What Is Shopify Flow and Why Should You Use It for Store Automation
Shopify Flow is Shopify’s native workflow automation tool — available on Shopify Basic and above since 2022 — that allows merchants to create automated workflows triggered by store events without writing code. Before Shopify Flow, automating tasks like “tag VIP customers when they reach $500 lifetime spend” or “send an internal notification when inventory drops below 10 units” required either custom app development or accepting that these tasks simply wouldn’t be automated. Shopify Flow changes this by providing a visual workflow builder where you connect triggers (events that start workflows), conditions (logic that determines whether the workflow continues), and actions (what happens when conditions are met). Stores that implement Shopify Flow automation reduce manual task time, improve consistency, and capture revenue opportunities that manual processes miss because they’re too slow or too inconsistent.
This guide covers how to use Shopify Flow for store automation — from the most impactful workflows available to building custom automations for your specific business needs and integrating Flow with external tools via webhooks.
Step 1: Understand Shopify Flow’s Core Components
Shopify Flow workflows are built from three components that work together to automate tasks:
- Triggers — the events that start a workflow. Shopify Flow supports triggers from multiple domains: Order triggers (order created, order paid, order fulfilled, order refunded, order canceled, order risk analyzed), Customer triggers (customer created, customer updated, customer tagged), Product triggers (product created, product updated, inventory level updated), Collection triggers, and App triggers (third-party apps can send custom triggers to Flow). Each workflow begins with exactly one trigger.
- Conditions — logic checks that determine whether the workflow continues or stops. Conditions can test order values (“order total is greater than $500”), product properties (“product tag contains ‘fragile'”), customer properties (“customer has tag ‘wholesale'”), or any data available from the trigger. Conditions use AND/OR logic — “order total is greater than $500 AND customer has not been tagged ‘VIP'” — to create precise targeting. If conditions aren’t met, the workflow stops and takes no action.
- Actions — what happens when conditions are met. Available actions include: add or remove customer tags, send internal email notifications, add order notes, create tasks, hide or publish products, update metafields, send webhooks to external services, and (for Shopify Plus) create draft orders and send order-specific customer emails. Actions are the “do this” step that makes the workflow valuable.
Step 2: Set Up Customer Tagging Automations
Customer tagging workflows are the most impactful category of Shopify Flow automation for most stores because they enable dynamic customer segmentation that feeds into loyalty programs, email marketing, and pricing systems:
- VIP customer auto-tagging — Trigger: Customer updated. Condition: Customer total spent is greater than $500 AND Customer tag does not contain “VIP.” Action: Add tag “VIP” to customer. This workflow automatically identifies your highest-value customers and tags them, which LoyaltyLion can use to upgrade their loyalty tier, Klaviyo can use to trigger VIP welcome flows, and wholesale apps can use to apply VIP pricing. Without this automation, VIP customer identification requires manual review.
- Repeat buyer tagging — Trigger: Order paid. Condition: Customer orders count is greater than 1. Action: Add tag “repeat-buyer” to customer. Repeat buyers receive different marketing from first-time buyers — this tag enables Klaviyo to automatically exclude repeat buyers from first-purchase welcome sequences and include them in loyalty-focused campaigns instead.
- At-risk customer flagging — Trigger: Customer updated (via a scheduled Flow check). Condition: Customer last order date is more than 90 days ago AND Customer orders count is greater than 2. Action: Add tag “at-risk.” This automated at-risk identification feeds into Klaviyo win-back flows automatically, triggering recovery campaigns without requiring manual list management.
- Win-back success removal — Trigger: Order paid. Condition: Customer has tag “at-risk.” Action: Remove tag “at-risk.” Customers who complete a purchase after being flagged as at-risk are automatically removed from win-back campaigns — without this cleanup automation, recovered customers continue receiving win-back emails inappropriately.
Step 3: Automate Order Management Workflows
Order management automation reduces the manual tasks associated with processing, monitoring, and following up on orders:
- High-risk order review alerts — Trigger: Order risk analyzed. Condition: Order risk level is “high.” Action: Send internal email to your fraud team with order details and risk factors. This workflow ensures high-risk orders are reviewed before fulfillment without requiring manual monitoring of the Shopify admin risk indicator for every order.
- Large order internal notification — Trigger: Order created. Condition: Order total is greater than $1,000. Action: Send internal email or Slack message (via webhook) to the owner with order details. This workflow ensures large orders receive appropriate attention — order confirmation with a personal touch, priority fulfillment, or proactive delivery communication — without requiring the owner to monitor every order.
- Wholesale order routing — Trigger: Order created. Condition: Customer has tag “wholesale.” Action: Add order note “WHOLESALE ORDER — apply wholesale fulfillment process” and send internal notification to wholesale fulfillment team. This workflow ensures wholesale orders are processed through the appropriate fulfillment workflow without relying on fulfillment staff to manually identify wholesale orders.
- Subscription fulfillment preparation — Trigger: Order created. Condition: Any product tag contains “subscription.” Action: Add order note “SUBSCRIPTION ORDER — include subscription welcome card” and tag order for appropriate packing. This workflow ensures subscription-specific packaging and inserts are included with subscription orders automatically.
Step 4: Automate Inventory Management Workflows
Inventory automation prevents stockouts and manages low-inventory situations before they impact customer experience:
- Low inventory reorder alerts — Trigger: Inventory level updated. Condition: Inventory quantity is less than 10 (or your specific reorder point). Action: Send email to purchasing manager with product name, SKU, and current inventory count. This workflow ensures reorder triggers are never missed due to manual monitoring gaps — it fires automatically when inventory crosses your defined threshold.
- Sold-out product hide and alert — Trigger: Inventory level updated. Condition: Inventory quantity equals 0. Action: Send internal notification “Product sold out: [product name].” (For stores that prefer to hide sold-out products rather than display them as out of stock, an additional action of updating product status can hide the product, though this is a business model decision based on whether you want to capture back-in-stock notification emails.)
- Back-in-stock product management — Trigger: Inventory level updated. Condition: Inventory quantity is greater than 5 AND Product tag contains “back-in-stock-notify.” Action: Send webhook to your email platform to trigger back-in-stock notification campaign to buyers who signed up to be notified. (Requires integration with a back-in-stock notification app that captures buyer emails when products sell out.)
Step 5: Build Loyalty and VIP Program Automations
Loyalty program automations connect customer behavior to appropriate recognition and benefit delivery:
- First purchase welcome workflow — Trigger: Order paid. Condition: Customer orders count equals 1. Action: Add tag “first-purchase” to customer, send webhook to Klaviyo to trigger welcome email series. This ensures every first-time buyer enters the onboarding email sequence automatically without list management overhead.
- Loyalty tier upgrade automation — Trigger: Customer updated. Condition: Customer total spent is greater than $1,000 AND Customer tag does not contain “gold-member.” Action: Add tag “gold-member,” remove tag “silver-member,” send internal notification for personal upgrade acknowledgment. Tier upgrade automations keep loyalty tier status current without manual auditing.
- Birthday recognition preparation — Trigger: Customer updated (requires customer birthday metafield). Condition: Customer birthday is within 7 days. Action: Add tag “birthday-week,” send webhook to Klaviyo to trigger birthday email with exclusive offer. Birthday recognition automations deliver the personalization that loyalty programs promise without requiring manual calendar management.
Step 6: Integrate Shopify Flow with External Tools via Webhooks
Flow’s webhook action allows workflows to send data to any external service with a webhook endpoint, extending automation capabilities beyond Shopify’s native actions:
- Slack notifications via webhook — create a Slack incoming webhook (in Slack settings → Apps → Incoming Webhooks) and use it as the target for Shopify Flow webhook actions. High-value order notifications, new wholesale account registrations, or inventory alerts delivered to a Shopify Slack channel keep the team informed without requiring Shopify admin monitoring.
- Google Sheets logging via webhook + Zapier — use a Zapier webhook endpoint as the Flow webhook target, then configure the Zap to log order data to a Google Sheet. This pattern creates automated reporting dashboards that update in real-time without manual data export. Useful for sales tracking, fulfillment monitoring, and custom analytics not available in Shopify’s native reports.
- Customer success CRM updates — for stores using HubSpot, Salesforce, or Pipedrive for CRM, Flow webhooks can push customer and order events to the CRM in real-time, keeping customer records updated without manual sync or periodic import/export workflows.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Shopify Flow available on all Shopify plans?
Shopify Flow plan availability: Shopify Flow is available on all paid Shopify plans (Basic, Shopify, Advanced, and Plus) as of 2022. It was previously restricted to Shopify Plus — the expansion to all plans in 2022 made store automation accessible to independent merchants without the enterprise plan investment. There are no additional fees for Shopify Flow — it’s included in your Shopify subscription. The Shopify Starter plan ($5/month) does not include Shopify Flow. Shopify Plus includes additional Flow capabilities (more workflow triggers, additional action types, and higher workflow execution limits) compared to standard plans, but standard plans provide sufficient Flow functionality for most small and medium stores’ automation needs.
What is the difference between Shopify Flow and Klaviyo automation?
Shopify Flow vs. Klaviyo automation: these tools are complementary, not competing. Shopify Flow automates actions within the Shopify platform — customer tagging, order notes, internal notifications, product management, inventory alerts. Klaviyo automates email and SMS marketing communications — sending sequences of customer-facing messages based on behavior. The most powerful automation combines both: Shopify Flow tags customers based on behavior, and Klaviyo triggers email flows when customers receive or lose specific tags. Example: Flow tags a customer “VIP” when they reach $500 lifetime spend → Klaviyo detects the “VIP” tag addition and triggers a VIP welcome email series → the customer receives personalized VIP communication automatically without any manual action from your team.
Can Shopify Flow send emails to customers?
Shopify Flow customer email capabilities: on Shopify Plus, Flow can trigger Shopify’s transactional email templates (order-specific emails customized based on workflow conditions). On standard Shopify plans, Flow cannot directly send customer-facing emails — it can send internal emails to your team and send webhooks to external email tools (Klaviyo, Mailchimp). The recommended pattern for customer communication automation on standard plans: use Flow to tag customers or send webhooks, and use Klaviyo to trigger the actual customer-facing email when tags change. This two-tool approach is actually more flexible than Flow’s native email capabilities because Klaviyo’s email templates, personalization, and analytics are significantly more sophisticated than Shopify’s native email tools.
How many workflows can I create in Shopify Flow?
Shopify Flow workflow limits: Shopify doesn’t publicly publish a hard limit on the number of workflows, but practical limitations exist in workflow execution volume (the number of times workflows fire per month). Standard Shopify plans have a workflow execution limit that’s sufficient for most stores’ needs; Shopify Plus has higher execution limits for stores with very high order volumes. If you hit execution limits, Shopify will notify you and discuss options. In practice, most stores running 50-200 orders per day with 10-20 active workflows operate well within standard plan limits. Monitor your Flow analytics (in Shopify admin → Apps → Flow → each workflow’s activity log) to track execution frequency and identify any workflows that might be firing unexpectedly often.
What workflows should I set up first in Shopify Flow?
Priority Shopify Flow workflows to implement first: 1) VIP customer auto-tagging (customer total spent > threshold → add “VIP” tag) — this immediately improves your loyalty program and email segmentation accuracy; 2) High-risk order alert (order risk = high → email internal notification) — this protects against fraud from day one; 3) Low inventory reorder alert (inventory < threshold → email purchasing team) — this prevents stockouts that create customer disappointment and lost revenue; 4) Repeat buyer tagging (orders count > 1 → add “repeat-buyer” tag) — this enables better email segmentation for retention marketing; and 5) First purchase tagging (orders count = 1 → add “first-purchase” → trigger onboarding email) — this ensures every new customer enters your retention marketing funnel. These five workflows provide immediate operational value and measurable revenue impact for most stores.
Final Thoughts
Shopify Flow transforms the gap between what you know you should do for customers (identify VIPs immediately, flag high-risk orders proactively, alert the team when inventory is low) and what actually happens consistently — the manual execution that happens some of the time versus the automated execution that happens every time. The time investment in building these workflows is measured in hours; the ongoing operational benefit is measured in years of consistent, accurate automation that works while you sleep. Start with the five priority workflows, measure their impact over 30 days, and build confidence and complexity into your automation program over time. Every workflow that runs automatically is a task your team doesn’t miss and a customer moment that doesn’t fall through the cracks.
For more on Shopify operational efficiency, explore our guides on customer segmentation setup, email marketing automation, and Shopify analytics setup.
