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Recovering abandoned checkouts

4 min read Updated Nov 8, 2026

Most people who reach a checkout do not finish it. When a customer adds items, starts to pay by card and disappears, abandoned-checkout recovery emails them a link back to the cart they left, with everything still in it. This page is what counts as abandoned, exactly what is sent and when, and how to tell whether it went.

What counts as abandoned

A card checkout that was started and never paid leaves an order in pending, with the cart held against it; that hold is what makes the return link work. You can see these orders on the orders list filtered to Pending, and their count on Sales analytics beside the paid ones.

An order placed with cash, bank transfer or check is also pending while you wait for the money, but it is not abandoned: the customer committed to it, its stock is held, and it is handled by the unpaid-order hold described in Accept payments with Stripe, not by these emails.

The two emails

Two, and they stop on their own:

  1. About an hour after the checkout is abandoned.
  2. About 23 hours after the first, only if the order is still unpaid.

Nothing further is sent. An abandoned card order is given up on after 7 days and canceled, which releases anything it was holding, such as a gift-card balance or a discount code's use.

The gap is deliberate. An hour catches the people who were interrupted; the next day catches the people who were thinking about it. More than that trains people to ignore you.

Each email carries a link that restores the cart exactly as it was left: the same items, quantities and options. The shopper does not have to find the products again, which is the single biggest reason these emails work. The link is tied to that one checkout; it is not a login and gives access to nothing else.

Which plans send them

Recovery emails are part of the Growth Business and Agency plans. On other plans the reminders are simply not sent, and nothing else changes: the pending orders still exist and still show in the list. A checkout abandoned before you upgrade is picked up afterwards if it is still inside the window and still unpaid. See What each plan includes.

If the emails are not going out

Open the email log and search for the customer's address. That tells you whether a reminder was generated at all, which separates "not sending" from "sent and landed in spam", two problems with different fixes. A reminder that was never generated is usually the plan, or an order that was paid or canceled before the hour was up.

What recovery will not do

  • Chase an offline order. A bank-transfer order is held, not abandoned; its own emails say when the hold runs out.
  • Send a discount. The emails bring the customer back to their cart; whether to offer anything is yours, with a discount code in the campaign you choose to send.
  • Email someone who gave no address. The address is collected at the start of checkout; a customer who left before that step cannot be reached.

Frequently asked questions

How many emails are sent? Two: about an hour after the checkout is abandoned, and about 23 hours after that if the order is still unpaid. Nothing after.

What happens to the order if nobody pays? It is canceled after seven days, which releases anything it was holding.

Does the link log the customer in? No. It restores that one cart and nothing else.

I upgraded. Are the old abandoned checkouts lost? No. One abandoned before you upgraded is picked up afterwards, as long as it is still inside the window and unpaid.

Can I change the wording? Not today. The emails carry your shop's name and the cart; the words are the same for every shop.

Why do I have so many pending orders? Count the abandoned card checkouts separately from the offline orders waiting for money. A lot of the first, consistently, usually means something at the payment step is failing: test a card payment yourself, and check Stripe is fully connected on the Payments page.

Next steps

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