Yes, Shopify has a built-in email marketing solution called Shopify Email (now part of Shopify Messaging). This native tool allows store owners to create, send, and track email campaigns directly from the Shopify admin without needing a separate email service provider. Shopify Email integrates with your store's products, customer data, and discounts to power targeted campaigns and automations designed specifically for ecommerce.
What is Shopify Email?
Shopify Email is the platform's native email marketing app that handles promotional and transactional-style marketing campaigns from within the store dashboard. The tool pulls products, discounts, and customer data from your store to enable targeted campaigns and automations tailored to ecommerce workflows.
Store owners access Shopify Email through the Marketing section of their Shopify admin, where they can build campaigns using a visual editor, schedule sends, and view performance analytics. The app removes the need for external email service providers by keeping all email marketing functions consolidated within the Shopify ecosystem.
What features does Shopify Email offer?
Campaign design and editing
Shopify Email includes a visual drag-and-drop editor that allows merchants to build emails without code. The editor provides content blocks for images, text, buttons, and product grids that can be arranged into custom layouts. Pre-built, customizable templates cover common ecommerce use cases like sales announcements, product launches, and newsletters.
Brand customization options enable merchants to match their store's colors, fonts, logos, and layout within email campaigns. Store owners can save custom templates for repeated use, ensuring brand consistency across all email communications. The platform automatically pulls branding elements from the connected Shopify store into email templates.
Personalization and segmentation
The tool supports personalization using customer attributes such as first name, location, and purchase behavior. Merchants can insert dynamic product recommendations into emails based on individual customer activity and preferences.
Customer segmentation operates on factors including purchase history, location, engagement patterns, and cart behavior. This targeting capability allows merchants to deliver tailored content to different customer groups. Native access to Shopify customer and order data means targeting and content are driven by live store activity rather than requiring manual data imports or third-party syncing.
Automation workflows
Built-in automation workflows handle key lifecycle moments for ecommerce businesses. These include welcome emails for new subscribers, abandoned cart reminders, post-purchase follow-ups, and special occasion campaigns like birthdays.
Scheduling tools allow campaigns to be drafted in advance, tested with test sends, and then scheduled to send at optimal times. Triggered sends based on customer actions or events support behavior-based messaging. Abandoned checkout automations are always free and do not count toward the monthly email limit.
Analytics and compliance
Campaign analytics include opens, click-through rates, unsubscribes, and revenue attribution to evaluate performance. These metrics appear in the Shopify admin dashboard, allowing merchants to track email marketing alongside other business metrics.
Compliance support includes required elements like unsubscribe links and opt-in handling aligned with regulations such as GDPR and CAN-SPAM. The platform handles subscriber management and consent tracking to help merchants meet email marketing legal requirements.
How much does Shopify Email cost?
Shopify Email uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model with a monthly free send allowance. Stores on eligible Shopify plans receive 10,000 email sends at no extra cost each month, with emails counted per recipient.
Base pricing structure
- Free tier: 10,000 emails per month included with Basic, Shopify, Advanced, and Plus plans
- Overage rate: $1 USD per 1,000 additional emails (approximately $0.001 per email)
- Volume discount tier 1: $0.65 per 1,000 emails for sends between 300,000 and 750,000 per month
- Volume discount tier 2: $0.55 per 1,000 emails for sends above 750,000 per month
Billing considerations
Emails count only when actually sent to recipients. Unused free emails do not roll over to the following month. Charges begin only once overage amounts reach a minimum billing threshold of approximately $0.005 total. Email charges appear on the Shopify bill as Marketing emails.
A store sending two campaigns to 6,000 subscribers each would use 12,000 emails. The first 10,000 would be covered by the free allowance, with the remaining 2,000 emails charged at $1 per 1,000, resulting in a $2 charge.
How does Shopify Email compare to third-party email marketing apps?
Shopify Email serves as a low-cost, tightly integrated email tool suited for many small and mid-size Shopify stores. Third-party apps like Klaviyo, Omnisend, and Mailchimp specialize in deeper automation, segmentation, and multichannel marketing capabilities.
Advantages of Shopify Email
Shopify Email lives inside the Shopify admin and uses existing products, discounts, and customer data without requiring extra logins, connectors, or sync configurations. The cost structure based on emails sent rather than subscriber count often proves cheaper than profile-based pricing in third-party tools at lower volumes.
The tool handles core campaigns like newsletters and promotions effectively. Essential automations including abandoned cart and simple post-purchase flows work well for straightforward stores that need basic email marketing functionality without complexity.
Advantages of third-party apps
Tools like Klaviyo, Omnisend, and Sender offer multi-step workflows with conditional splits, complex customer journeys, and behavior-driven branching that exceed Shopify Email's single-step and basic flow capabilities. These platforms can segment on dozens of behavioral and value metrics including lifetime value, browse data, product categories, and engagement windows.
Third-party apps frequently add SMS, push notifications, on-site popups, A/B testing, advanced analytics, and review or social-proof blocks. Many provide dynamic content like individualized product feeds and recommendations at scale, which Shopify Email supports in more limited ways.
When to choose Shopify Email
Shopify Email works well for early-stage or lean stores focused on keeping their technology stack and costs simple. Operators who work primarily within the Shopify admin and prefer minimal tooling over sophisticated campaigns benefit from the streamlined setup. Budget-sensitive senders with modest complexity needs, where paying for advanced features would not materially change revenue, find Shopify Email sufficient.
When to choose a third-party app
Data-driven or scaling brands with meaningful revenue where incremental lift from advanced segmentation, journeys, and testing justifies another subscription should consider specialized tools. Stores planning multi-email welcome sequences, browse abandonment, win-back campaigns, VIP programs, churn prevention, and replenishment flows benefit from platforms like Klaviyo or Omnisend built for these use cases.
Brands wanting integrated email, SMS, and popups with deep attribution and experimentation capabilities, or teams using broader marketing stacks, typically outgrow Shopify Email's feature set.
What are the limitations of Shopify Email?
Shopify Email is available only to paid Shopify stores and has send-volume and activity limits. Some granular controls important for scaled programs are absent from the platform.
Plan and eligibility requirements
A store must be on a paid Shopify plan to send marketing messages with Shopify Email. Stores on free trials cannot access the email marketing functionality. Feature availability and broader daily caps can differ for very large senders on Shopify Plus.
Send and activity limits
Many stores have a per-campaign cap of 2,500 recipients by default. This cap can be raised up to approximately 40,000 per campaign for stores with paid invoices, positive engagement metrics, and published products. A single email activity can target up to roughly 40,000 subscribers when the account has good standing; larger lists require segmentation into multiple sends.
Shopify Email typically limits merchants to around five email activities (campaigns or automations) per week, which resets every seven days. Some merchants report effective daily caps of approximately 1,000 recipients per day on certain stores, requiring large lists to be split into smaller segments.
Feature restrictions
The platform lacks built-in multivariate or A/B testing for campaigns. Automation workflows are simpler than in specialist ESPs, limiting complex journeys and experiments. Shopify Email does not expose advanced preference-center features out of the box, such as topic-level opt-downs, so fine-grained subscriber choices often require custom forms or additional apps.
Reporting, deliverability controls, and template variety are more basic than third-party tools built for high-volume senders. Dynamic product feeds and advanced blocks have constraints; for example, some dynamic products only work in automations rather than all campaign types.
How to use Shopify email marketing?
To enable Shopify Email, store owners install the Shopify Email app from the Shopify App Store or locate it in the Apps/Marketing area of the Shopify admin, then configure a verified sender email before creating campaigns.
Step 1: Install or locate Shopify Email
Log in to the Shopify admin, navigate to Apps, and search for "Shopify Email" or "Shopify Messaging." Click Add app and follow the prompts to install it into your store. After installation, Shopify Email appears under Marketing and in the Apps list, where you can open it to access the email overview and start setup.
Step 2: Verify plan and basic requirements
Shopify Email is available to stores on a paid Shopify subscription. Stores on trial must upgrade before sending marketing emails. Ensure your store has at least one published product and customers or contacts with email marketing consent so you have an audience to send to.
Step 3: Configure sender email
In the Shopify admin, go to Settings, then Notifications, or access the Sender email link from the Shopify Email settings. Set the sender email address you want to use, ideally a branded domain address like [email protected]. Confirm ownership by clicking the verification link sent to that address to complete the sender identity needed for emails to send from your chosen domain.
Step 4: Start creating campaigns
Open Marketing, then Create campaign, then Shopify Email (or open the Shopify Email app directly) to choose Create campaign or Create automation and select a template. Customize the email, select your customer segment, send a test, and then click Send or Schedule. Shopify Email is now fully enabled and accessible through your Marketing or Apps sections.
Conclusion
Shopify includes a capable built-in email marketing solution through Shopify Email, now part of Shopify Messaging. The platform offers essential features like drag-and-drop design, customer segmentation, automation workflows, and campaign analytics with a cost-effective pricing model that includes 10,000 free emails monthly. Store owners can launch email campaigns directly from their Shopify admin without external tools or complex integrations.
Shopify Email works best for small to mid-size stores seeking simplicity and tight platform integration. Stores with advanced automation needs, complex segmentation requirements, or multichannel marketing strategies may benefit from third-party alternatives like Klaviyo or Omnisend that offer deeper functionality.
Getting email marketing right on Shopify requires understanding both the platform's capabilities and its limitations. Our team specializes in Shopify email marketing strategy, helping store owners maximize their campaigns whether they use Shopify Email or integrate third-party solutions. Reach out to discuss how we can help grow your store's email marketing performance.