By El Ghali Bennis · Published
Best Abandoned Cart App for Shopify: 7 Options Compared
Compare the best abandoned cart app for Shopify, from free built-in emails to Klaviyo and Omnisend, with real pricing and a setup guide.
The best abandoned cart app for Shopify depends on your size. Small stores should start with Shopify's built-in abandoned checkout emails, which are free. Growing stores usually do better with Klaviyo or Omnisend, which add SMS, segmentation and multi-step flows, but cost more as your contact list grows.
Cart abandonment is the biggest leak in most stores. The Baymard Institute, which tracks checkout research, puts the average documented abandonment rate at around 70%. In practical terms, if 100 shoppers complete an order, that rate implies about 233 other shoppers started a cart and left (100 ÷ 0.30 gives roughly 333 carts, and 70% of those is about 233). Recovering even a small slice of them is some of the cheapest revenue you can find.
This guide compares the main options, what they cost, and how to set one up. It also covers the catch few reviews mention: Shopify gives you only a basic recovery email, so anything more advanced means renting another tool.
Does Shopify Have a Built-In Abandoned Cart Email?
Yes. Shopify includes a built-in abandoned cart email, officially called an abandoned checkout email, on every paid plan. It sends reminders to shoppers who entered an email at checkout and didn't finish. It's free, but it's basic: one template, limited timing, no SMS and no segmentation.
How Shopify abandoned checkout emails work
Shopify only captures a shopper once they've typed an email or phone number at checkout. Someone who adds to cart and leaves before that step is invisible to the native tool. That's a big gap, because many abandoners never reach the contact form.
You can choose when the email sends (for example one, six, ten or 24 hours after abandonment) and add a discount code. You can edit the template in Settings, then Notifications. Shopify's help documentation covers the setup in detail.
Shopify abandoned cart email setup in five steps
- Open Settings → Checkout in your Shopify admin.
- Scroll to Abandoned checkouts and choose automatic sending.
- Pick a send delay. One hour is a sensible starting point.
- Edit the template under Settings → Notifications → Abandoned checkout.
- Send yourself a test, then abandon a real checkout to confirm the link restores the cart.
If you want copy that actually gets opened, our abandoned cart email examples show subject lines and sequences you can adapt.
Which Abandoned Cart App for Shopify Fits Your Store? 7 Options Compared
The strongest options are Klaviyo, Omnisend, Privy, Mailchimp, Recart, and Shopify Email with Flow, plus Shopify's built-in emails as the free baseline. Prices below are approximate, taken from each vendor's public pricing page (Klaviyo, Omnisend, Privy, Mailchimp and Shopify) at the time of writing. They change often, so confirm before buying.
| App | Best for | Starting price (approx.) | Channels |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify built-in | New stores | Free | |
| Klaviyo | Data-driven growth | Free tier, paid from about $20/month | Email, SMS |
| Omnisend | Multichannel on a budget | Free tier, paid from about $16/month | Email, SMS, push |
| Privy | Popups plus recovery | Free tier, paid from about $30/month | Email, SMS |
| Mailchimp | Existing Mailchimp users | Free tier, paid from about $13/month | |
| Recart | Messenger and SMS | Paid plans, varies by volume | SMS, email |
| Shopify Email + Flow | Simple automation | Free allowance, then per email |
Klaviyo: the power pick
Klaviyo is the default choice for serious Shopify stores. Its abandoned cart flow can branch by cart value, customer type and product category, and it syncs deeply with Shopify data. The trade-off is price.
Your Klaviyo abandoned cart cost isn't just the flow. Klaviyo bills by active profiles, so a store with 10,000 contacts pays far more than one with 1,000, and adding SMS credits stacks on top. According to Klaviyo's pricing page, paid email plans start around $20 a month for small lists and climb steeply into the hundreds as your list grows.
Omnisend: the value pick
Omnisend bundles email, SMS and push notifications into one workflow builder. It's cheaper than Klaviyo at similar list sizes and has pre-built abandoned cart automations. Reporting is less deep, but most stores under $1M a year won't miss it.
Privy: popups that feed your recovery list
Privy's strength is capture. Its popups, spin-to-win wheels and exit-intent offers collect emails before checkout, which solves the gap in Shopify's native tool. Those contacts can then enter an abandoned cart email or SMS sequence. It's a good fit for stores that want one tool for list growth and recovery, though its flow builder is less flexible than Klaviyo's.
Mailchimp: fine if you already use it
Mailchimp offers abandoned cart automations through its Shopify integration and a free tier for small lists. It's email-focused, and its ecommerce segmentation is thinner than Klaviyo's or Omnisend's. We'd only pick it if your newsletters and audience already live there.
Recart: SMS and Messenger-first
Recart focuses on SMS and Messenger recovery, which suits stores with a mobile-heavy, younger audience. Pricing scales with volume and isn't published as a simple flat entry plan, so you'll need to request a quote or check current tiers. Expect to pay more per contact than with email-only tools, since SMS is billed per message.
Free abandoned cart app options on Shopify
If you want a free abandoned cart app for Shopify, start with Shopify's native emails, then look at the free tiers from Klaviyo, Omnisend, Privy and Mailchimp. Free tiers cap contacts or monthly sends, and several limit automation features. They're fine for testing, but expect to pay once you pass a few hundred subscribers.
Shopify Abandoned Cart App Pricing: What You'll Really Pay
Realistic Shopify abandoned cart app pricing runs from $0 to roughly $150 a month for most small and mid-size stores. That range is our estimate built from the vendor entry prices above, not a published average. The sticker price is rarely the final number, because contact counts, SMS credits and add-on features push the bill up as you grow.
The costs hidden behind the sticker price
- Contact-based billing: every subscriber you collect raises your tier.
- SMS credits: texts are billed per message and per country, and they add up quickly.
- Add-on apps: popups, reviews and loyalty tools usually come from separate vendors.
- Setup time: building flows takes hours, or an agency. Agency quotes vary widely, and $500 or more is a common ballpark, so get quotes before budgeting.
Shopify's own pricing page lists plans from $39 a month on the Basic tier, and that's before apps. It's the same stacking problem we break down in Shopify app costs: the hidden bill killing margins, and if you're trying to trim the total, how to reduce Shopify app costs walks through what to cut first.
A quick cost example
This is an illustrative scenario, not a measured average. Say you run a Basic plan at $39, Klaviyo for 5,000 profiles, plus a reviews app and a popup tool. Depending on the plans you pick, the marketing layer could plausibly land between $150 and $250 a month. Over a year that's $1,800 to $3,000 for features many merchants assume come with the platform. Check current vendor pricing and plug in your own numbers.
How to Choose the Best Abandoned Cart Recovery Software
Pick abandoned cart recovery software by matching three things: your monthly orders, your list size and whether your customers respond to SMS. Everything else is secondary. Here's a simple decision path.
- Under 100 orders a month: use Shopify's built-in emails and write a better template.
- 100 to 1,000 orders: Omnisend or Klaviyo's entry tiers give you multi-step flows and SMS.
- Over 1,000 orders: Klaviyo's segmentation usually pays for itself, especially with high order values.
- Heavy mobile, younger audience: add SMS through Recart, Omnisend or Klaviyo.
Features that actually move recovery rates
- Timing: first email within an hour, second at 24 hours, third at 72 hours.
- Cart capture before checkout: catching emails from popups or login forms widens your reach.
- Product images and reviews in the email: shoppers return when the item looks familiar and trusted.
- Discount logic: save incentives for the last email, so you don't train people to abandon for coupons.
- Exclusions: suppress people who already bought.
Reviews matter here more than most merchants think. If you don't have them yet, see how to add product reviews to your online store.
A worked example of what recovery is worth
We don't have a verified case study to quote, so here's the math to run on your own store. Suppose you get 500 abandoned checkouts a month with an average order value of $60. A 10% recovery rate brings back 50 orders, or $3,000 a month. Against a $20 to $60 monthly app fee, even a 3% rate (15 orders, $900) is a clear win. Track recovered revenue in your app's dashboard to find your real figure.
Common Questions About Shopify Abandoned Checkout Emails
What's a good recovery rate?
Recovery rates vary widely by product price, industry and list quality. Many merchants and email platforms cite single-digit to low double-digit percentages for abandoned cart email, but published averages differ and rarely share their methodology. Measure your own baseline first, then compare against it after each change.
How many emails should you send?
Three is the usual sweet spot. One email catches impulse shoppers, two reminds the distracted, and three handles the price-sensitive with a final nudge. Beyond four, unsubscribes tend to outweigh recoveries.
Do you need an app at all?
Not at first. Shopify's native emails are enough to prove the channel works. You need an app once you want SMS, branching logic or flows for browse abandonment. For the broader question, read do I need an app to sell online.
Is Klaviyo worth the money?
For stores with a growing list and decent average order value, yes. For a store doing a few orders a day, Omnisend or the built-in tool will give you most of the benefit at a fraction of the cost.
The Real Problem: You're Renting Advanced Recovery
Shopify's native email covers the basics, but anything beyond one reminder, such as SMS, branching or pre-checkout capture, should be part of your store, not a monthly bill that scales with your list. On Shopify, the essentials of conversion, including advanced recovery, wishlists, reviews and Q&A, often come from separate paid apps. Each adds cost, another login and another thing that can slow your pages or conflict with a theme update. Our piece on Shopify app security risks covers the stacking risk.
That's the gap Rovela was built to close. Abandoned cart recovery, wishlist, loyalty, reviews and customer Q&A are included by default in a single flat subscription, with no per-app billing and no commission on sales. Rovela was founded by operators who ran stores with $15M+ in GMV, so the defaults are the ones they'd want on their own stores. You can compare the two directly in Rovela vs Shopify.
Our Pick for the Best Abandoned Cart App on Shopify
If you're staying on Shopify, start with the built-in abandoned checkout emails, then move to Omnisend for budget-friendly multichannel, or Klaviyo once your list and order value justify the cost. Whichever you choose, set up a three-email sequence, save discounts for the last message and track recovered revenue against the app's monthly fee.
If the app bill is what's bothering you, it may be the platform rather than the app. Rovela includes abandoned cart recovery and 100+ other features in one subscription, and you can see the pricing or describe your store and see what it builds. Compare your current plugin spend against a flat subscription to see how much you could save each year.
