Help · Settings

Coming from Klaviyo

Most people who set up Carpe Messaging are leaving Klaviyo, and everything they have built is still over there. This guide is how you get it out: what to press, what arrives, what does not, and how you finish.

It is a migration, not a standing connection. You import everything once, you catch up as often as you like while you still send from both, and then you finish and remove the key. Nothing is designed to keep the two in step for ever, because the point is to leave.

Settings → Imports → Klaviyo is where all of it happens. Imports has a row of its own because an import is not an integration: an integration connects and keeps connecting, and this connects once so that you can leave. On Settings → Imports, the Klaviyo card says where your import stands, and once you have finished it reads Moved off Klaviyo with the date. After an import, Settings → Imports shows how many steps are left before your first send; Open Klaviyo import takes you to them.

Three steps

The page walks you through three steps: Import, Get ready and Switch from Klaviyo. Numbered dots across the top show where you are, with a short note under each, and a check mark replaces each number as you finish it.

1. Import — make a read-only key in Klaviyo, paste it, confirm the account it opens, and press once. You see what the import will add before anything starts.
2. Get ready — five steps before your first send, below. We check each one off when it's done; you never mark them yourself.
3. Switch from Klaviyo — a six-step checklist that moves your sending off Klaviyo and ends with removing your Klaviyo API key. You can open it at any time, even before the five steps are done; opening it changes nothing.

The five steps of Get ready, in order:

1. Make your imported email templates editable. One press turns them into email templates you can edit with blocks. While your import is still converting some by itself, the press waits a few minutes and says so.
2. Fill in the personal details. Some email templates use details we can't fill in on our own; you choose what each one shows.
3. Fix the automations we couldn't fully import. Each has a step marked To set up or a note to clear — usually a subject line to retype.
4. Set up your sending domain. Nothing sends until it is verified.
5. Enable the automations you want. Every automation arrives as a draft, and nothing sends until you enable it.

Under the list are two folded parts: Past imports (one row for every import you have run — its date, which kind it was, and a Needs review pill when something does — each opening its report) and Your Klaviyo account. Klaviyo keeps sending while you do all of this, so nothing is lost.

Before you import

Delete what you no longer need in Klaviyo before you import. Everything you leave there is imported, and everything imported is one more thing to sort through in Carpe Messaging.

A store with ten years of Klaviyo behind it is carrying a lot that is simply obsolete: events from apps you removed years ago, designs you will never send again, lists built for one promotion that ended. All of it imports happily, and every piece of it is then one more thing to sift through. An hour spent deleting in Klaviyo first is an hour you do not spend tidying afterwards.

So before you press Import from Klaviyo, go through your Klaviyo account and delete what you already know you do not want:

• Metrics from apps you no longer use. Their Metrics page lists every metric in the account. One belonging to an app you removed years ago brings its whole history with it.
• Templates you will never send again. Their template library is where old seasonal designs and abandoned drafts pile up. The import already excludes templates nobody has made or changed in a year, so delete only the recent ones you know you are done with.
• Lists you no longer use, and segments whose job is over. Lists & Segments holds both — a list built for one promotion, or a segment that only ever fed a Klaviyo flow you have since disabled. Deleting a list there does not delete the people on it: they stay in your Klaviyo account with their history, and the import reads each person's consent from their profile rather than from the lists they were on.
• Klaviyo Flows that have been off for years. The Klaviyo Flows page shows each one's status. An automation nothing has entered since 2021 is not something you want arriving as a draft to read and delete. You can also uncheck it in the preview before your import starts.
• Profile properties you no longer want. A property lives on the profile, so it is imported with the profile — an old quiz answer, a field an app you removed used to write, a note from a promotion that ended. Klaviyo has no control for clearing one property off a whole audience: over there it is done by importing a CSV that unsets the property, which their own article walks through at https://help.klaviyo.com/hc/en-us/articles/24990565562139. It is worth doing before you import if the property is one you would not want to see in Carpe Messaging.

• Mark the people you “suppressed” to save costs. If you “suppressed” people in Klaviyo only to keep your Klaviyo bill down, give them the profile property cm_handoff_suppressed, or a segment of their own, before you import, so you can restore exactly those people afterwards. The chapter on why most people arrive held says how.

None of this has to be ruthless, and nothing here is a deadline. Ask the moving question: would you pay to move this?

And afterwards. Thinning first is cheaper, but it is not your only chance. A metric you imported, and every event that came with it, can be removed from that metric's own page, and designs you imported can be deleted under Content → Templates. Whatever you delete or remove in Carpe Messaging stays that way: a later import never brings it back. The Keeping up chapter has the rule in full.

What you need first

A Read-Only Key from your own Klaviyo account, and the owner seat in Carpe Messaging. You paste the key, and nothing is read until you confirm the account name shown back to you.

In Klaviyo, open Settings → API keys. Under Private API Keys, select Create Private API Key, and type any name in Private API Key Name — for example, Carpe Messaging. Under Select Access Level, select Read-Only Key. If you would rather pick the access yourself, select Custom Key and give it read access to Accounts, Profiles, Lists, Segments, Metrics, Events, Templates and Klaviyo Flows. Those eight are exactly what Carpe Messaging asks for, and it never asks for more.

Only your store's owner can connect, and only the owner can see the key's last four characters afterwards. Everyone else on your team sees that a connection exists and can watch it run.

Paste the key, press Connect, and then read the account name shown back to you. Nothing is read from Klaviyo until you press Yes, this is my account, and No — disconnect is beside it. That step is not a formality: a key pasted from the wrong account would import somebody else's audience, and the account name is the only thing that can catch it.

We only read

Nothing Carpe Messaging does writes to your Klaviyo account, changes a record there or deletes one. It is still worth giving it a read-only key, because nobody can check what a key is unable to do.

We only read: nothing in Klaviyo is changed or deleted, and nothing sends from Carpe Messaging until you enable it.

We never change anything in your Klaviyo account. We only read. That is true of everything Carpe Messaging does. There is no operation anywhere in it that writes to Klaviyo, changes a record there, or deletes one. Your Klaviyo account is exactly as you left it after your import, and after every catch-up.

One thing we are careful not to claim. Klaviyo does not let a key's holder ask what that key is allowed to do, so we cannot check whether the key you gave us is genuinely read-only. The card lists what we were in fact able to read with it, under What we were able to read. That list is a record of what happened, not a limit. We cannot check what a key is unable to do.

So create a Read-Only Key rather than reusing a Full Access Key, and delete it in Klaviyo when you are done. A key we no longer hold is still a key that exists.

Running the import

Import from Klaviyo opens a preview of everything it will add, and Start import imports your whole Klaviyo account in one go, in a fixed order. You can close the page, and you are emailed when it finishes or if it needs review. The Running the import chapter walks through every step.

Most of your people will arrive held

Most Klaviyo profiles arrive held, because consent comes with them and proof that the address still works does not. Anyone Klaviyo reached in the last 90 days is freed by itself, for nothing. The Why most people arrive held chapter covers every way past the rest.

What to do next

When your first import finishes, the page says Your import is done — what to do next and lists the five steps, with a bar showing how many are done. The first step that isn't done is marked Next and carries the one red button. You can still do the others in any order.

Below the five steps, Optional, any time holds what never stops you from sending:

• The people you “suppressed” in Klaviyo. They arrived unsubscribed, so they aren't emailed. Choose who to restore brings back the ones you “suppressed” only to save money; Leave them unsubscribed keeps them as they are and checks the item off. A manager or owner does this.
• Addresses on hold. Choose how shows the ways off hold.
• Possible typos in email addresses. Fix the typos lets you correct or keep each one.
• What couldn't be imported. See which opens the import's report at that part.

See everything that was imported opens the import's report, headed Import report and its date; every import's report is also under See report in Past imports. It is a record: what arrived, what couldn't be imported, and what was handled for you. What's left for you to do is on your import page, and the report's Back to what to do next takes you there. Handled for you holds the Klaviyo segments that only kept people from being emailed, which every send already does, and how many email templates went to your archive. For your information and Every detail are folded: the step-by-step table and each thing named one by one.

Nothing on the list is urgent. This is also the time to tidy: delete profiles, edit segments, archive templates, remove metrics. No later import undoes any of it.

Your imported email templates

Your import brings the Klaviyo templates made or changed in the last 12 months, and excludes the rest. They arrive as HTML you can send but not edit with blocks. Once the import is over, Make editable turns them into editable ones, and it is best done before you send. The Your imported email templates chapter says which templates come in, and what converting keeps and skips.

Your history and text agreements

Your Klaviyo event history is imported as history, so your segments can use it at once, and your text-message agreements come with it. The Your history and text agreements chapter explains both, and how your history can speed up your sending.

What is not imported

Whatever could not be imported whole is named on that import's report, with the reason. Klaviyo's sign-up forms are never imported. The What is not imported chapter says what to do instead for each kind.

Keeping up while you send from both

Nothing imports by itself. While you still send from Klaviyo, open Your Klaviyo account at the bottom of the import page: Import what’s new imports everything that's new there since your last import, and Choose what to import… imports one part of it, such as segments. Neither ever undoes your work in Carpe Messaging. The Keeping up chapter has the one rule they follow, and what each one adds.

Finishing the move

When you are ready to send only from Carpe Messaging, Open the checklist lists six steps in order and checks off what it can see for itself. The Finishing the move chapter walks through them, then how to stop paying Klaviyo for your profiles, and the way back.

Connecting again

Connect the same Klaviyo account again and Carpe Messaging carries on from your last import, so Import what’s new is the next press. A different account starts with a first import of its own. After you have finished moving off, the same account can import only segments, templates, images and automations.

Removing the key and connecting again never re-imports what you already have. Once your first import has finished, connecting the same account again counts it as done, and nothing you changed in Carpe Messaging is walked over. The Keeping up and Finishing the move chapters have the detail.

Your certifications survive it. Connect the same Klaviyo account later and every list you certified is still certified, under the name and date you made it. Connect a different Klaviyo account and you start with none, because nobody has said anything about that account's lists.

What a team member can see

Only the owner can connect a Klaviyo account, confirm it, start an import, use Import what’s new or Choose what to import…, work the Finish steps, or remove the key. Everyone else on your team can watch an import run and read every report.

Only the owner can see the key's last four characters and what it was able to read:

Only the store owner can connect, change or view this key.

Everyone else can see that a connection exists, watch an import run, and read every report it produces. Your managers can also work the held-profile controls — Re-check these addresses and Start a test group for your next campaign — because those are part of importing people, not part of the connection. A test group lets held profiles out into the sending drip, so it is a seat that can cause email to go out. Nobody at Carpe Messaging can start one for you.