Which Klaviyo flows generate the most revenue
Once a Klaviyo account is mature, flows should bring in 50% to 60% of your email revenue, and the ranking of which flows earn it is remarkably consistent. Build them in order of revenue, not in the order that's easiest.
The most useful comparison is this: flows earn around $1.58 per recipient, compared with roughly $0.06 for campaigns. That's a 28-fold gap, and it exists because a flow reaches people at the moment they're already thinking about you.
What share of revenue should come from flows?
It depends on your size, which is why a single benchmark can mislead you. Under $5M in revenue, it's normal for 25% to 35% of email revenue to come from flows. Between $5M and $20M, aim for 40% to 50%. Once you're mature, 50% to 60%.
It climbs not because the flows get better, but because a bigger list means more people entering flows all the time. Automated revenue compounds, while campaign revenue stays tied to how often you send.
If you're a $2M brand and flows make up 30% of email revenue, you're right where you should be. If you're at $15M and flows are still 30%, something hasn't been built.
Which flows earn the most?
Ranked by revenue per recipient, the number that tells you what to build next:
- Abandoned cart: $8 to $15
- Welcome: $3 to $8
- Post-purchase: $2 to $5
- Browse abandonment: $1 to $4
- Review request: $0.50 to $2
- Sunset: $0.10 to $0.50
Abandoned cart tops the list for an obvious reason: the person picked a product, started checkout and then stopped. You won't find a warmer audience anywhere in your account.
Look at the spread between the top and the bottom. Abandoned cart earns somewhere between sixteen and eighty times more per recipient than a sunset flow. Both are worth having, but they don't deserve the same amount of your attention.
Why does welcome matter more than its position suggests?
Because of who's in it. Nearly 48% of flow-driven email revenue comes from new buyers, compared with just 16% for campaigns. Flows do most of the work of getting first purchases, and welcome is where that starts.
A welcome flow should get open rates of 40% to 60% and convert somewhere in the 8% to 12% range. In reality there's huge variation. Across one portfolio of fourteen brands, the median converted at 4.37% on the first email. That tells you execution matters more here than in flows where intent does most of the work.
What order should I build them in?
Abandoned cart, welcome, post-purchase, browse abandonment. Then everything else.
That's not the order most accounts get built in. Welcome usually goes first because it feels like the start of the customer journey, and browse abandonment often gets built early because it's interesting. Neither is where the money is.
If your time is limited, put it into the abandoned cart and welcome sequences and stop there. Two flows done well will beat nine flows that just exist.
What about post-purchase, given it earns less?
It earns less per recipient, but it's still worth building third, because it's the only flow on the list that affects the next order instead of the current one. Its value shows up in your repeat rate, which isn't part of the flow's own revenue attribution.
That's the general problem with revenue per recipient: it measures what a flow closed, not what it caused. Review requests earn $0.50 to $2 directly, but the reviews they bring in raise conversion on every product page afterward. Judge those two flows differently.
How do I know mine are underperforming?
Compare your flows against each other rather than against the ranges above, which vary a lot by category and price point. The comparison that tells you the most is this: your abandoned cart flow should be earning several times what your browse abandonment flow does. If they're close, your abandoned cart flow is underbuilt, because the difference in intent between those two audiences is huge and it should show up.
The second check is what percentage of your email revenue comes from flows, compared with the range for your revenue stage. That one number tells you whether your flows are weak or you just don't have enough of them.
If you'd like help building them, that's what our Klaviyo email marketing team does. Our Make Time Wellness case study shows a full rebuild, from deliverability through to flows.