Shopify Flow: Automations Every Store Should Run

Who it is for

Store owners and ops staff

Time needed

About 2 hours for the first four workflows

What you need

Admin access and the free Flow app

Most stores I audit have someone tagging orders by hand, checking stock by eye or forwarding emails to the warehouse. Each job takes a few minutes, and they add up to hours a week. Shopify Flow does that kind of work for free, inside your admin, and it is the first automation tool I reach for before suggesting any paid app or custom build.

This guide covers what Flow can do on each plan, how to build a workflow from scratch and from a template, the advanced actions developers use, and the mistakes that cause workflows to misfire. Plan availability and limits were checked against Shopify's Help Center on 7 November 2026.

What Shopify Flow is

Flow watches your store for events and runs a sequence of steps when one happens. Every workflow is built from three parts:

• Trigger. The event that starts it, such as Order created, Customer tags added or Product variant out of stock. A workflow can have only one trigger. There are around 90 to choose from, plus a Scheduled time trigger that runs on a timetable.
• Conditions. Checks that decide which branch runs, such as "order total is greater than 500" or "customer has the tag wholesale". Each condition has a True and a False path.
• Actions. What Flow does: add tags, send an internal email, hold a fulfillment order, unpublish a product, update a metafield, cancel an order and many more.

Apps can add their own triggers and actions through connectors, so a review app or an email platform can start a workflow or receive data from one. Flow uses a version of Liquid for variables, with camel case field names. You write {{ product.createdAt }} in Flow where a theme would use created_at.

Shopify Flow by plan

Flow is included on every current plan, and the differences between plans are narrower than most people expect:

If you searched for "Shopify Flow Advanced plan", the answer is that Advanced gets everything except tasks built by custom partner apps, which stay on Plus. Shopify also says usage limits vary by plan, because they follow each plan's API limits. In practice a small or mid-sized store won't notice. A store that bulk-updates thousands of products through Flow might.

To use it, install the free Shopify Flow app from the App Store, then open it at Apps > Flow. Staff need the Shopify Flow permission to view workflows and turn them on.

How to build your first workflow

A good first workflow is one with a clear rule and low risk. Tagging high-value orders for a personal thank-you note is a safe one to learn on:

1. Open Flow. Go to Apps > Flow and click Create workflow.
2. Pick the trigger. Click Select a trigger and choose Order created.
3. Add a condition. Click +, then Condition. Set it to check the order's current total price, greater than or equal to the value you choose.
4. Add the action. On the True path, click + > Action and choose Add order tags. Enter a tag such as high-value.
5. Add a second action if useful. Add Send internal email on the same path so the person who packs orders knows to add a note.
6. Name it. Click New Workflow at the top and give it a name that says what it does, such as "Tag orders over $250".
7. Test it. Shopify recommends testing with a real trigger event before you turn a workflow on. Place a test order above and below the threshold.
8. Turn it on. Click Turn on workflow, then check the run log after the next few real orders.

Shopify Flow templates

Flow ships with a large template library, and starting from one is usually faster than a blank canvas. To install one:

1. Browse. Go to Apps > Flow, click Create workflow, then Browse templates.
2. Review it. Open the template and read every step. Templates can use app triggers or actions, which only work if that app's connector is installed.
3. Install. Click Install.
4. Replace placeholders. Templates contain sample tags, thresholds and email addresses. Replace every one before you activate it.
5. Test and turn on. Test with a trigger event, then click Turn on workflow.

Shopify Flow examples every store should run

These are the workflows I set up first. Each uses only built-in triggers and actions, so they work on Basic.

A few notes from setting these up on real stores:

• High-risk orders. Hold the fulfillment order rather than canceling it automatically. A person should look at the order before money is refunded, because legitimate orders sometimes score as high risk. My guide on preventing fraud and chargebacks covers what to check.
• Low stock. Add a condition so the email only sends when stock crosses your threshold, not on every sale below it, or your inbox fills up.
• Sold-out products. Unpublishing can hurt SEO on products that come back. For seasonal or restocked items, tag them and let your theme show "sold out" instead.
• Customer tags. Tags like repeat-buyer or wholesale are what email platforms, discounts and segments read. Agree on a short list and write it down.

Advanced actions: scheduled runs, Run code and HTTP requests

This is where Flow starts to replace small custom apps.

Scheduled time and Get data. A scheduled workflow has no order or product attached, so it fetches data with a Get data action such as Get order data, which returns up to 100 records per run. You can write an advanced query using Shopify's search syntax. A daily late-order check might use fulfillment_status:unfulfilled created_at:<='{{ scheduledAt | date_minus: "3 days" }}', then a Count action and a condition before the email. Schedules repeat in days, weeks or months, and a workflow can run at most once every 10 minutes. Shopify warns that a failed query may return all results rather than none, so test it with Log output before you add actions that change data.

Run code. This action runs JavaScript (ECMA2020) on data from earlier steps and returns values for later steps. It can't import modules, call fetch or use random or clock functions. Typical uses are parsing a note attribute, building a formatted summary or doing maths Flow's conditions can't.

Send HTTP request. This posts data to any URL, such as a warehouse system, a Slack webhook or an n8n workflow. It supports GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD and OPTIONS, waits up to 30 seconds for a response and can retry for up to 24 hours on 4XX, 5XX and 429 responses. It needs Grow or higher. For changes to your own store, Shopify recommends Send Admin API request instead, which runs Admin API mutations (not queries) that Flow has no dedicated action for.

When Flow is enough, and when it isn't

Flow covers most "when this happens in Shopify, do that in Shopify" jobs. I move a job elsewhere when one of these is true:

• It spans several outside systems. Flow is built around Shopify events. When a job pulls data from your ERP, transforms it and writes to two other tools, a workflow tool like n8n or a small custom app is easier to build and maintain.
• It needs a user interface. If staff need a screen to approve, edit or upload something, that's an app, not a workflow.
• It needs to change the checkout. Discounts, shipping rules and payment rules run on Shopify Functions, not Flow.
• It runs at high volume. Thousands of updates an hour can hit API limits. A custom app with bulk operations handles that better.

When a client asks me to automate something, I check whether Flow can do it first, because it costs nothing and their team can see and edit it. If you want help mapping your manual tasks, my Shopify AI and automation service starts from $600, and the automation cost guide explains what drives the price.

Shopify Flow vs the Flow theme

If you searched for "Shopify Flow theme", you may be looking for something else. Flow is also the name of a paid theme in the Shopify Theme Store, made by Eight Themes and listed at $320 when I checked, aimed at wellness, skincare and food brands. It has nothing to do with the automation app. If you're choosing a theme, my comparison of Dawn and premium themes is a better starting point.

Common Shopify Flow mistakes

1. Loops between workflows. Workflow A adds a tag, which triggers workflow B, which updates the order, which triggers A again. Map which tags each workflow reads and writes.
2. Testing on live orders only. Use test orders, and add Log output steps while building.
3. Automatic cancellations. Canceling on risk alone loses good orders. Hold and review instead.
4. Ignoring the run log. Failed runs are easy to miss. Add the Workflow error occurred trigger with an internal email so failures reach someone.
5. No owner or naming rule. Name every workflow by what it does, and add a note saying who set it up and why.
6. Using Send HTTP request for store changes. Use Send Admin API request for your own store's data.

Shopify Flow setup checklist

Next steps

Write down every task your team repeats each week, and next to each one note the event that starts it and what a person does next. Anything that fits "when X happens, do Y" is a Flow candidate. Build the safest one first, watch its runs for a week, then add the next.

If a task needs another system, a screen for staff or checkout changes, that's when a custom Shopify app or an external workflow tool earns its place. Send me your list and I'll tell you which jobs Flow can handle for free and which need more.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Shopify Flow, Shopify Help Center
2. Creating a workflow, Shopify Help Center
3. Run code action, Shopify Help Center
4. Send HTTP request action, Shopify Help Center
5. Scheduled time trigger, Shopify Help Center
6. Flow theme, Shopify Theme Store

Related services and work

Written by Ashraf Siddik

I'm a Shopify developer and CRO specialist. I have built and improved Shopify stores since 2018, completed more than 1,000 projects, and hold a 4.96 average rating across 719 client reviews.

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