Shopify email marketing for ecommerce is now handled by Shopify Messaging, the app that Shopify renamed from Shopify Email. It sends email, SMS and WhatsApp campaigns from your admin, and runs the marketing automations that most ecommerce revenue actually depends on — welcome, abandoned checkout, post-purchase and win-back. Two things surprise new users. First, email is no longer simply "free on Shopify": all stores on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus get 10,000 free emails per calendar month, and beyond that pricing applies. Second, automations only go to customers who are subscribed to marketing, so your list quality, not your sending tool, is the ceiling. This guide covers the pricing mechanics, the flows worth building, and the India consent requirement you should settle before you send anything.
Key Takeaways
• Shopify Messaging, formerly Shopify Email, handles email, SMS and WhatsApp campaigns plus automations, and is available on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus (Shopify Messaging).
• Pricing: 10,000 free emails per calendar month, then $1 USD per 1,000 additional emails up to 300,000, then $0.65 per 1,000 up to 750,000, then $0.55 per 1,000. Unused emails do not carry over (email pricing).
• Emails are counted per recipient, so one campaign to 800 subscribers counts as 800 emails. Marketing automations count toward the same 10,000, but abandoned checkout automation emails are always free.
• Marketing automation emails "are sent only to customers who are subscribed to marketing". Non-subscribed buyers receive nothing.
• You can set a monthly spending threshold in the app for a notification when combined email, SMS and WhatsApp spend hits a limit you choose.
• Using the app requires Shopify Network Intelligence to be enabled in your privacy settings.
• In India, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 governs the consent you collect. Section 6(2) requires consent that is "free, specific, informed, unconditional and unambiguous, and may be evidenced by a clear affirmative action", and Section 5 requires a notice about the data and purpose to accompany or precede the consent request.
• Shopify's own India pricing page, retrieved 26 September 2026, lists unlimited contacts and the ability to create email campaigns and marketing automations on every plan, including Basic at ₹1,499/month annual billing.
What Shopify Messaging includes
The first thing to correct is the mental model. Shopify's documentation states that Shopify Messaging, "formerly known as Shopify Email", can create and send email, SMS and WhatsApp marketing campaigns directly from the Shopify admin, and that you can create marketing automations for email and SMS with it.
That puts transactional-adjacent and marketing sending in one place. For a store selling into India, WhatsApp matters as much as email, and having it in the same tool with the same consent model is a real operational advantage.
Two documented prerequisites and behaviours to know:
• Shopify Network Intelligence must be enabled in your privacy settings for the feature to work. This is a one-time switch, but the app is non-functional without it.
• Campaign Autopilot tactics and automations appear inside Shopify Messaging alongside anything you build yourself, so your manual and recommended automations live in the same list. If you use Autopilot, review and approve tactics deliberately rather than assuming the list is only yours.
What Shopify does not do is segmentation depth, template testing, or multi-step custom journeys. For many Indian D2C stores that is enough, because the constraint is list size, not tool capability. If you need advanced automation across a warehouse, support and marketing stack, that is where workflow and integration work starts to matter.
The pricing, precisely
Shopify's email pricing documentation is unusually specific, and the rules surprise people in three ways:
• The allowance is 10,000 emails per calendar month across all email campaigns, not per campaign and not per store.
• Rates are tiered and they go down as volume rises: $1 USD per 1,000 additional emails up to 300,000, then $0.65 per 1,000 up to 750,000, then $0.55 per 1,000 beyond that. You are not billed until the cost reaches $0.005 USD.
• Unused emails do not carry over to the following month.
Emails are counted per recipient. Shopify's own example: sending one promotional email to 800 subscribers counts as 800 emails. A campaign to 6,000 subscribers costs the whole monthly allowance, twice over if you send two campaigns.
The accounting that matters most: marketing automations count toward the same 10,000, but abandoned checkout automation emails are always free and don't count toward the limit. So a store that over-sends promotional email can end up paying for messages that recover revenue instead of generating it, simply by ordering the flows wrongly. Set up abandoned checkout first, and measure your promotional sends against the remaining allowance.
Set a monthly spending threshold in the app so you get a notification when combined email, SMS and WhatsApp spend reaches a number you choose. Costs appear on your Shopify bill as Marketing emails, and the monthly alert breaks them down by channel and by source.
Build these four automations before you write a campaign
Automations earn their keep because they fire on intent. Shopify's documentation describes them as sending messages when customers "take specific actions, such as abandoning a cart or signing up for your newsletter", and notes they are sent only to customers who are subscribed to marketing. That single phrase determines your design: each flow needs a consented audience.
1. Welcome series. Triggered on newsletter signup or first purchase. Its job is to set expectations and deliver something useful — a guide, a care instruction, a discount with an expiry. This is also where you establish that you will email, which makes the later promotional sends legitimate.
2. Abandoned checkout recovery. Configured in Shopify Messaging, with the wait time and audience controlled by Shopify Flow. Shopify's documentation for abandoned checkouts notes seven documented cases where the recovery email is not sent, including when the customer has not previously completed a purchase and subscribed to marketing. Read that list before concluding the flow is broken. Detailed treatment of the mechanics is in our guide to Shopify COD and UPI in India, because in India the recovery message must match the payment methods you actually offer.
3. Post-purchase and reorder. Sets expectations on delivery, asks for a review, and reorders around the real consumption cycle rather than a fixed 30 days. For replenishment products, the cadence should come from the product, and this is the natural companion to a subscriptions programme.
4. Win-back. Segmented by time since last purchase and by what they bought. A discount is optional; a relevant reason to return usually outperforms one.
Build these four before you build a newsletter. A store with four working flows and no campaign beats a store with twelve flows and no consent discipline.
Consent in India is an engineering task, not a checkbox
This is where most Indian ecommerce email programmes quietly take on risk. India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 sets the standard. Section 6(2) requires consent that is "free, specific, informed, unconditional and unambiguous, and may be evidenced by a clear affirmative action", and the Department of Electronics and Information Technology's published text makes clear that consent may not be made a precondition for the provision of any good or service. Section 5 requires that every request for consent be accompanied or preceded by a notice informing the data principal of the personal data and the purpose for which it is proposed to be processed, how she may exercise her rights, and how she may make a complaint to the Board. The source is the Gazette of India text of the DPDP Act, 2023.
The practical consequences for a Shopify store:
• One clear opt-in, one purpose. A pre-ticked box or a bundled "sign up and accept the privacy policy" is not the clear affirmative action the Act contemplates.
• The notice has to exist and be reachable. Purpose, withdrawal route, and complaint route — not just a privacy policy link.
• Withdrawal has to work. Shopify's marketing consent model supports marketing unsubscribe, and you should also make sure the customer-facing route to withdraw is live, because the Act requires processing to cease within a reasonable time after withdrawal.
• Separate transactional from marketing. Order confirmations and shipping notices are not marketing. Marketing emails are. Keeping those streams distinct is both the compliance answer and the deliverability answer.
• Get legal review, not engineering review. We are describing the shape of the obligation, not advising on your specific obligations. If your volume or customer mix is significant, have your notice and consent flow reviewed by a qualified adviser before you scale.
Shopify does part of this for you: campaigns and automations go only to subscribed customers, which is the correct default. Your job is to make sure the opt-in itself is honest and that your records support it.
Deliverability is a domain and authentication problem
Getting a message delivered is upstream of every metric you care about. Three practical steps:
• Authenticate the sending domain. Shop your SPF and DKIM records before you scale volume. Shopify's own documentation on optimising campaign delivery and deliverability is the reference for the current controls.
• Protect the sending reputation with habit. Send to engaged subscribers, keep the ratio of promotional to useful mail sane, and act on bounces immediately rather than letting a list go stale.
• Segment before you broaden. A campaign to your full list with low engagement teaches the mailbox providers that people ignore you. Our Shopify product photography and store content work matter here too, because email converts or it does not.
A 90-day operating order
• Weeks 1–2: enable and configure. Turn on Shopify Network Intelligence, install Shopify Messaging, set the monthly spending threshold, and confirm the sending domain is authenticated.
• Weeks 3–5: fix consent. Audit every opt-in surface — footer form, checkout, pop-up, ad landing pages. Add the DPDP notice, make the opt-in affirmative and unticked by default, and confirm the unsubscribe route works.
• Weeks 6–9: build the four automations. Welcome, abandoned checkout, post-purchase, win-back. Verify each one fires in a test order, and note how many of your flows are actually reaching non-subscribed buyers: the answer will be zero by design.
• Weeks 10–12: start the promotional programme. Two or three campaigns a month to engaged segments. Watch the allowance — 10,000 free emails shared with automations is a real budget line.
• Then review monthly. Open and click rate by flow, revenue per recipient, list growth net of unsubscribes, and total Messaging spend against the threshold you set.
If your email programme needs to reach a warehouse, a CRM or a WhatsApp vendor that Shopify Messaging does not cover, that integration work is separate. Our custom app and API integration service handles those connections, and database solutions cover the customer data layer underneath them.
Frequently asked questions
Is Shopify email marketing free?
Partly, and the detail matters. Stores on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus get 10,000 free emails per calendar month. Beyond that, Shopify's published rates are $1 USD per 1,000 additional emails up to 300,000, then $0.65 per 1,000 up to 750,000, then $0.55 per 1,000. Unused emails do not carry over, and abandoned checkout automation emails are always free. SMS and WhatsApp are priced separately and are pay-per-send.
What is the difference between Shopify Email and Shopify Messaging?
Shopify Email was renamed. Shopify Messaging is the current name, and it covers email, SMS and WhatsApp campaigns plus marketing automations. Nothing about your existing campaigns was lost in the rename; the tool simply covers more channels now.
Do marketing automations reach every customer?
No, and this surprises people. Shopify's documentation states that emails sent using marketing automations "are sent only to customers who are subscribed to marketing". Abandoned checkout automation is the documented exception in the sense that its emails are always free, but the subscription requirement still governs who receives marketing. If you want more of your buyers in the audience, fix the opt-in rather than trying to work around the rule.
How many emails can I send on a Basic plan before being charged?
Your allowance is 10,000 free emails per calendar month, shared across all email campaigns and all marketing automations. Because emails are counted per recipient, one campaign to 6,000 subscribers uses 6,000 of that. Only abandoned checkout automation emails sit outside the count.
Is email marketing consent required in India?
For marketing to an identifiable person, yes. India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 requires consent that is free, specific, informed, unconditional and unambiguous, evidenced by a clear affirmative action, and requires a notice about the data and its purpose to accompany or precede the consent request. It also requires processing to cease within a reasonable time after consent is withdrawn. Treat this as a compliance question to review with a qualified adviser, not as a copy decision.
Fix the list, then increase the volume
Shopify email marketing for ecommerce is not a channel problem for most Indian stores. It is a list problem. Get consent right, authenticate the domain, build the four intent-triggered automations, and only then spend your 10,000 free emails on promotion. When the flows are working, the promotional budget and the paid acquisition budget stop competing.
Want someone to audit your email programme, consent surfaces and automations end to end? Talk to GrowMyStore about building or rebuilding your Shopify store.