Shopify Abandoned Cart SMS: Set It Up in Shopify Messaging
Shopify abandoned cart SMS runs from Shopify Messaging with built-in templates and no extra app. Messaging can text shoppers who abandoned a checkout, left a cart, or browsed a product and left, as long as they subscribed to SMS marketing and you have registered a sender for their country. You pay per message, so decide which of the three moments deserves a text before you switch any of them on.
Steps, prices and country rules below come from Shopify’s Help Center pages on marketing automations, SMS setup and SMS pricing, read on October 23, 2026.
Before you start
You need the Shopify Messaging app (the former Shopify Email) and a registered sending identity for each country you text:
- UK and EU countries: create an alphanumeric sender name; you can send as soon as it is set.
- US and Canada: fill in the toll-free registration form. Verification takes 2 to 5 business days and you get an email when it finishes. Customers cannot reply to this number.
- Spain and Austria: SMS marketing to Spanish numbers has been paused since September 15, 2026, and to Austrian numbers since October 1, 2026, and neither can be added as a new recipient country.
Register under Apps > Messaging > Settings > SMS > Add countries. A rejected toll-free form puts a banner in the admin; the usual causes are a personal email address, a generic contact name, or opt-in wording that does not match the messages you send. Fix the details and use Resubmit form. How people end up subscribed to SMS, and the price table by country, are covered in Shopify SMS marketing.
Create the SMS automation
- Go to Apps > Messaging and click Automations.
- Click Create automation.
- Pick a template: Recover abandoned checkout, Recover abandoned cart or Convert abandoned product browse.
- In the dialog, choose SMS as the channel.
- Optional: click Edit SMS and change the text.
- Click Turn on automation.
The three templates fire at different moments, and they are not worth the same text:
| Template | Fires when the shopper | Our call for a text |
|---|---|---|
| Recover abandoned checkout | Started checkout and did not complete an order | Yes, first: these shoppers got furthest |
| Recover abandoned cart | Added products but did not start checkout | Second, if the checkout text pays for itself |
| Convert abandoned product browse | Viewed at least one product, added nothing | Email only; a paid text for a page view is hard to justify |
Each template sends only to customers subscribed to SMS marketing. Once an automation runs, its metrics and reports show in Messaging, which is how you judge whether the second and third templates earn their cost. Editing a workflow or template works only on a desktop device, not in the mobile app.
If you need a custom trigger or a third-party app in the flow, build the workflow in Shopify Flow instead of using a template.
What it costs
You are billed per message, monthly. Examples from the pricing page: $0.012 per message in the United States, $0.025 in Canada, $0.06 in the United Kingdom, $0.08 in Denmark. US and Canada numbers add $2.15 a month per toll-free number. A text that runs past the single-message limit shows as one message to the customer but is billed once per part, so a two-part message sent to 100 people costs 200 messages.
The same pages note that confirmation messages to new subscribers and keyword replies such as “INFO” or “HELP” are billed too, test messages are free up to 25 a week, and charges appear on your Shopify bill as Messaging (Settings > Billing > View details). Set a monthly spending threshold in Messaging to get an email when combined email, SMS and WhatsApp costs reach an amount you pick.
At the US rate, 1,000 abandoned-cart texts cost $12.00. At the Danish rate, they cost $80. The text pays for itself only if the margin on the orders it recovers is higher than that bill, so compare the two in the automation’s report every month.
SMS and email for the same cart
We recommend one text per abandoned cart, sent after the email. An email can show the items, the prices and a discount, and the Recover abandoned checkout email doesn’t count toward your Shopify Messaging email sends. A text is short and billed per message, so it works best as the second touch for shoppers who agreed to SMS.
To space the two, go to Apps > Messaging > Automations, click the SMS automation, click Edit workflow, change the wait before the message, and click Apply changes. We would give the email a head start of a few hours, so the text reaches only shoppers who ignored the email for a while. Shopify’s page doesn’t say whether a recovery automation stops once the shopper buys, so place a test order between the two messages and check whether the text still arrives. The few-hours gap is our own choice; check the automation’s report after a month and move it if the text recovers little.
Two setups send double messages. One is a third-party SMS app that also texts abandoned carts; turn one of the two off. The other is running both the checkout and the cart template by SMS for the same shopper; the checkout one covers the shoppers who got furthest, so start with it alone. When you turn an automation off, workflows waiting to send are canceled, so nobody gets a late text from the old setup.
To see the email side of the same shopper journey, read Shopify abandoned cart recovery and the comparison of abandoned checkout recovery tools.
What to write in one text
Keep it short enough to stay one message, because every extra part is billed. Say who you are, name the item or the cart, and give one link. If you include a discount, put the code in the text itself. Read the test message on a phone before you turn the automation on, since a code or a long product name can push it into a second part. The email side of the same program, from popups to welcome series, sits in the email and popups hub.
FAQ
Can Shopify send abandoned cart texts without a third-party SMS app? Shopify Messaging sends them itself. It has SMS templates for abandoned checkout, abandoned cart and abandoned product browse.
Who receives the texts? The texts go to customers who subscribed to SMS marketing, in countries where you have registered a sender.
What does each text cost? The price is set per country and per message part, from $0.012 in the United States to $0.13 in Luxembourg on Shopify’s SMS pricing page. A text that splits into two parts costs twice.
Can I add a discount code to the text? You can edit the text with Edit SMS and type the code into it. Keep the message short enough to stay one part after the code is added.
Does turning off the automation stop texts already scheduled? Turning off an automation cancels every workflow in a wait stage, so no further messages from it are sent.