Revenue recoverable from cart-abandonment email + SMS sequence.
Inputs
extra on top of email
Recovered revenue
Monthly recovered revenue—
Abandoned carts
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Recovered orders
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Total recovery rate
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Per-step contribution
Step
Timing
Recovery %
Revenue
About this calculator
Cart abandonment recovery is the second-highest-ROI email automation after the welcome flow. With average ecommerce abandonment running 70%+, every site has a large pool of high-intent shoppers who got to the cart but didn\'t finish. A 3-step recovery sequence with SMS overlay typically recovers 8-15% of these, producing $5-20K/month for any store with meaningful traffic.
This calculator projects recovered revenue from add-to-cart volume × abandonment rate × per-step recovery. The model assumes typical timing: email 1 at 1 hour (highest recovery rate), email 2 at 24 hours, email 3 at 72 hours, with SMS layered on top to compress recovery in the highest-intent window.
The key tactical decision is discount strategy. Email 1 should be a pure reminder (no discount); email 2 introduces 10-15%; email 3 escalates to 15-20% plus free shipping for the last-chance trigger. The risk: customers learn to abandon to wait for discount. Suppress repeat abandoners (3+ in 30 days) and exclude low-value carts (< $25 AOV) from the flow to prevent gaming.
Pair with the Cart Abandonment Revenue calculator (current vs potential), the Welcome Flow Revenue calculator (the other top automation), and the SMS ROI calculator (if you don\'t have SMS overlay yet, that\'s a 30-50% lift opportunity on this flow alone). Most underperforming abandoned cart programs only have email 1 — adding emails 2 and 3 plus SMS typically doubles or triples recovered revenue.
Frequently asked questions
What's a typical cart-recovery rate?
Industry average: 5-12% of abandoned carts recovered via email/SMS sequence. Top brands hit 15-20%. By step: email 1 (1hr): 6-8%, email 2 (24hr): 3-5%, email 3 (72hr): 1-3%, SMS overlay: +2-4% on top.
Should the second email include a discount?
Tactically yes, but be careful. Email 1: no discount, just reminder. Email 2: 10-15% discount. Email 3: 15-20% + free shipping. The risk: customers learn to abandon to wait for discount. Mitigate by capping discount frequency per customer (Klaviyo can flag repeat-abandoners).
How is SMS different from email here?
SMS has 95-98% open rate vs email's 25-40%. SMS works best in the 1-4 hour abandon window when intent is freshest. Email works best at 24+ hour mark when reconsidered intent kicks in. Use both — SMS for fast recovery, email for the longer tail.
How big is the cart abandonment opportunity?
Average ecommerce abandonment rate: 70%. So if your site has 1,000 add-to-carts/month, ~700 abandon. Even at modest 8% recovery, that's 56 recovered orders × your AOV in monthly revenue — typically $5-20K/month from this single automation.
Should the flow run on every abandon?
Yes — but suppress for repeat abandoners (3+ abandons in 30 days suggests they're gaming for discount), suppress for low-value carts (< $25 AOV often costs more to recover than worth), and respect global unsubscribes. Klaviyo and most ESPs handle these suppressions automatically.