How to Switch From Klaviyo Without Losing Flow Revenue

To migrate from Klaviyo without losing flow revenue, set up your new platform alongside Klaviyo, bring over your subscribers and your unsubscribes, rebuild each flow, and only switch off a Klaviyo flow once its replacement is live. With Audienceful, your customers and orders come straight from Shopify, so the Klaviyo export mainly covers subscribers who never bought and the people you must keep honoring as unsubscribed. Most stores can do it in a week, plus a few weeks of warm-up for a big list.

We make Audienceful, so this guide uses it for the steps. The Klaviyo parts apply wherever you're going.

Why stores switch from Klaviyo

Usually, cost. Klaviyo bills on active profiles, everyone you can reach whether you email them or not, so the bill grows with your list rather than your revenue. At 10,000 contacts Klaviyo's email plan is $150/month, against $79 billed yearly ($99 monthly) for Audienceful. At 50,000 it's $720, against $272 billed yearly ($320 monthly). Our guide to Klaviyo pricing explains how the bill is worked out, and the Klaviyo pricing calculator runs the numbers for your list.

Before you start: write down what earns

Open Klaviyo's flows and campaigns reports and note, for the last 90 days:

• Every live flow, its trigger and how many emails it sends.
• Revenue per flow. This is your baseline, so you can check the new flows match it.
• Your sending domain, and which signup forms and popups are live.

Plan to switch outside your busiest weeks. If Black Friday is close, finish warming up first and send your Black Friday emails from a domain that's already earning trust.

Step 1: Export from Klaviyo

You need two files. Klaviyo's export guide covers the steps.

1. All profiles, as a CSV. Build a segment of everyone you want to keep emailing and export it. Include the properties you use in flows, such as first name and birthday.
2. Your suppressed and unsubscribed profiles. Export these separately. You'll use this file to make sure nobody who opted out of your email starts getting it again.

Leave the long-dead profiles behind. If someone hasn't opened or clicked in a year and never bought, there's little reason to bring them.

Step 2: Install Audienceful and import your Shopify history

Install Audienceful from the Shopify App Store. Your account is created from your store, with no signup form, and your plan is billed on your Shopify invoice. Already have an account? Connect Shopify from the Integrations tab.

New customers, orders, checkouts and carts sync from that point. Then run the one-time historical import to bring in your existing customers and roughly the last year of orders. That's what makes segments like "spent over $200" and "no order in 90 days" work from day one. Email consent stays in sync with Shopify both ways (how contact sync works).

Turn on the Audienceful app embed in your theme as well. It shows your signup forms and popups, and lets product views and add-to-carts start flows for shoppers you know.

Step 3: Import your Klaviyo profiles

Your Shopify customers are already in. The Klaviyo CSV adds everyone else: newsletter and popup subscribers who never placed an order.

Go to People, click Add → Import CSV, upload the file and map each column to a field. Create custom fields for anything new as you go. If you run a birthday flow, map Klaviyo's birthday column to a Birthday date field. Every address is checked on the way in for typos, dead inboxes and disposable domains. Contacts already synced from Shopify are matched by email, not duplicated. The list import guide has the details.

Then honor your unsubscribes. Import the suppression file last, with a tag such as klaviyo-unsubscribed. Filter People by that tag, select everyone and unsubscribe them. Some of those people may be Shopify customers who still show as subscribed in Shopify, which is why this step matters even if you didn't import them yourself.

Step 4: Set up your sending domain and warm up

Add and verify your own sending domain. If you sent from this domain on Klaviyo, you're re-authenticating it for Audienceful, so you keep the reputation you've built.

For a list over about 10,000 contacts, don't email everyone on day one. Start with your most engaged subscribers and recent buyers, then widen each send over two to four weeks. The list warming guide has a schedule.

Step 5: Rebuild your flows from templates

Flows don't copy between platforms, so you rebuild them. The fast path is a ready-made template: each Shopify flow template arrives with its Shopify trigger set and its emails written, paused until you switch it on. Apply the one that matches, paste in your best-performing copy from Klaviyo, and adjust the timing.

The review request email links to whichever review app you use. Prefer to describe it? The AI agent can build a flow from a brief and leave it paused for you to check.

Step 6: Recreate your key campaign designs

Set up your theme (fonts, colors, logo) once, so every email starts on brand. Then rebuild the two or three campaign layouts you reuse most, starting from the Shopify email templates. The Product List block fills itself with your best-sellers, most-viewed or newest products, so a weekly product email needs no manual picking.

Step 7: Run both briefly, then switch flow by flow

Keep Klaviyo running while you warm up and send campaigns from Audienceful. Then move one flow at a time: switch on the Audienceful flow and set the matching Klaviyo flow to draft on the same day, so nobody gets two abandoned checkout emails. Turn off Klaviyo's signup forms when Audienceful's go live.

Give each flow two to four weeks, then compare its revenue with your Klaviyo baseline. Audienceful credits orders to the flow that drove them, with refunds netted out (how attribution works).

Step 8: Turn off Klaviyo, then cancel

Set every remaining Klaviyo flow to draft and cancel any scheduled campaigns before you cancel your plan. Klaviyo says flows keep sending and forms stay live after you cancel a paid plan, so cancelling alone won't stop them. Then remove the Shopify integration in Klaviyo and cancel.

Audienceful is free up to 1,000 contacts, then paid plans start at $32/month billed yearly ($37.50 monthly) for 3,000 contacts. Install it on your Shopify store and your customers and orders are there before you've exported a thing.

FAQs

How do I export my contacts from Klaviyo?

Create a segment of the profiles you want, then export it to CSV from the segment's page. Export your suppressed profiles as a separate file so you can keep honoring them. Klaviyo's export guide walks through it.

Will I lose my customer and order history if I leave Klaviyo?

No. Your customers and orders live in Shopify. Audienceful's historical import brings in your customers and roughly the last year of orders straight from your store.

Can I move my Klaviyo flows to Audienceful?

You rebuild them, and templates make that quick. Each common Klaviyo flow has a matching Audienceful template with the trigger set and emails written, so you mostly paste in your copy and adjust timing.

How long does it take to switch from Klaviyo to Audienceful?

Setup takes a day or two: install, import, apply templates. Warming up a large list takes two to four weeks, and it's worth running each flow for a few weeks before you cancel Klaviyo.

Should I cancel Klaviyo first?

No. Set Klaviyo's flows to draft and turn off its forms first. Klaviyo says flows keep sending after you cancel a paid plan, so cancelling first can leave customers getting emails from both tools.

Sources

• Klaviyo Help Center: export guide
• Klaviyo Help Center: archive or delete a flow (draft mode to pause a flow)
• Klaviyo: downgrade, cancel or close your account
• Klaviyo Community: exporting suppressed profiles