Ecommerce

Shopify Flow: ten free workflows every store should switch on, and the limits to know first

By Babar Lal  ·   ·  9 min read

Monday morning in a small Shopify store looks the same every week. Someone scrolls through the weekend's orders looking for anything that seems fraudulent. Then they check which products are running low, and look for orders that should have shipped on Friday.

Shopify Flow, a free app from Shopify, can do every one of those checks on its own. It just has to be switched on and pointed at the right things.

The same Monday morning in a Shopify store two ways. On the left, the owner checks orders for fraud by hand, scrolls for low stock, spots a huge order too late and finds two orders that missed their shipping window. On the right, Shopify Flow has already tagged the high-risk order for review, sent one low-stock list, flagged the unusually large order and emailed a summary of late orders.

The short answer

Install Shopify Flow, start from its templates, and switch on the ten workflows below. They cover fraud, stock, late orders, big orders, customers and recovery. They cost nothing beyond your Shopify plan.

QuestionShort answer
What it isA free Shopify app that runs workflows: when something happens, check a condition, then take an action
What it is notA full integration platform for every app you use, or a replacement for your email tool
Who can use itStores on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans
CostFree; the Send HTTP Request action needs Grow, Advanced or Plus
What to do firstInstall it and turn on the high-risk order and low-stock templates

How a workflow works

Every workflow has the same three parts, as Shopify's Flow documentation explains. A trigger is the event that starts it, such as an order being created. A condition checks something, such as whether the order is high risk. An action is what happens next, such as adding a tag or emailing a person.

On top of that you can add waits, schedules that run a workflow every day, and steps that fetch a list of orders or products and loop through them.

Six parts of a Shopify Flow workflow: a trigger such as an order created or a schedule; a condition such as high risk or an order over 500 dollars; an action such as tagging, emailing or hiding a product; a wait of up to 90 days in total; get data and for each steps that work on lists of up to 100 items; and an error notification if a run fails. Start from a template, then change one thing at a time.

Ten workflows every store should switch on

Most of these come straight from Shopify's template library or its advanced examples. Start with the first four.

WorkflowWhat it doesType
1. Hold high-risk orders for reviewTag orders Shopify rates as high risk and notify a person before anything ships. Shopify's risk templates can also cancel and restock them, or capture payment automatically on low and medium risk orders if you capture manually.Risk
2. Cancel orders from known bad email addressesKeep a short list of addresses behind past chargebacks, and let Flow cancel and tag their orders.Risk
3. Send one daily low-stock listA scheduled workflow that emails one list of products running low, instead of one alert per product.Inventory
4. Hide sold-out products and bring them backUnpublish a product when it hits zero and republish it when stock returns, so ads and collections stop sending people to dead pages.Inventory
5. Get a daily summary of late ordersEvery afternoon, list and tag orders that missed your fulfilment window. This is one of Shopify's own advanced examples.Orders
6. Flag unusually large ordersNotify someone when an order has an irregular quantity, which can mean a reseller, a mistake or fraud.Orders
7. Tell the warehouse about expedited ordersEmail logistics when an order needs to go out fast, so it doesn't sit in the normal queue.Orders
8. Tag customers by lifetime spendSort customers into spend tiers automatically, ready for VIP offers or a personal thank you.Customers
9. Recover abandoned checkoutsShopify's template emails shoppers 10 hours after they leave checkout. You can change the wait or add steps.Marketing
10. Get told when a workflow failsTurn on error notifications, so a broken workflow doesn't fail quietly for a month.Monitoring

The high-risk order workflows are covered in Shopify's guide to managing high-risk orders with Flow. The low-stock list and reorder points are covered in our post on low-stock alerts and reordering. Abandoned checkout recovery has its own post on abandoned cart recovery.

How to set them up, step by step

  1. Install the free Shopify Flow app from the Shopify App Store. Staff need Flow permissions to see it and turn workflows on.
  2. Open Flow, click Create workflow, then Browse templates.
  3. Pick a template and read every step before you turn it on. Templates often send emails to an address you need to change.
  4. Test it on a past order, product or customer. You can run a workflow by hand from the admin on up to 50 items at once.
  5. Turn it on, and turn on Flow's error notifications.
  6. Add one workflow a week. Check the recent runs before adding the next.

The limits worth knowing

Flow is generous, but it has limits. Shopify's troubleshooting page lists them.

A store can have up to 1,000 workflows. Shopify warns when more than 10 active workflows share one trigger, because they all run at once and can slow down or clash. Combine them into one workflow with branches instead.

A workflow can have up to 40 wait steps, and the waits can't add up to more than 90 days. Scheduled workflows can run as often as every 10 minutes. Get data and For each steps work on lists of up to 100 items.

The Send marketing email action won't send to customers who haven't agreed to marketing. Workflows run inside your plan's API limits, so a badly built workflow can slow down others.

Two columns. Flow does well: tagging orders, customers and products; alerts and daily summaries to your team; hiding and showing products by stock; holding and cancelling risky orders; and simple waits and schedules. Use another tool for: two-way syncing with outside systems, marketing email sequences with testing, anything needing more than 100 items a run, logic across Amazon, your 3PL and your ERP, and a customer-facing AI agent. Send HTTP Request needs the Grow, Advanced or Plus plan.

A sum you can redo with your own numbers

Here is the time Flow can take off a small team. The minutes are my assumptions. Time your own checks for a week.

TaskHow to get itExample
Daily stock and late-order checksTime them for a week20 minutes a day x 30 = 10 hours
Reviewing orders for risk and sizeOrders a month x minutes each300 orders x 1 minute = 5 hours
Hours a monthAdd them up15 hours
Value at $20 an hourHours x hourly cost$300 a month
Time Shopify Flow can save on example numbers. Daily stock and late-order checks: 20 minutes a day times 30 days is 10 hours. Order reviews: 300 orders times 1 minute is 5 hours. 15 hours a month at 20 dollars an hour is about 300 dollars a month, for a free app. The minutes are marked as assumed.

The bigger win is what doesn't happen: the fraudulent order that ships, the bestseller that sells out unnoticed, the order that sits for four days.

When it backfires

Ten workflows on one trigger. They run in parallel, fight over the same order and slow down. Shopify warns about exactly this.

Auto-cancelling too much. A cancel rule that is too broad cancels good customers. Start by tagging and notifying, and only automate the cancel once you trust the rule.

Alerts to nobody. A workflow that emails a shared inbox nobody reads is decoration. Send it to a named person, or to a Slack channel someone watches.

No error alerts. A workflow that breaks after an app update can fail quietly for weeks. Turn on error notifications.

Using Flow as an integration platform. Flow is best inside Shopify. Two-way syncing with Amazon, a 3PL or an ERP needs a proper integration.

What we build, and when we say no

If you sell on Shopify alone, install Flow and switch on the templates above. You don't need us for that.

We build the next step for stores whose workflows need to reach outside Shopify. Examples are stock across Amazon and a 3PL, risk checks that pull from your support inbox, or an AI agent that answers customers from the same order data. Our workflow automation service builds those connections, often with Flow handling the Shopify side. Our ecommerce automation work covers the whole order flow, and our Shopify support automation covers the customer side.

We say no when Flow's templates already do the job. New to all this? Our plain-English answers to 24 questions about AI automation is the place to start.

Questions people ask

Is Shopify Flow free? Yes. Shopify Flow is a free app for stores on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans. Some features depend on the plan: the Send HTTP Request action needs Grow, Advanced or Plus, and usage limits follow your plan's API limits.

What can Shopify Flow automate? Tasks inside Shopify: tagging orders, customers and products, emailing your team, hiding and showing products by stock, holding or cancelling risky orders, and scheduled summaries. It can also send data to some apps through connectors.

What are the best Shopify Flow workflows to start with? Start with holding high-risk orders for review, a daily low-stock list, hiding sold-out products, and a daily summary of late orders. Then add flags for large orders, customer spend tiers and abandoned checkout recovery.

What are the limits of Shopify Flow? A store can have up to 1,000 workflows. Shopify warns when more than 10 active workflows share a trigger. Get data and For each steps handle up to 100 items, scheduled workflows run at most every 10 minutes, and waits are capped at 90 days in total.

Can Shopify Flow send emails to customers? It can send marketing emails only to customers who agreed to marketing, and it fails if you try otherwise. For full email sequences with testing, most stores use Shopify Messaging or an email tool such as Klaviyo alongside Flow.

Do I need a developer for Shopify Flow? Not for the templates. You can install, edit and test them yourself. You may want help for workflows that call outside systems with HTTP requests, loop through data, or need to stay in sync with Amazon, a 3PL or an ERP.

Find out what Flow could take off your team's plate.

Bring a week of the checks your team does by hand to the free audit. We sort them into what Flow does for free and what needs a proper integration, and tell you which to switch on first. If the templates will do, we say so.

Book the free audit →

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