The short answer
- Shopify's own email tool is now called Shopify Messaging (formerly Shopify Email). Every store on Basic, Grow, Advanced or Plus gets 10,000 emails a month at no charge, then pays $1 per 1,000.
- Abandoned checkout emails sent through Shopify Messaging are never charged and do not count toward the 10,000.
- Klaviyo starts at $20 a month for 500 active profiles and Omnisend Standard at $16 a month for 500 contacts. Both price by list size; Shopify prices by emails sent.
- Build four flows before any campaign calendar: welcome, abandoned checkout, abandoned cart or browse, and post-purchase. Automations are about 2% of email sends and 30% of email revenue in Omnisend's 2026 report.
Prices as listed on Shopify's help center, Klaviyo's pricing page and Omnisend's pricing page on November 9, 2026.
Email is the one Shopify channel you own outright. No auction sets the price of a send, and a subscriber you collected in 2024 is still reachable in 2026 without paying again. This guide covers which tool to use, what it costs, the flows to build in order, and the numbers to judge them against.
Shopify Messaging: what Shopify gives you
Shopify renamed Shopify Email to Shopify Messaging when it added SMS and WhatsApp. It is a Shopify-built app you install from the App Store, and it runs inside the admin. Per Shopify's help center, it covers:
- Campaigns in email, SMS and WhatsApp, built from templates and your product catalog.
- Automations from pre-built templates, with Shopify Flow underneath for custom logic.
- Segments from Shopify's own customer data, so "bought twice, not in 90 days" needs no sync.
- Sidekick inside the editor, which drafts email copy from a prompt.
Two requirements catch stores out. Shopify Network Intelligence must be enabled in your privacy settings, and full automation features need the Shopify Flow app installed, with staff holding both the Marketing and Flow permissions.
Shopify Messaging vs Klaviyo vs Omnisend pricing
The three tools charge on different meters. Shopify charges per email sent. Klaviyo charges by active profiles. Omnisend charges by contacts. That difference decides which is cheapest for your list.
| Tool | Free allowance | First paid tier | How it scales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify Messaging | 10,000 emails a month on Basic plan and up | $1 per 1,000 emails beyond 10,000 | $0.65 per 1,000 after 300,000 emails; $0.55 per 1,000 after 750,000 |
| Klaviyo | 250 active profiles, 500 emails a month | Email: $20 a month for 500 active profiles, 5,000 emails | By active profiles; custom pricing above 150,000 |
| Klaviyo Marketing | Same free plan | $25 a month for 500 active profiles (first month $1 on an eligible plan) | Adds social marketing, unlimited review orders, Customer Hub |
| Omnisend | 250 contacts, 500 emails a month | Standard: $16 a month for 500 contacts, 6,000 emails | By contacts; Pro lists at $59 a month for 500 contacts with SMS |
Omnisend was showing 30% off its first three months when checked, so the first invoice is lower than the list price above. SMS on all three is billed per message at a rate that depends on the recipient's country.
A worked example at two list sizes
A store with 500 subscribers sending 8 campaigns a month plus flows sends about 4,500 emails. On Shopify Messaging that costs nothing. On Klaviyo it fits the $20 Email plan, and on Omnisend the $16 Standard plan.
The same store at 5,000 subscribers sends about 40,000 campaign emails and a few thousand flow emails. Abandoned checkout emails are excluded, so say 42,000 billable. Shopify Messaging charges for 32,000 of them: $32 a month. Klaviyo and Omnisend move up their profile sliders as the list grows, so price them on their pages at your real count before deciding.
Which one to choose
- Under a few thousand subscribers, one store, simple flows: Shopify Messaging. It is cheaper and the data is already there.
- Heavy segmentation, predictive fields, many flow branches, or SMS as a core channel: Klaviyo. Its flow builder and reporting go deeper, and its 2026 benchmark data, quoted below, comes from more than 110,000 of its customers.
- Price-sensitive and want email, SMS and web push in one plan: Omnisend.
Switching later is not free. Each platform keeps its own flow logic and sending reputation, so pick the one you expect to use in two years, not the cheapest this month.
The flows to build first, in order
Flows send on behaviour, so they earn money every day without anyone scheduling them. Build them before you plan a campaign calendar.
| Flow | Trigger | Messages and timing | Shopify Messaging template |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Welcome | Signs up through a form | Email 1 at once with the offer; 2 brand emails over 4 days; a reminder if no purchase | Welcome new subscribers with a discount series |
| 2. Abandoned checkout | Starts checkout, does not pay | Email 1 after about 1 hour; email 2 after 24 hours; optional discount in email 2 | Recover abandoned checkout |
| 3. Abandoned cart | Adds to cart, never starts checkout | One email after 2 to 4 hours | Recover abandoned cart |
| 4. Browse abandonment | Views a product, adds nothing | One email the next day showing the product viewed | Convert abandoned product browse |
| 5. Post-purchase | First order paid | Thank you at once; a cross-sell 7 to 14 days later | Thank customers after they purchase; Upsell customers after their first purchase |
| 6. Win-back | No order in a set period | One email at your typical reorder gap plus 30 days | Win back customers |
The order matters. Welcome and abandoned checkout earn the most per recipient, so a store with time for only two flows should build those. The abandoned checkout flow has its own guide: see Shopify abandoned cart recovery for timing, discounts and the matching retargeting ads.
The post-purchase flow is where repeat revenue starts. Pair it with the on-site offers in Shopify upsell so the email suggests the product the checkout did not.
Email benchmarks to judge your flows against
Benchmarks are only useful from a named source with a stated sample. These two are recent and large.
| Metric | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Abandoned cart flow revenue per recipient (email) | $6.77 average; $13.70 for the top 10% of brands | Klaviyo's 2026 abandoned cart benchmarks, 110,000+ customers |
| Abandoned cart flow click rate (email) | 6% average; 11.3% top 10% | Klaviyo, same report |
| Welcome series click rate (email) | 6.5% average; 13.3% top 10% | Klaviyo, same report |
| Abandoned cart flow revenue per recipient (SMS) | $4.48 average; $8.69 top 10% | Klaviyo, same report |
| Share of sends vs revenue from automations | 2% of email sends, 30% of email revenue | Omnisend's 2026 ecommerce marketing statistics report |
| Revenue per email, automated vs campaign | $2.87 vs $0.18 | Omnisend, same report |
| Open rate, campaigns vs automations | 30.7% vs 38% | Omnisend, same report |
| Highest-converting automation type | Back-in-stock, 6.46% conversion rate | Omnisend, same report |
Read open rates loosely. Apple Mail Privacy Protection opens messages automatically, so an open rate is inflated by machine opens. Clicks and revenue per recipient are the numbers to manage to.
Use the gap between average and top 10% as your target. If your abandoned cart flow earns $3 per recipient, it is below Klaviyo's average and there is money in the subject line, timing and product images. If it earns $10, more traffic is a bigger lever than more email work.
Growing the list without wrecking deliverability
- Use a pop-up with an offer, shown after intent. The Shopify Forms app feeds Shopify Messaging directly. Trigger it on scroll depth or exit intent rather than on page load.
- Collect at checkout. Turn on the email marketing checkbox at checkout. Buyers who opt in there are your best segment.
- Authenticate your domain. Send from your own domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC set. Gmail and Yahoo require authentication for bulk senders.
- Suppress unengaged profiles. Stop sending campaigns to anyone with no open or click in 90 to 120 days. Fewer sends to the wrong people protects inbox placement for everyone else, and on Klaviyo it also lowers your profile bill.
- Never buy a list. It breaks every platform's terms and is the fastest route to the spam folder.
A campaign calendar that does not burn the list
Once the flows run, campaigns add the spikes. A sustainable default for most Shopify stores:
- Two campaigns a week to engaged subscribers: one product or story email, one offer or collection email.
- One campaign a week to the wider list, so you can measure who still responds.
- Launches and sales: a teaser, launch day, and a last-chance email. That is three sends, not seven.
- Black Friday: build the segments in October. The Black Friday marketing strategy page covers the timeline across email and ads.
Measure each campaign on revenue per recipient and unsubscribe rate together. A campaign that earns well but doubles unsubscribes is borrowing from next month.
How email and paid ads work together
Email works on people who already gave you an address. Ads reach people who have not. The two meet in three places:
- Exclusions. Upload your customer list to Meta and Google so prospecting campaigns stop paying to reach people who already buy by email.
- Retargeting. Shoppers who abandon checkout without leaving an email can only be reached by ads.
- Lifetime value. Email raises repeat purchase, which raises what you can afford to pay for a first order. Model it with the LTV calculator.
Where Sprites fits
Sprites does not send email; keep that in Shopify Messaging, Klaviyo or Omnisend. Sprites runs the paid and search side of a Shopify store: Google and Meta campaigns, customer-list audiences for exclusions, catalog SEO, collection pages and store blog posts, each proposed as an approval card before anything changes. See Sprites for ecommerce.
Plans start at $99 a month for one ad channel, with a 7-day trial for $1. Details on pricing.
FAQ
Is Shopify Email free?
Shopify Email is now Shopify Messaging. Every store on the Basic, Grow, Advanced or Plus plan can send 10,000 emails a month at no charge. After that it costs $1 per 1,000 emails up to 300,000, and abandoned checkout emails are never charged.
Is Shopify Messaging better than Klaviyo?
For small lists and simple flows, Shopify Messaging is cheaper and already holds your customer data. Klaviyo goes deeper on segmentation, flow branching, SMS and reporting, and starts at $20 a month for 500 active profiles. Most stores outgrow Shopify Messaging on features before they outgrow it on price.
What email flows should a Shopify store set up first?
Start with a welcome series and an abandoned checkout flow, because they earn the most per recipient. Then add abandoned cart, browse abandonment, a post-purchase cross-sell and a win-back flow. Shopify Messaging has templates for all six.
How much revenue should a Shopify abandoned cart email make?
Klaviyo's 2026 benchmarks put the average abandoned cart email flow at $6.77 revenue per recipient, and the top 10% of brands at $13.70. The average click rate is 6%. If your flow earns well below that, test timing, subject lines and product images first.
Does Shopify Messaging send SMS?
Yes. Shopify Messaging sends email, SMS and WhatsApp campaigns and automations. SMS and WhatsApp messages are charged per message at the rate for the recipient region, and abandoned checkout SMS is charged even though abandoned checkout emails are not.
Can Sprites send my Shopify emails?
No. Sprites runs ads and SEO for a Shopify store, not email. It can use your customer list as a Meta or Google audience for exclusions and retargeting, while the emails themselves stay in Shopify Messaging, Klaviyo or Omnisend.