prices email by active profiles (the contacts you can email) and bills texting separately. Klaviyo’s guide to free and paid plans says the free plan covers up to 250 profiles and 500 emails a month, adds Klaviyo branding to your email footer and includes email support only for your first 60 days. Klaviyo’s Shopify App Store listing shows the Email plan starting at $20 a month for 251 to 500 contacts, and an SMS plan at $15 a month for up to 1,250 SMS/MMS credits, carrier fees included.

From there, the price climbs with your list. Check Klaviyo’s pricing page using your real active-profile count after the sunset flow has done its job, not your all-time total.

The Shopify Email figure comes from Shopify Email’s pricing page, which also notes that abandoned checkout automations don’t count toward the free allowance.

An honest Klaviyo review: where it shines and where it’s overkill

IGNITE is a Klaviyo Partner, so weigh our view with that in mind. Here’s where we land.

Where Klaviyo earns its price

• It pulls order, product and browsing data from Shopify and other platforms, so a flow can show the exact product someone viewed or left in the cart.
• Segmentation goes deep: order count, spend, products bought, engagement and, for eligible accounts, predicted next order date.
• Every flow above comes prebuilt, and Klaviyo publishes benchmarks to compare against.
• Email and SMS sit in one place with one consent record.

Where it’s overkill

• Stores with a few hundred contacts and a handful of products. Shopify Email’s free allowance covers you for now.
• Service businesses such as auto repair shops and hunting outfitters that mainly send reminders and a newsletter. A simpler tool is cheaper and easier to run.
• Teams with no time to build flows. Klaviyo’s value is in the setup; an account that only sends campaigns is an expensive newsletter tool.

Our email marketing services cover both Klaviyo and Constant Contact, so we can tell you honestly which one fits.

A 30-day plan to get your flows live

1. Week 1: connect your store, confirm Viewed Product and Started Checkout are tracking, and build the welcome series.
2. Week 2: build cart and checkout abandonment plus browse abandonment, then switch off your platform’s built-in cart email.
3. Week 3: add post-purchase and back in stock, with first-time and repeat buyer splits.
4. Week 4: add winback, price drop and sunset, then set up the monthly report below.

What to measure in Klaviyo email marketing

Open rates are unreliable now that Apple Mail Privacy Protection inflates them, so judge flows on clicks, orders and revenue per recipient (flow revenue divided by delivered messages). For a yardstick, Klaviyo’s 2026 abandoned cart benchmarks, drawn from more than 110,000 Klaviyo customers, put average abandoned cart revenue per recipient at $6.77 for email and $4.48 for text, with the top 10% of brands at $13.70 for email. Average email click rate was 6.0%. In automotive, the top 10% reached $27.48 per email recipient.

Change one thing at a time (a delay, a subject line, an offer) and give it a few weeks of traffic before you judge it. Small stores need longer to collect enough sends.

Related guides: How to sell car parts online: website, Shopify, eBay and more and Website redesign cost in 2026: what small businesses pay.

Frequently asked questions

Which Klaviyo flows should I set up first?

Start with the welcome series and the abandoned checkout flow, because they reach people at the highest intent: right after signing up and right after starting to pay. Next add browse abandonment and post-purchase, then winback, back in stock, price drop and sunset. Give every flow a filter that removes people once they buy, so customers never get reminders about orders they’ve already placed.

How much does Klaviyo cost?

Klaviyo’s free plan covers up to 250 profiles and 500 emails a month. Its Shopify App Store listing shows the paid Email plan starting at $20 a month for 251 to 500 contacts, with the price rising as your list grows, and an SMS plan from $15 a month for up to 1,250 credits. Billing is based on active profiles, so suppressing unengaged contacts keeps the bill down.

Is Klaviyo worth it for a small business?

Klaviyo is worth it for online stores that sell enough products, often enough, for automated flows to drive repeat orders. It’s often overkill for service businesses that mainly send a newsletter, and for very small stores that can stay within Shopify Email’s 10,000 free monthly emails. The deciding factor is whether someone will actually build, test and maintain the core flows.

How many emails should an abandoned cart flow have?

Klaviyo’s guidance points to two or three messages. Send the first two to four hours after checkout starts and the next one 20 to 48 hours later. Skip discounts in the first email so you don’t train shoppers to abandon carts for a coupon, and add a filter that stops the flow as soon as the customer places an order.

Can Klaviyo send text messages?

Yes. Klaviyo sends SMS and MMS, and texting is billed separately from email using credits you buy. You need consent specific to texting, since an email opt-in doesn’t cover it, and every message should offer a way to opt out. The best use for most stores is adding texts to existing flows such as cart abandonment, back in stock and price drop.

Get your flows set up right

If you’d like a second set of eyes on your Klaviyo account or a plan for which flows to build first, book a free call with our team. It takes 30 minutes, or you can call us at 440-490-6280.