Klaviyo Starter: what the free version covers, and when you've outgrown it

This is for Shopify founders who just installed Klaviyo Starter, or are about to, and want to know what it can do and when it stops being enough.

What is Klaviyo Starter?

It's a simpler version of Klaviyo that lives in your Shopify admin. You install it from Shopify, and sign-up forms, flows and campaigns all run from inside Shopify.

One catch from Klaviyo's setup guide: the store owner has to do the setup, signed in with a verified email. Staff and collaborator accounts can't finish it inside Shopify. They get sent to klaviyo.com instead.

Klaviyo's guided setup publishes three things for you: a sign-up form, a welcome email and an abandoned checkout email. That's most of what I'd want live in week one anyway.

What are the Klaviyo Starter limits?

Here's what Klaviyo lists for the free tier:

Two things on that list matter more than they look.

500 emails covers flows and campaigns together. Say you have 250 subscribers and send two campaigns a month. That's 500 emails before a single welcome or checkout email goes out. Small list, small cap.

Single-step means one email per flow. Your welcome flow is one welcome email. Your checkout flow is one reminder. No follow-ups.

Klaviyo says you'll get notices in the app or by email as you get close to a limit. Its page doesn't say what happens once you go past one, so don't wait to find out the week you launch.

What's the catch with single-step flows?

This is the limit I'd pay the most attention to. Outside of SMS, I would never use a one-step flow. A text message can do its job in one shot. An email flow usually needs room to follow up.

On Starter, you don't get that room. So keep each email as pointed as possible, especially abandoned checkout.

Even with one email, you can still split customers and non-customers in that first email. Someone who's bought from you before and someone who's never ordered are in different spots, so talk to them differently.

Which flows should you set up first in Klaviyo Starter?

1. Welcome email. This is the one that earns. Across 4 consumable brands I work with, welcome email #1 earns about $4.50 per person. Emails #2 to #5 earn about $0.10 each. That's about 30x. So Starter's one-email limit costs you less here than you'd think. Make that one email count: your best product, your signup offer if you have one, one button. I go deeper in why welcome email #1 does almost all the work.

2. Abandoned checkout. Someone typed in their email and walked away from checkout. They're the closest thing you have to a sale that didn't happen. In the full flow system I install, the first checkout email goes out 35 minutes after they leave, while the checkout is still fresh. On Starter you only get the one email, so keep it pointed: the product they left, and a fast send.

Before any of it goes live, send yourself a test and click every link. Clicks with no sales means something broke.

Klaviyo Starter vs Klaviyo: what changes when you upgrade?

Starter is the same company and the same data, with less turned on. Per Klaviyo's Starter page, upgrading gets you the full Klaviyo platform, including SMS, push notifications and advanced analytics.

Upgrading is self-serve. You install the main Klaviyo Shopify app, which creates a full account, and pick a billing plan. Klaviyo says you can upgrade without losing any data.

What you pay after that depends on your list size. I break down the paid tiers and how they compare to Shopify's own tool in Klaviyo vs Shopify Email.

When should you upgrade from Klaviyo Starter?

When you reach the plan's limits. That's the whole answer.

I see founders try to stay on the free plan as long as possible, and it's the wrong goal. Don't focus on saving money on Klaviyo. Focus on making more money from it.

The same goes for list size. Aside from removing obviously bad profiles, I think founders obsess too much over cleaning their list to stay under a cap. The better use of that energy is adding better profiles and building the systems that capture them.

Here are the signs you're there:

• You're close to 250 profiles. That's the cap. A list that's growing will hit it fast.
• You're near 500 emails a month. Once flows and campaigns are both running, the math gets tight.
• You want a second email in a flow. In my pooled data, cart abandonment email #5 still earns about $0.25 per person, the same as email #3. A one-email flow leaves that on the table.
• You sell something people reorder. Replenishment flows earn about $2.23 per person in my data, about 28x the best campaign. Only 2 of the 4 brands had one built. You'll want that flow, and it won't fit in three slots.
• You want SMS. Starter is email only. I run SMS inside Klaviyo so email and SMS attribution live in one place.
• You're past 100 orders a month. That's the top of the range Klaviyo says Starter is for.

When you're ready for the full build order, here's what a full Klaviyo setup for Shopify covers.

Where these numbers come from

The per-person numbers come from 4 consumable brands I work with: 2,897 campaigns and $17.7M in email revenue. It's a small sample, so treat it as directional, not a promise for your store.

Do you need an agency while you're on Klaviyo Starter?

No. I usually work with brands doing $500K or more a year. If you're on Starter, you're not there yet, and that's fine.

Under about $25K a month in revenue, I'd hire a specialist for the specific pieces you're stuck on, not a done-for-you agency. Keep your setup simple: a welcome email, a checkout email and a form that works. Simple isn't the same as easy, though. The words in those emails and who gets them still take real thought. I wrote a full DIY plan in email marketing for small Shopify stores.

And start now, even if the list is tiny. Ads are rented. Your list is owned. Whoever signed up this week is your first shot at a second order.

FAQ

WRITTEN BY Jack White

Founder of Bardown Digital, a Chicago-based Klaviyo email and retention agency for Shopify brands. He's worked with brands doing $500K to $100M a year, with $100M+ in email-attributed revenue across them.

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