Shopify stores that treat email as an afterthought leave real money on the table. Email marketing campaigns return an average of $36 for every $1 spent, and for ecommerce, the numbers are even stronger. Email marketing remains the highest-ROI channel for Shopify merchants, generating $36 to $42 for every $1 spent. The challenge most merchants face isn't whether to use email. It's knowing which of the several available methods actually fits their store stage, list size, and goals.
This guide breaks down seven specific methods for how to send email marketing on Shopify, from the native built-in tool to third-party platforms and advanced automation flows. Each method has a clear use case so you can choose what works for your store right now.
Key Takeaways
Shopify captured 30% of US ecommerce businesses in 2025, making platform-native email tools increasingly capable and relevant.
Shopify Messaging lets you send up to 10,000 emails per month for free, with additional sends at $1 per 1,000 emails.
Automated flows can account for 30 to 50% of a Shopify store's total email revenue despite representing only 2 to 5% of total emails sent.
Segmented campaigns generate 760% more revenue than non-segmented sends.
The average cart abandonment rate for Shopify stores is just above 70%, meaning roughly seven out of ten shoppers add items to their cart but leave before paying.
Method 1: Shopify Messaging (The Native Tool)
Shopify Messaging (formerly Shopify Email) is the most direct answer to how to send email marketing on Shopify for new and growing stores. Shopify Messaging can help you grow your business, drive sales, and stay connected with customers by creating and sending email and SMS campaigns directly from your Shopify admin.
You can create branded emails in minutes with a drag-and-drop editor and fully customizable templates, and choose from several pre-built templates that automatically pull branding, products, and prices directly from your store.
Shopify stores that treat email as an afterthought leave real money on the table. Email marketing campaigns return an average of $36 for every $1 spent, and for ecommerce, the numbers are even stronger. Email marketing remains the highest-ROI channel for Shopify merchants, generating $36 to $42 for every $1 spent. The challenge most merchants face isn't whether to use email. It's knowing which of the several available methods actually fits their store stage, list size, and goals.
This guide breaks down seven specific methods for how to send email marketing on Shopify, from the native built-in tool to third-party platforms and advanced automation flows. Each method has a clear use case so you can choose what works for your store right now.
Key Takeaways
Shopify captured 30% of US ecommerce businesses in 2025, making platform-native email tools increasingly capable and relevant.
Shopify Messaging lets you send up to 10,000 emails per month for free, with additional sends at $1 per 1,000 emails.
Automated flows can account for 30 to 50% of a Shopify store's total email revenue despite representing only 2 to 5% of total emails sent.
Segmented campaigns generate 760% more revenue than non-segmented sends.
The average cart abandonment rate for Shopify stores is just above 70%, meaning roughly seven out of ten shoppers add items to their cart but leave before paying.
Method 1: Shopify Messaging (The Native Tool)
Shopify Messaging (formerly Shopify Email) is the most direct answer to how to send email marketing on Shopify for new and growing stores. Shopify Messaging can help you grow your business, drive sales, and stay connected with customers by creating and sending email and SMS campaigns directly from your Shopify admin.
You can create branded emails in minutes with a drag-and-drop editor and fully customizable templates, and choose from several pre-built templates that automatically pull branding, products, and prices directly from your store.
How to send your first campaign:
From your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Messaging.
Click "Create campaign."
Select a template or start from blank.
Choose a segment to send the email to specific customers, change the subject and preview text, and edit the "From" email.
Send a test email to up to 5 addresses to preview how it looks.
Review, then send or schedule.
Best for: Stores under 5,000 contacts that want a straightforward, integrated campaign tool without a separate subscription. All merchants with Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Shopify Plus plans can use Shopify Messaging.
Limitation to know: Shopify Email supports only a limited set of event triggers, making it less suitable for intricate multi-step or cross-channel campaigns, and it remains an email-only automation tool.
Method 2: Shopify Messaging Automations
Beyond manual campaigns, Shopify Messaging includes a built-in automation layer. You can use marketing automations in Shopify Messaging to automatically send emails when customers take actions in your store, such as abandoning a checkout or browsing a product, and you can get started quickly with pre-built templates.
You can access pre-built automation workflows directly within the Shopify admin, and these templates cover essential customer journeys. Core automations include:
Welcome emails for new subscribers
Abandoned checkout recovery
Browse abandonment reminders
Post-purchase follow-ups
If you want to create a custom marketing automation or an automation that includes a third-party app, you can instead create a workflow in the Shopify Flow app.
Setting up a welcome flow is one of the highest-leverage actions you can take as a new Shopify merchant. Welcome emails hit 83.6% open rates, the highest of any automated email type. Pair this with an offer and you have an immediate revenue driver. For a deeper look at structuring these, see our guide on welcome email sequence best practices.
Best for: Merchants who want behavior-triggered emails without leaving Shopify's native interface.
Method 3: Abandoned Cart Email Recovery
Cart abandonment is one of the most important problems email can solve for Shopify stores. The average Shopify abandoned cart rate is 70%, higher than the global ecommerce average of 68%. Every unrecovered cart is margin you've already spent to acquire.
The abandoned checkout re-engagement automation allows you to send automated emails to customers who added a product to their cart and started checking out but left before completing their purchase.
A single email only recovers part of the opportunity. A single email recovers approximately 5 to 8% of abandoned carts, while a 3-email series consistently recovers 12 to 15%.
Timing strategy that works:
Email 1 sent within 1 hour captures the peak of purchase intent; emails sent within the first hour have a 45% open rate and a 15% CTR.
Email 2: 24 hours after abandonment, address objections.
Email 3: 48 to 72 hours later, include a discount offer if margin allows.
Research from Klaviyo's 2025 benchmark shows 3-email sequences with timing of 1 hour, 24 hours, and 72 hours post-abandonment recover 40% more revenue than single-email sequences.
Shopify's native abandoned checkout automation is a good starting point, but Shopify's native abandoned cart email does not support sequences at all, as it sends one email only. For multi-step recovery, you'll need a third-party tool covered below.
Method 4: Klaviyo (Best for Scaling Stores)
When your store starts generating meaningful email revenue and you need deeper behavior-based targeting, Klaviyo is the platform most serious Shopify merchants move to.
Klaviyo is built specifically for ecommerce, and it comes with deep integrations with platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento, with many features like segmentation, product feeds, and revenue tracking depending on this connection.
Klaviyo's Shopify integration is particularly well-developed, and Shopify holds an 11% ownership stake in the company and recommends it as the email marketing platform for Shopify Plus merchants.
What Klaviyo does better than native tools:
Klaviyo's automations surpass those in Shopify Email, letting you trigger personalized messages for cart and browse abandonment, anniversaries, price drops, back-in-stock requests, low inventory alerts, and more.
Klaviyo offers over 350 third-party integrations, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Yotpo, and Smile.io.
Pricing: The free plan supports 250 contacts with 500 monthly emails. Paid plans start at $20/month for up to 500 contacts with unlimited email sends.
In 2025, Klaviyo remains the best email platform for serious Shopify sellers who care about growth, analytics, and deep integration.
Best for: Stores doing $250K or more in annual revenue where email attribution and behavioral segmentation directly impact growth decisions. For ecommerce email marketing tactics that work alongside Klaviyo, see our ecommerce email marketing tips guide.
Method 5: Omnisend (Best Mid-Market Option)
Omnisend sits between native Shopify tools and Klaviyo's premium tier. Omnisend provides a more user-friendly interface with built-in SMS marketing and multi-channel automation workflows at lower price points.
It's packed with features to grow your email list with popups, create emails with hundreds of templates, and send personalized emails using AI-powered product recommendations and segmentation, with perfectly timed abandoned cart and welcome automation workflows.
Pricing structure:
You can sign up for Omnisend's free plan and use all features for an unlimited time, sending up to 500 emails per month.
The Standard plan starts at $16 per month for 500 contacts and 6,000 emails a month.
Key advantage over Shopify's native tool: Omnisend provides advanced automation capabilities that support email, SMS, and web push notifications within a single workflow, which Shopify Messaging cannot do natively.
Omnisend sits in the middle, built specifically for ecommerce, cheaper than Klaviyo, with SMS integrated, and popular with brands that find Klaviyo too expensive but want more than Mailchimp offers.
Best for: Growing stores with 1,000 to 50,000 contacts that want email, SMS, and automation in one platform at an accessible price.
Method 6: Mailchimp (For Stores Using a Broader Marketing Stack)
Mailchimp remains one of the most recognized email platforms and works with Shopify, though with more caveats than the ecommerce-native options.
Mailchimp provides a broader, more beginner-friendly toolset with flexible design features and general marketing capabilities. Mailchimp integrates with Google Analytics, Canva, Vimeo, and Quickbooks, which Klaviyo does not.
However, Mailchimp is not built specifically for ecommerce and feels generic compared to Klaviyo or Omnisend, and the Shopify integration is good but not seamless.
If you're choosing your first email app specifically for your Shopify store, Klaviyo, Omnisend, or Privy are better purpose-built choices. Mailchimp is a solid general email marketing platform that works for Shopify, but it's not the best tool built specifically for Shopify stores.
Best for: Teams already using Mailchimp for non-ecommerce marketing (newsletters, content, B2B outreach) who want to connect their Shopify store without migrating platforms.
Method 7: Automated Post-Purchase and Win-Back Flows
The most overlooked email method on Shopify isn't the first email you send. It's the sequence that follows a completed purchase.
The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 to 70%, versus 5 to 20% for a new prospect, making every post-purchase interaction a revenue investment.
Automated post-purchase and win-back flows cover the full customer lifecycle after the first sale:
Win-back flow: A win-back email is sent to customers with a purchase history who have not made a purchase for a certain period, encouraging them to buy again, typically 3 to 6 months after the last purchase.
Shopify's built-in win-back workflow allows you to target customers who haven't made a purchase in 60 days, while third-party apps give you more control over the timing and segmentation.
Automated flows generate 3 to 5 times more revenue per email than campaigns, yet the average Shopify store has only 3 to 4 active flows. Top-performing stores run 8 to 12 flows including abandoned cart, welcome series, post-purchase, browse abandonment, win-back, replenishment, birthday, and VIP tier triggers.
For the targeting strategy that makes these flows convert, read our guide on email list segmentation strategies that boost ROI. Getting personalization right inside these flows also matters: see our piece on email personalization techniques that boost conversions.
How to Choose the Right Method for Your Store
Here's a simple framework based on store stage:
Store Stage
Recommended Method
Just starting (under 1,000 contacts)
Shopify Messaging + native automations
Growing ($100K to $500K revenue)
Omnisend or Shopify Messaging with Flow
Scaling ($500K+ revenue)
Klaviyo with full flow library
Broad marketing stack
Mailchimp with Shopify integration
Post-purchase focus
Dedicated win-back and LTV flows
Shopify Messaging is excellent when you're just starting out. You will want to upgrade to a dedicated platform when you start needing advanced automation workflows, multi-channel marketing, deeper customer segmentation, and better revenue reporting.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Shopify have a built-in email marketing tool?
Yes. Shopify Messaging (formerly Shopify Email) can help you grow your business, drive sales, and stay connected with customers. You can create and send email and SMS campaigns directly from your Shopify admin to share new products, promotions, and updates with your subscribers. Every month, you can send up to 10,000 manual or automated emails for free.
How much does Shopify email marketing cost?
Shopify Messaging lets you send up to 10,000 emails per month for free. After that, you pay $1 USD per 1,000 additional emails sent. Third-party platforms like Omnisend start at $16/month and Klaviyo at $20/month, with pricing scaling by contact count.
What email automation should I set up first on Shopify?
Start with the three flows that cover the purchase journey: welcome series, abandoned cart, and post-purchase follow-up. These three automations cover the full purchase journey from first contact to completed order to retention, generate the majority of email automation revenue for most stores, and take less than one working day to set up in Klaviyo or Omnisend.
Is Klaviyo or Omnisend better for Shopify?
It depends on your scale and budget. Klaviyo offers more advanced segmentation, predictive analytics, and deeper data integrations, making it the stronger choice for brands serious about scaling their email program. Omnisend provides a more user-friendly interface with built-in SMS marketing and multi-channel automation workflows at lower price points. If you're generating under $250K in annual revenue, Omnisend typically delivers strong returns at a lower cost. Above that threshold, Klaviyo's revenue attribution and behavioral data tend to justify the investment.
Choose a segment to send the email to specific customers, change the subject and preview text, and edit the "From" email.
Send a test email to up to 5 addresses to preview how it looks.
Review, then send or schedule.
Best for: Stores under 5,000 contacts that want a straightforward, integrated campaign tool without a separate subscription. All merchants with Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Shopify Plus plans can use Shopify Messaging.
Limitation to know: Shopify Email supports only a limited set of event triggers, making it less suitable for intricate multi-step or cross-channel campaigns, and it remains an email-only automation tool.
Method 2: Shopify Messaging Automations
Beyond manual campaigns, Shopify Messaging includes a built-in automation layer. You can use marketing automations in Shopify Messaging to automatically send emails when customers take actions in your store, such as abandoning a checkout or browsing a product, and you can get started quickly with pre-built templates.
You can access pre-built automation workflows directly within the Shopify admin, and these templates cover essential customer journeys. Core automations include:
Welcome emails for new subscribers
Abandoned checkout recovery
Browse abandonment reminders
Post-purchase follow-ups
If you want to create a custom marketing automation or an automation that includes a third-party app, you can instead create a workflow in the Shopify Flow app.
Setting up a welcome flow is one of the highest-leverage actions you can take as a new Shopify merchant. Welcome emails hit 83.6% open rates, the highest of any automated email type. Pair this with an offer and you have an immediate revenue driver. For a deeper look at structuring these, see our guide on welcome email sequence best practices.
Best for: Merchants who want behavior-triggered emails without leaving Shopify's native interface.
Method 3: Abandoned Cart Email Recovery
Cart abandonment is one of the most important problems email can solve for Shopify stores. The average Shopify abandoned cart rate is 70%, higher than the global ecommerce average of 68%. Every unrecovered cart is margin you've already spent to acquire.
The abandoned checkout re-engagement automation allows you to send automated emails to customers who added a product to their cart and started checking out but left before completing their purchase.
A single email only recovers part of the opportunity. A single email recovers approximately 5 to 8% of abandoned carts, while a 3-email series consistently recovers 12 to 15%.
Timing strategy that works:
Email 1 sent within 1 hour captures the peak of purchase intent; emails sent within the first hour have a 45% open rate and a 15% CTR.
Email 2: 24 hours after abandonment, address objections.
Email 3: 48 to 72 hours later, include a discount offer if margin allows.
Research from Klaviyo's 2025 benchmark shows 3-email sequences with timing of 1 hour, 24 hours, and 72 hours post-abandonment recover 40% more revenue than single-email sequences.
Shopify's native abandoned checkout automation is a good starting point, but Shopify's native abandoned cart email does not support sequences at all, as it sends one email only. For multi-step recovery, you'll need a third-party tool covered below.
Method 4: Klaviyo (Best for Scaling Stores)
When your store starts generating meaningful email revenue and you need deeper behavior-based targeting, Klaviyo is the platform most serious Shopify merchants move to.
Klaviyo is built specifically for ecommerce, and it comes with deep integrations with platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento, with many features like segmentation, product feeds, and revenue tracking depending on this connection.
Klaviyo's Shopify integration is particularly well-developed, and Shopify holds an 11% ownership stake in the company and recommends it as the email marketing platform for Shopify Plus merchants.
What Klaviyo does better than native tools:
Klaviyo's automations surpass those in Shopify Email, letting you trigger personalized messages for cart and browse abandonment, anniversaries, price drops, back-in-stock requests, low inventory alerts, and more.
Klaviyo offers over 350 third-party integrations, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Yotpo, and Smile.io.
Pricing: The free plan supports 250 contacts with 500 monthly emails. Paid plans start at $20/month for up to 500 contacts with unlimited email sends.
In 2025, Klaviyo remains the best email platform for serious Shopify sellers who care about growth, analytics, and deep integration.
Best for: Stores doing $250K or more in annual revenue where email attribution and behavioral segmentation directly impact growth decisions. For ecommerce email marketing tactics that work alongside Klaviyo, see our ecommerce email marketing tips guide.
Method 5: Omnisend (Best Mid-Market Option)
Omnisend sits between native Shopify tools and Klaviyo's premium tier. Omnisend provides a more user-friendly interface with built-in SMS marketing and multi-channel automation workflows at lower price points.
It's packed with features to grow your email list with popups, create emails with hundreds of templates, and send personalized emails using AI-powered product recommendations and segmentation, with perfectly timed abandoned cart and welcome automation workflows.
Pricing structure:
You can sign up for Omnisend's free plan and use all features for an unlimited time, sending up to 500 emails per month.
The Standard plan starts at $16 per month for 500 contacts and 6,000 emails a month.
Key advantage over Shopify's native tool: Omnisend provides advanced automation capabilities that support email, SMS, and web push notifications within a single workflow, which Shopify Messaging cannot do natively.
Omnisend sits in the middle, built specifically for ecommerce, cheaper than Klaviyo, with SMS integrated, and popular with brands that find Klaviyo too expensive but want more than Mailchimp offers.
Best for: Growing stores with 1,000 to 50,000 contacts that want email, SMS, and automation in one platform at an accessible price.
Method 6: Mailchimp (For Stores Using a Broader Marketing Stack)
Mailchimp remains one of the most recognized email platforms and works with Shopify, though with more caveats than the ecommerce-native options.
Mailchimp provides a broader, more beginner-friendly toolset with flexible design features and general marketing capabilities. Mailchimp integrates with Google Analytics, Canva, Vimeo, and Quickbooks, which Klaviyo does not.
However, Mailchimp is not built specifically for ecommerce and feels generic compared to Klaviyo or Omnisend, and the Shopify integration is good but not seamless.
If you're choosing your first email app specifically for your Shopify store, Klaviyo, Omnisend, or Privy are better purpose-built choices. Mailchimp is a solid general email marketing platform that works for Shopify, but it's not the best tool built specifically for Shopify stores.
Best for: Teams already using Mailchimp for non-ecommerce marketing (newsletters, content, B2B outreach) who want to connect their Shopify store without migrating platforms.
Method 7: Automated Post-Purchase and Win-Back Flows
The most overlooked email method on Shopify isn't the first email you send. It's the sequence that follows a completed purchase.
The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 to 70%, versus 5 to 20% for a new prospect, making every post-purchase interaction a revenue investment.
Automated post-purchase and win-back flows cover the full customer lifecycle after the first sale:
Win-back flow: A win-back email is sent to customers with a purchase history who have not made a purchase for a certain period, encouraging them to buy again, typically 3 to 6 months after the last purchase.
Shopify's built-in win-back workflow allows you to target customers who haven't made a purchase in 60 days, while third-party apps give you more control over the timing and segmentation.
Automated flows generate 3 to 5 times more revenue per email than campaigns, yet the average Shopify store has only 3 to 4 active flows. Top-performing stores run 8 to 12 flows including abandoned cart, welcome series, post-purchase, browse abandonment, win-back, replenishment, birthday, and VIP tier triggers.
For the targeting strategy that makes these flows convert, read our guide on email list segmentation strategies that boost ROI. Getting personalization right inside these flows also matters: see our piece on email personalization techniques that boost conversions.
How to Choose the Right Method for Your Store
Here's a simple framework based on store stage:
Store Stage
Recommended Method
Just starting (under 1,000 contacts)
Shopify Messaging + native automations
Growing ($100K to $500K revenue)
Omnisend or Shopify Messaging with Flow
Scaling ($500K+ revenue)
Klaviyo with full flow library
Broad marketing stack
Mailchimp with Shopify integration
Post-purchase focus
Dedicated win-back and LTV flows
Shopify Messaging is excellent when you're just starting out. You will want to upgrade to a dedicated platform when you start needing advanced automation workflows, multi-channel marketing, deeper customer segmentation, and better revenue reporting.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Shopify have a built-in email marketing tool?
Yes. Shopify Messaging (formerly Shopify Email) can help you grow your business, drive sales, and stay connected with customers. You can create and send email and SMS campaigns directly from your Shopify admin to share new products, promotions, and updates with your subscribers. Every month, you can send up to 10,000 manual or automated emails for free.
How much does Shopify email marketing cost?
Shopify Messaging lets you send up to 10,000 emails per month for free. After that, you pay $1 USD per 1,000 additional emails sent. Third-party platforms like Omnisend start at $16/month and Klaviyo at $20/month, with pricing scaling by contact count.
What email automation should I set up first on Shopify?
Start with the three flows that cover the purchase journey: welcome series, abandoned cart, and post-purchase follow-up. These three automations cover the full purchase journey from first contact to completed order to retention, generate the majority of email automation revenue for most stores, and take less than one working day to set up in Klaviyo or Omnisend.
Is Klaviyo or Omnisend better for Shopify?
It depends on your scale and budget. Klaviyo offers more advanced segmentation, predictive analytics, and deeper data integrations, making it the stronger choice for brands serious about scaling their email program. Omnisend provides a more user-friendly interface with built-in SMS marketing and multi-channel automation workflows at lower price points. If you're generating under $250K in annual revenue, Omnisend typically delivers strong returns at a lower cost. Above that threshold, Klaviyo's revenue attribution and behavioral data tend to justify the investment.
