Introduction
Almost all ecommerce businesses face challenges when it comes to dealing with their customers abandoning their carts. But here, the reasons can be different for each store. The outcome, however, remains the same: lost revenue, and the data shows that nearly 70% of shoppers who add items to a cart leave without completing the purchase. This is not a problem you can fix by increasing your advertising budget. It is a recovery problem that requires the right tools.
Shopify does include a basic abandoned checkout email feature, where it sends one email, uses some simple standard templates, and only captures shoppers who reached the checkout page. This method is functional, but it often does not help you recover substantial revenue. Dedicated applications include many useful features such as multi-step sequences, providing personalized content, and helping with recovery through multiple channels like web push and SMS.
In this blog post, we compared 5 free Shopify abandoned cart email apps to help you find the one that fits your store. For each app, we cover exactly what the free plan includes, where it falls short, and who it works best for. If you want to recover abandoned carts on Shopify for free without guessing which tool to trust, this guide gives you a straight answer.
Why Shopify's Built-In Cart Recovery Is Not Enough
With the standard built-in function that is available in Shopify for recovering abandoned checkouts, many store owners assume they have the problem covered. While Shopify offers a basic tool, it does not have the features necessary to recover a large amount of lost revenue.
What Shopify's Native Abandoned Cart Email Does
Shopify includes an abandoned checkout email feature through Shopify Flow and Shopify Email. When a customer starts the checkout process but does not complete it, the system can send one automated email reminder. The templates are simple and include basic branding options. This feature is free to use and requires no third-party installation.
But here, there is one significant limitation with Shopify's native tool, it only tracks abandoned checkout email Shopify activity, meaning it only contacts shoppers who reached the checkout page. Shoppers who added items to their cart but never started the checkout process are not captured at all. This is actually the larger group of abandoners, and they go completely uncontacted with Shopify's default setup.
The Gap Between Basic and Effective
One email does recover some orders. But sending a 3-email sequence, at 1 hour, 24 hours, and 72 hours after abandonment, can help you recover significantly more customers/orders. A single reminder is easy to miss, but a well-timed and structured follow-up sequence can help recover sales without being pushy.
Relying on email alone also means you miss customers who do not open your messages. So, adding channels like web push notifications helps you create more contact points without the need for an email address or phone number. Web push works by getting a one-time permission from the browser, allowing you to reach out to anonymous visitors.
The built-in tool does not offer dynamic product suggestions, personalization features, A/B testing, or in-depth analytics. You can see open and click rates, but you cannot track how much revenue your recovery emails actually brought in, and these features are useful for optimizing your channel’s recovery performance.
Understand that the average Shopify checkout completion rate is around 45%, which means 55% of your shoppers who start checkout do not finish, and many more never even reach that page. So, relying on one email to recover that amount of revenue is not a sustainable option and requires a more capable Shopify abandoned cart recovery app.
What to Look for in a Free Abandoned Cart App
Now that we know an app can greatly help you recover lost revenue, the next step is to understand and identify what makes effective tools different from basic ones. When looking at free options, some features will show if an app can actually recover sales or just send emails that are ignored.
5 Features That Separate Real Recovery From Just An Email
Having multi-step sequences: A single email reminder is not enough, so look for apps that let you send at least 2-3 emails in a timed sequence. The standard approach involves sending the first reminder after one hour, a second at 24 hours, and a final message at 72 hours, which gives shoppers multiple chances to return.
Provide multi-channel recovery: Depending on only emails for recovery will not be helpful here, especially with customers who do not open your messages. The best apps combine email with other channels like web push or SMS. Here, web push is particularly valuable because it reaches visitors who never shared their email address.
Use dynamic product content: Generic messages do not serve the purpose here, so using effective apps automatically populate abandoned products with images, names, and prices inside the email. This visual reminder reminds customers exactly what they left behind.
Performing segmentation and targeting: Every abandoned cart can be different, so it is best to look for apps that let you send different messages based on cart value, product type, or customer history. A customer with a $200 cart may need a different approach than someone with a $20 cart.
Showcase revenue attribution: You need to know exactly how much money the app helped you recover, and not just show you the open rates or click-through rates. Without this, you cannot measure whether the app is working.
Understanding the Free Plan Reality Check
Though the majority of the apps advertise themselves as free plans but may include some hidden limitations. Some of the apps may limit your subscriber count to 250 or 500 contacts. Others take a commission of 2-5 percent on sales recovered. Plus, the important and useful features such as multi-channel recovery are often only available in paid plans.
A useful tip for evaluating the top free cart recovery options on Shopify is to calculate the real cost. An app that charges a 2 percent commission on recovered sales might be more expensive than a $19 monthly flat-rate app once you recover over $1,000 monthly. We will discuss these trade-offs for each app in the comparison below.
The 5 Best Free Shopify Apps for Abandoned Cart Emails
When you are looking for free tools to help you recover lost sales, you can find a number of options in the Shopify App Store. There should be no guilt in going with a free option, and you should get the full value of using a particular app that may help you achieve better results for your challenges. To simplify your decision, check out these five apps based on their free plan features, limitations, and real recovery potential to make an informed decision.
1. PushOwl by Brevo: Best Overall Free Abandoned Cart App
It is a marketing automation app for Shopify that integrates email, web push notifications, and SMS into one platform. It is built on Brevo's email system and provides a full set of tools for engaging customers. Its abandoned cart features especially are what make it the best and top free option available.
Abandoned cart recovery features
PushOwl offers ready-made and pre-built automation for both email and web push that can be done with a single click. This sequence is triggered automatically when a shopper leaves items in their cart or abandons the checkout process on your website. You can also choose to set up multi-step email sequences using a drag-and-drop editor, with no manual setup required for the core flow.
The email side includes a drag-and-drop editor that has dynamic product blocks, which automatically pull in the exact products that shopper left behind, and can include the right images, prices, and a direct link back to their cart. This is much more effective than sending a generic reminder.
The useful web push functionality is what stands out here and separates PushOwl from every other app on this list. It allows you to send abandoned cart notifications to visitors who never provided an email address. Web push notifications reach shoppers who never provided an email address. A shopper visits your store, clicks allow on the browser prompt, and they are now reachable via push- no email, no phone number needed. When they abandon their cart, PushOwl sends them a push notification as part of the same automated sequence. This means you are reaching a group of shoppers that email-only apps cannot contact at all.
PushOwl also includes smart delivery timing, which sends messages to your audience at the time each subscriber is most likely to engage. Its easy segmentation options let you target specifically by cart value, product category, and customer behavior.
The analytics dashboard shows you all the features and stats in one place, such as delivery rates, open rates, click rates, and recovered revenue across both channels in one view.
What the free plan includes
The free plan includes email marketing with automation for abandoned cart, welcome messages, and browse abandonment. You also get email popups, including a spin-to-win wheel, web push notifications with campaign creation tools, basic segmentation, analytics, and full Shopify sync.
Since PushOwl uses usage-based pricing, meaning you pay only for what you send. Every plan offers an unlimited list size without any limits on subscribers.
What the free plan does not include
Some advanced segmentation options, SMS marketing, and higher sending volumes require a paid plan. But the free tier covers the core abandoned cart recovery workflow across both email and web push channels.
Why is it the best free option
This is one of the best free options because PushOwl is the only free app that provides multi-channel abandoned cart recovery through email and web push without any cost. Every other free app limits you to email only. Since web push reaches anonymous visitors who never share their email address, PushOwl recovers carts that other tools cannot access.
And being a part of the Brevo ecosystem also means you get professional-grade email deliverability. This way, your emails go out through established infrastructure, and not through a shared IP pool that affects your sender reputation.
Another underrated advantage of the app is that the app also grows with your business, offering newsletters, back-in-stock alerts, price drop notifications, flash sales, and SMS as you scale. This one app can replace what would otherwise require three or four separate tools.
Best for: Shopify stores of any size that want multi-channel cart recovery from day one on a free plan, and want a platform that scales as they grow.
Shopify App Store link: https://apps.shopify.com/pushowl
2. Omnisend: Best Free Plan for Email-Only Cart Recovery
This app is built for ecommerce, and is a well-established email and SMS marketing platform. Many Shopify stores use Omnisend when upgrading from basic email tools.
Abandoned cart recovery features
Omnisend offers pre-built workflows for both cart abandonment and checkout abandonment as separate automations. This is useful as cart abandonment captures shoppers who added items but never started checkout, while checkout abandonment captures those who started but did not finish. Having both as separate flows gives you better control over messaging.
The email builder is a drag-and-drop feature with dynamic product blocks that can easily auto-populate the abandoned items. The platform includes AI tools for generating subject lines and assisting with copy, and the A/B testing is only accessible with paid plans.
What the free plan includes
The free plan supports up to 250 contacts with an unlimited list size and 500 emails per month. With the free plan, you get pre-built automation workflows including abandoned cart, basic segmentation, pop-up forms, and signup forms. Email and live chat support are available 24/7, even on the free plan.
What the free plan does not include
SMS is not available on the free plan, it requires the Standard plan, which is priced at $16 per month. The web push notifications are not available on any Omnisend plan. The 250-contact and 500-email limits that come with the free plan can quickly feel limiting for stores that have steady traffic.
Honest take: Their email automation is well-built, and the cart recovery templates are quite refined. Still, the free plan acts more like a trial instead of a genuine long-term free tier. The contact limit is quite low, and there is no multi-channel recovery feature available, even for paid plans. While it is a strong email tool, it doesn't connect with shoppers that web push can reach.
Best for: Shops looking for effective email cart recovery and planning to switch to a paid plan soon. This app is not suitable if you plan to remain on the free plan for an extended period.
It has a Shopify App store rating: 4.7 stars and 6,000+ reviews
Shopify App Store link: https://apps.shopify.com/omnisend
Check out the comparison of Omnisend Free vs Shopify Email for Shopify Stores
3. Cartly by Care Cart: Best Simple Free Cart Recovery
This is a lightweight abandoned cart recovery app focused on email and push notifications, and was formerly known as Care Cart. The setup is straightforward, where you install, activate, and it starts running.
Abandoned Cart Recovery Features
The app tracks both abandoned carts and abandoned checkouts. It sends automated recovery emails using its many customizable templates. The basic web push notification support is included, plus the email popups and a spin-to-wheel feature help with list building. Order follow-up and win-back email campaigns are also part of the package.
What the free plan includes
The free plan offers abandoned cart email recovery, email popups, the basic push notifications, and order follow-up emails. For a store just getting started, these features and their functionality are enough to begin recovering carts without spending anything.
What the free plan does not include
The free plan takes a commission on each recovered order, and to eliminate that fee and get unlimited subscribers, you must upgrade to the Pro plan for $14.99 a month. Also, the advanced customization and detailed analytics are limited in the free version.
Honest take: Cartly works well for stores wanting a quick and simple setup. The templates are basic, and the email editor lacks the polish found in Omnisend or PushOwl. The commission-based free plan means your costs increase as your recovery improves. If cart recovery starts working well, you will likely pay more in commission than you would on a flat monthly plan.
Best for: New Shopify stores with low traffic that want basic cart recovery running within minutes and do not mind commission-based pricing.
It has a Shopify App store rating of 4.8 stars and 253 reviews
Shopify App Store link: https://apps.shopify.com/care-cart
4. Recapture: Best for Simple Setup Recovery
This one is a cart recovery and email marketing app that is mainly built around fast setup. Their team advertises it as a five-minute setup from install to active campaigns. The focus here is on ready-to-use campaigns that need no design effort. It includes abandoned cart reminders, follow-up emails after purchases, re-engagement sequences, and simple broadcast emails.
Abandoned cart recovery features
The app provides automated abandoned cart and abandoned checkout recovery emails with the help of pre-built campaigns that come ready to activate without requiring configuration. SMS for cart recovery is available on paid plans, plus the dynamic product content, discount code integration, and customer win-back sequences are included.
What the free plan includes
The free plan offers some basic cart recovery email automation, but it has a limited sending capacity and fewer features than the paid options. It can be a practical choice and starting point for stores that have no recovery setup in place.
What the free plan does not include
The paid tiers include SMS recovery, advanced analytics, and increased sending volumes. Web push notifications are not offered on any plan, and the free plan is purposely basic, as it aims to provide a functional setup while encouraging users to upgrade.
Honest Take: Recapture's main advantage is that you do not need to build or design anything to get started. The pre-built campaigns are ready to go, right after you begin using the app. But remember that it is limited to email only, with no multi-channel recovery option.
Also, the customization is more limited than what PushOwl or Omnisend offers. This is great for merchants who prefer no setup effort, but not for those looking to recover abandoned carts on Shopify without cost across several channels.
Best for: Solopreneurs or very small stores that want abandoned cart emails running immediately, with zero design skills or configuration work.
This has a Shopify App store rating: 5.0 stars with 36 reviews
Shopify App Store link: https://apps.shopify.com/recapture-abandoned-cart-and-email-marketing
5. Shopify Email with Flow: The Free Baseline
This one is not a third-party app, but it is free, and the built-in functionality is already available in your Shopify admin. It is worth including here because it is what most stores are working with before they install a dedicated recovery app. With this app, Shopify Email combined with Shopify Flow allows you to set up basic abandoned checkout recovery automation.
Abandoned cart recovery features
The setup sends one automated email when a shopper starts checkout but does not complete it. The email includes your store branding, the abandoned products, and a link back to the cart. It is functional and requires no additional install, plus you get 10,000 free emails per month, with additional emails costing $1 per 1,000 beyond that limit.
What the free plan includes
The free plan or tier includes 10,000 emails per month, basic abandoned checkout automation, a simple email editor, UTM tracking, and delivery and open rate analytics.
What it does not include
There is no multi-step sequence, so only one recovery email is sent. It only tracks checkout abandonment, not cart abandonment. There is no web push, SMS, segmentation, A/B testing, dynamic discount codes, or revenue attribution provided with the app. Here you can see if emails were opened, but not how much revenue was recovered.
Honest take: This tool can be taken as a starting point for you if you are a new merchant. It works, and if you have no recovery system in place today, activating this feature is a good first step. However, you should move to a dedicated free Shopify abandoned cart email app like PushOwl once your store receives consistent traffic.
Best for: Stores that have not set up any cart recovery yet and want something running in minutes with no additional installations.
Shopify App Store rating is not applicable here since this is a built-in feature.
Free Plan Features Compared Side by Side
To make your decision easier, let us look at a summarized view of what each app offers and the core features available on its free plan in the table below.
You can say the one detail that stands out clearly is that PushOwl is the only app that offers both email and web push abandoned cart recovery on a free plan, with no commission fees. Every other app is limited to using email only on their free tier, which means they cannot reach shoppers who have never shared their email address. For stores that want to recover abandoned carts on Shopify for free across more than one channel, this difference matters.
Check out these abandoned cart recovery strategies
How to Set Up Your First Abandoned Cart Recovery Flow- Step Guide with PushOwl
To get started on the process and set up your very first abandoned cart recovery flow, you don't need a developer or a complicated setup process. PushOwl is built to work directly with Shopify, and the core abandoned cart automation can be live in under 10 minutes. This is exactly how you can do it, follow the step guide.
Step 1: Install and Connect Your Store
You need to install PushOwl from the Shopify App Store, and the app automatically syncs your customers, products, and orders after installation. To ensure the emails reach inboxes, set up your sender domain through Brevo for proper email authentication, like DKIM and DMARC, which takes about two minutes.
Step 2: Activate the Abandoned Cart Automation
You now need to go to the Automations section in your PushOwl dashboard, where you will find a pre-built abandoned cart template ready to use. Now, just click activate to start the default sequence. The automation sends the first email one hour after abandonment, a second email at 24 hours, and a web push notification between them. You can also choose to customize the email template with your brand colors, logo, and preferred messaging using the drag-and-drop editor. In the email, the product details will populate automatically.
Step 3: Enable Web Push for Anonymous Visitors
You need to turn on the browser opt-in prompt so that the visitors can subscribe to web push notifications with one click. This allows you to reach customers who never provide their email address. The web push notification for abandoned carts runs automatically as part of the same automation, requiring no additional setup.
Step 4: Monitor Performance and Make Improvements
It is best to check the analytics dashboard regularly to see the recovered revenue, delivery rates, open rates, and click-through rates. You can always use segmentation tools to test different discount offers. For example, try free shipping for carts above $50 and a percentage discount for carts below $50 to see what works better for your store.
Install PushOwl free and activate abandoned cart recovery in under 10 minutes.
5 Tips to Maximize Your Cart Recovery Rate
You can follow and implement these easy tips when you want to get better results from your abandoned cart efforts.
1. Send Three Emails Instead of One
It is best to send the first email one hour after abandonment as a simple reminder. Send the second at 24 hours with social proof like customer reviews or a low stock notice. And then send the third at 72 hours with a discount offer. This three-email sequence helps you to recover more sales than a single message.
2. Use Web Push as an Additional Channel
Since web push notifications appear directly on a customer's device screen in real time, they have higher open rates than email. So, use a web push notification within 30 to 60 minutes of abandonment as your first touchpoint, and then follow up with the email sequence afterward for better reach.
3. Show the Exact Products Left Behind
It is best to use dynamic content blocks that automatically display images, names, and prices of the abandoned items. Your customers respond better to messages showing exactly what they left rather than some generic text reminders. This visual approach increases click-through rates significantly.
4. Offer Discounts at the Right Time
Remember, you should not include a discount in your first email. Many customers only need a reminder to complete their purchase. So save discount offers for the second or third message, this strategy protects your profit margins while still offering an incentive when necessary.
5. Segment Customers Based on Cart Value
You should always treat a $20 cart differently from a $200 cart, and offer free shipping to customers with lower value carts. You can also provide a percentage discount to those with higher value carts. By tailoring your approach based on cart value, you can get better recovery rates.
Conclusion
The abandoned cart apps that are free can show a lot of variation in what they provide. And the difference in recovering 3 percent versus 12 percent of lost sales for your store comes down to the use of multi-step sequences, multi-channel outreach, and intelligent segmentation.
PushOwl includes all three on its free plan. It combines email and web push to reach and connect with anonymous visitors that email-only applications miss entirely. As your store grows and scales, the platform also develops into a complete marketing suite, so you won't have to switch apps down the line.
