Platform research · Klaviyo
Abandonment Email Benchmarks 2025: Cart Recovery Drives 3.33% Conversion
Klaviyo's 2024 Benchmark Report, drawn from over 143,000 abandoned cart flows fired through the platform in 2023, finds that cart recovery emails earn an average of $3.65 in revenue per recipient and convert at 3.33%, which is 37.74% higher than the next-best automated flow. Browse abandonment averages $1.07 per recipient. The data replaces a long-cited but undocumented 12% combined-abandonment uplift figure from 2014 with a current, methodology-disclosed benchmark.
Source published Summarised
Key findings at a glance
- 143,000+ Abandoned cart flows analysed in the Klaviyo 2024 Benchmark Report, based on 2023 send-period performance across the Klaviyo platform.
- $3.65 Average revenue per recipient (RPR) for abandoned cart flows, the highest of any automated email flow type Klaviyo measures.
- $28.89 Top 10% performer RPR for abandoned cart flows, roughly 8x the dataset average.
- 3.33% Average placed order rate (conversion) on abandoned cart emails across the dataset.
- 7.69% Top 10% placed order rate on abandoned cart emails, more than double the average.
- 50.5% Average open rate on abandoned cart emails (top 10% reach 65.34%).
- 6.25% Average click rate on abandoned cart emails (top 10% reach 13.33%).
- $1.07 Average RPR for browse abandonment flows, the second-highest-yielding behavioural automation (top 10% reach $7.21).
- 37.74% Cart recovery RPR uplift over the welcome series, Klaviyo's next-best-performing automated flow.
- Monthly Klaviyo refreshes its peer-benchmark dataset on the 10th of every month, so platform-level figures are continuously rebased rather than frozen at a single date.
What the report covers
Klaviyo publishes an annual Benchmark Report that pulls aggregated flow and campaign performance from across its installed base of more than 130,000 ecommerce brands, supplemented by a peer-benchmark product that refreshes monthly on the 10th. The 2024 edition, released in July 2024, analyses flow performance through 2023 and is the most comprehensive ecommerce-specific dataset publicly available on triggered email behaviour. The abandoned cart segment alone draws on more than 143,000 individual flows, giving the cart-recovery benchmarks meaningfully more statistical weight than the per-flow datasets published by general-purpose ESPs.
Across the sampled flows, the average abandoned cart email earns $3.65 in revenue per recipient (RPR), a placed order rate of 3.33%, an open rate of 50.5% and a click rate of 6.25%. Top-decile performers more than double on every metric: $28.89 RPR, 7.69% placed order rate, 65.34% open rate and 13.33% click rate. Cart recovery sits 37.74% above the next-best automated flow (the welcome series) and remains the highest-yielding single automation in the dataset by a clear margin.
Browse abandonment, the second-highest behavioural trigger, averages $1.07 RPR with top performers reaching $7.21. Combined with cart recovery, these two behavioural flows account for the bulk of the revenue uplift that automated email programmes deliver over broadcast campaigns, with Klaviyo's wider data putting per-recipient revenue from automated flows multiple times higher than from one-to-many campaigns. The 2014 TriggeredMessaging "12% combined uplift" figure that circulated through behavioural-email handbooks for a decade is no longer recoverable from the source, but the Klaviyo benchmarks are a stronger replacement: separated by flow type, anchored in a published methodology and refreshed continuously rather than frozen at one date.
What this means for UK marketers
For UK ecommerce brands evaluating where to spend the next hour of email-marketing build time, the Klaviyo numbers settle a long-standing argument. Abandoned cart is the single highest-yielding automation available on a Shopify or WooCommerce stack, earns 37.74% more per recipient than the welcome series, and is the first flow a brand should have running before any further sophistication. Brands building or rebuilding a Shopify or WooCommerce store should treat a three-email cart recovery sequence as table stakes rather than a "phase two" enhancement. The 3.33% average placed order rate is the floor; anything materially below that signals a problem with timing, copy, incentive or the cart-recreation link rather than with the channel itself.
Second, the gap between average and top-decile performance (3.33% vs 7.69% placed order rate; $3.65 vs $28.89 RPR) is the more useful number for benchmarking work. Top performers run sequences of three to four emails over 24 to 72 hours, with progressively stronger personalisation and (typically by the third email) an incentive. They segment by cart value so high-value carts receive a different touch from low-value ones, and they exclude recent buyers from the flow to protect frequency capping. Brands stuck at the average have usually deployed a single email or are not segmenting cart value. The fix is operational rather than strategic, and the lift is measurable within two to four weeks.
Third, the original SmartInsights citation that pointed readers at the 2014 TriggeredMessaging "12% combined uplift" claim was directionally correct but methodologically thin. The current Klaviyo dataset is more credible because it separates cart recovery from browse abandonment, attaches concrete RPR rather than a single uplift percentage, and discloses sample size. For UK SMBs without an internal data team, the simpler decision rule is: get cart recovery live first ($3.65 RPR average), add browse abandonment second ($1.07 RPR average), and only then consider the post-purchase, win-back and replenishment flows that round out a mature behavioural email marketing programme. The compounding case for these flows is well-established in the broader email marketing literature, but Klaviyo's benchmark is what gives the numbers their teeth.
How they got the data
Klaviyo's 2024 Benchmark Report draws aggregated, anonymised flow-level performance data from the Klaviyo platform's installed base of more than 130,000 ecommerce brands. The abandoned cart benchmarks specifically pull from over 143,000 individual abandoned cart flows that fired during the 2023 calendar year, covering total send volume in the multiple billions. Metrics include revenue per recipient (RPR, calculated as total attributed revenue divided by unique recipients), placed order rate (the proportion of recipients placing an attributed order within Klaviyo's standard attribution window, typically 5 days for email), open rate and click rate (Apple Mail Privacy Protection adjusted where applicable). Industry breakdowns cover automotive, hardware and home improvement, electronics, home and garden, apparel and accessories, food and beverage, and several smaller verticals.
The 2024 Benchmark Report was published in July 2024 as a public PDF on the Klaviyo marketing-resources site, with the abandoned cart cohort summarised in the company's public blog post linked above. Klaviyo additionally exposes a live peer-benchmark product to platform users that refreshes monthly on the 10th, allowing per-account comparisons against roughly 100 size-matched peer brands. Currency is reported in US dollars; the installed base is predominantly North American but includes a substantial UK and European long tail. The single biggest caveat for UK readers is geographic skew on absolute RPR (UK average order values run lower than US in some categories), though the ratio-based metrics (placed order rate, open and click rate, RPR uplift over welcome) translate directly.
Platform research
Read the full report
From Klaviyo · published 01/07/2024