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Final cutover from Klaviyo

This is the last chapter of leaving Klaviyo: you stop paying for your profiles there and keep a reliable way back. You keep your Klaviyo account and a complete backup, and nothing is deleted on either side.

Before you start

Do this only once your import has finished and you are sending your email and text messages from Carpe Messaging. The Running the import chapter covers the import itself. Allow about an hour, plus time for Klaviyo to catch up, and pick a quiet day, never the middle of a sale.

You will need:

To be able to sign in to Klaviyo, to your Shopify admin, and to this app as the store owner.
Two or three email addresses you control, for a rehearsal. Klaviyo keeps these counted, and billed, for 90 days afterwards, so pick a few and no more.
At least a few days since the last email Klaviyo sent. The unsubscribe link in an email Klaviyo already sent keeps working, and those late unsubscribes are only picked up by the final opt-out sync in step 4.

Measure three times, cut once

Klaviyo bills you for every profile that can receive email marketing there, whether or not that person ever subscribed. To stop paying for them, you make them unable to receive email marketing in Klaviyo, in one bulk action. That action is the cut, and it is the only step that changes anything for your people.

Before it, you measure three times:

A rehearsal on your own addresses, so you see with your own eyes that Klaviyo can undo the cut without changing anybody's consent.
A backup in three copies that must agree: a file of everyone, a Klaviyo list, and a profile property.
A count check, so you press the button only when all three copies say the same number.

Every step below says what to do, how to check it worked, and what to do if it did not. The checks are what make this safe; they are not a sign that it is dangerous.

What the cut does in Klaviyo, and what it does not. It affects email only, never text messages. It never changes a person's consent: someone who unsubscribed stays unsubscribed, and someone who never subscribed stays that way, both while they are cut and after you undo it. It applies to the people who are members at the moment you press it, and nobody added later. And it cannot be repeated quickly: once Klaviyo has undone a cut you made by hand, it will not let you cut that profile again for 90 days.

Step 1: Rehearse on your own addresses

Before you touch anybody else, try the cut and its undo on your two or three test addresses, and check that each one comes back exactly as it was. This is the first measurement.

Keep the rehearsal to two or three addresses, because of Klaviyo's 90-day rule: once you have undone the cut on an address, Klaviyo will not let you cut it again for 90 days, so these addresses stay counted, and billed, until then.

In Klaviyo, make a small list with only your test addresses in it.
Export the list to a file with every consent field, and save it.
In Lists & segments, open the list's action menu and choose Suppress current members. Klaviyo warns you about its 90-day rule. That is expected.
From the same menu, choose Unsuppress current members.
Export the list again and compare it with the file you saved.

Every address should be back exactly as it was, text-message consent included. If anything changed, stop here and contact us before you go any further.

Step 2: Stop Klaviyo sending

Nothing should leave Klaviyo once you send from here, so stop every way it sends before you go on. If you have followed the Importing again chapter, most of this is already done.

Your Klaviyo Flows: set each one to Draft. Or set it to Manual: nothing is sent, and people still queue up, which leaves you a partial record of who would have received each one. It is only partial, because nobody who can't receive email marketing in Klaviyo joins a queue.
Campaigns: cancel anything scheduled, email and text messages both.
Sign-up forms: disable every Klaviyo form.

Step 3: Disconnect Klaviyo from Shopify

Disconnecting stops Klaviyo writing to your store and stops your store adding new people to Klaviyo, so after the cutover your Klaviyo count stays where you left it, with no upkeep. Do it in Klaviyo first, then in Shopify, then in Klaviyo again.

In Klaviyo, open Integrations, then Shopify, then Sync settings. On both tabs, untick everything and press Update Settings. To Shopify matters most: it stops Klaviyo writing consent back into your Shopify customers, where this app could read it. From Shopify stops new Shopify sign-ups arriving in Klaviyo, because Carpe Messaging is the one collecting them now.
In your Shopify admin, open Settings, then Apps. Press ⋯ beside Klaviyo and choose Uninstall. This also takes Klaviyo's code off your storefront. If Shopify shows an Update data access screen asking to give Klaviyo more access, press Cancel.
Back in Klaviyo, the Shopify integration now says Connection expired. Press Disable Integration. Do not press Re-authenticate, which connects your store again, and do not remove the integration: disabling keeps your Klaviyo history and is the easiest to undo.
In Shopify, open Discounts and check that the discount codes your people already hold, such as a welcome code, still work.

Step 4: Run the final opt-out sync, then disconnect here

Press Sync opt-outs one last time, then disconnect Klaviyo from this app. After the cut, Klaviyo shows nearly everyone as unable to receive email, and an import reads that as everyone unsubscribing. Disconnecting erases your key, so nothing here can read Klaviyo again.

Open Settings → Imports, open Klaviyo, press Sync opt-outs, and wait for it to finish.
Read the result. All zeros mean the two already agree. Unsubscribes from people not in your store — nothing was added is normal: those people unsubscribed in Klaviyo and have no profile in your store.
Press Disconnect. Everything you imported stays in your store.
In Klaviyo, revoke the key you gave us.

From now on, never connect this Klaviyo account again and press Import everything, Import again or Sync opt-outs. Every one of them would read the cut as your people unsubscribing.

Step 5: Make your backup, in three copies

Your backup is a file of everyone Klaviyo still counts, plus a Klaviyo list and a profile property made from it, and the three must agree. Together they let you undo exactly this cut, and nothing older, if you ever go back. This is the second measurement.

The segment. In Lists & segments, choose Create new, then Segment, and add one condition: If someone can or cannot receive marketing, then Person can receive email marketing. Name it with the date, such as Handoff — can receive email 2026-10-18.
Check it against your bill. The segment's count must equal the active profiles on Klaviyo's Billing page. If they differ, stop and contact us.
Copy 1, the file. Export the segment to a file with all its fields. This is your master copy. Keep it with your business records, and keep a second copy on a different device or drive.
Take your rehearsal addresses out of the file. Klaviyo will not cut them again for 90 days anyway.
Copies 2 and 3, the list and the profile property. Make a second file with two columns: Email, and carpe_messaging_handoff with the cutover date in every row.
In Klaviyo, choose Create new, then List, and name it with the date, such as Carpe Messaging handoff 2026-10-18. Import the two-column file into it: Email to Email, and carpe_messaging_handoff as a Text profile property. If Klaviyo asks what to do about consent, choose the option that leaves everyone's consent as it is.
Make one more segment: Properties about someone, then carpe_messaging_handoff equals the cutover date.

Step 6: Count, then cut

The cut is one action on your handoff list, and you take it only when the file, the list and the property segment all show the same number. That count is the third measurement.

The three counts must match: the rows in your file, the members of the list, and the property segment's count. If they differ, stop and find out why before you go on.
Open two or three profiles from the list and check that each carries carpe_messaging_handoff and that its consent has not changed.
The cut. In Lists & segments, open the action menu on the list — never the segment — and choose Suppress current members. If Klaviyo asks which profiles, choose Suppress everyone. Suppress only inactive profiles would leave your most recent customers counted and billed.
Look for anybody it skipped. Make a segment of people who are in your handoff list and who can receive email marketing. Anyone in it was skipped.

A handful of skipped people is fine. It is usually Klaviyo's 90-day rule, often someone cut by hand in an earlier clean-up who later signed up again on a form. They stay counted, they are already in your backup, and you can cut them by hand once their 90 days are up.

Step 7: Lower your Klaviyo plan

The cut alone does not lower your bill. Open Klaviyo's Billing page, move your email plan down to the smallest one that covers the profiles Klaviyo still counts, and lower or cancel your text-message plan.

The billing page may not show the new count straight away. Give it time before you choose the plan, and check the count again first.

Afterwards

Glance at your Klaviyo count now and then. With Shopify disconnected it should stay where you left it. Once your rehearsal addresses and any skipped people reach their 90 days, cut them by hand too.

Never connect this Klaviyo account to Carpe Messaging again. An import would read the cut as your people unsubscribing.

If you ever want to go back

You will probably never want this, but going back is planned for: you restore exactly the people you cut, after you have brought Klaviyo up to date with what happened here. Do it in this order, because the order is what keeps anyone who said no from being emailed.

Connect Klaviyo to your store again. Install the Klaviyo app in Shopify, then enable and re-authenticate the integration in Klaviyo, and let it catch up on your customers and orders.
Bring consent up to date. Export your profiles with their consent from Audience → Exports and import into Klaviyo the email and text-message consent collected here since the cutover. The Exports page explains each column.
Opt-outs before anything else. Before you undo the cut for anybody, make sure everyone who unsubscribed, marked your email as spam, or bounced here since the cutover is unsubscribed or blocked in Klaviyo. Otherwise Klaviyo would email people who said no.
Undo the cut for your handoff list only. Open the list's action menu and choose Unsuppress current members. Never restore everyone Klaviyo holds as unable to receive email: older ones, from earlier clean-ups, bounces and spam reports, must stay as they are. If the list is damaged, make it again from the property segment or from your file.
Raise your Klaviyo plan, after checking its count against your file.

Going back is a commitment of at least three months. Because of the 90-day rule, you cannot quickly cut everyone again.

Two things do not come back. The Klaviyo Flows emails people missed while they were cut are not sent late, and your sending reputation in Klaviyo has to be earned again. Start sending again gradually, never with one large send.