How reminder emails work

Once your occasions and your Shopify Flow workflow are set up, reminders go out on their own. Here’s when they’re sent, what shoppers receive and how they can stop them.

When reminders are sent

  • Gift Owlerts checks for due reminders every hour.
  • A reminder is due on the day that is Days before the occasion (set on each occasion), using UTC dates.
  • Reminders repeat every year: only the day and month matter. Occasions on 29 February are reminded on 28 February in other years.
  • Each saved reminder is sent at most once per day.

Who gets a reminder

A reminder is only sent when all of these are true:

  • The shopper’s occasion matches an occasion you have created and switched on.
  • Your Shopify Flow workflow is on. If it’s off, due reminders wait and go out once you turn it on that same day. See Email setup.
  • The customer is subscribed to email marketing in Shopify.
  • The reminder is confirmed (saved while logged in, used at checkout, or confirmed in the customer account) and hasn’t been paused or stopped.

If one customer has several reminders due at the same time, they get one per hourly check. The others follow in the next checks.

What’s in the email

Reminders are sent with Shopify Email, using the code you pasted in Email setup. The default email contains:

  • A headline like “Sarah (Mom)’s Birthday is coming up on March 12.”
  • A greeting with the customer’s first name.
  • Your A quick note from the occasion, if you added one.
  • Up to three active products from the collection the shopper chose, each with an Add to cart button.
  • A Shop gifts button that opens that collection (or your store if there is none).
  • Footer links: Manage your reminders, Stop this reminder and Shopify’s own unsubscribe link.
Screenshot: a reminder email with headline, quick note, three product cards and the Shop gifts button

You can change the wording and layout under Email preview on the Email setup page. There is no monthly cap on reminder emails on any plan. See Plans & billing for what each plan includes.

When shoppers stop a reminder

  • From the email: Stop this reminder opens a page asking Unsubscribe?. Remove just this reminder deletes that one reminder. Unsubscribe from all emails stops all of their reminders and unsubscribes them from your store’s email marketing in Shopify.
  • Unsubscribing anywhere else: if a customer unsubscribes from your email marketing (for example with Shopify’s unsubscribe link), their reminders stop too.
  • From their account: Manage your reminders takes them to their customer account, where they can Pause, Resume, Edit or Delete each reminder. Paused reminders are skipped until resumed. See Customer account reminders.

Reminders and Klaviyo

Reminders go out through one channel at a time. If you’ve connected Klaviyo, reminders on your shoppers’ Klaviyo profiles are sent by your Klaviyo flow, not by Shopify Email, so nobody gets two emails for the same occasion. If you disconnect Klaviyo, reminders go back to Shopify Email. See Shopify Email or Klaviyo.