Overview
Curobi adds seven subscription triggers to Shopify Flow, Shopify's own automation app, so a merchant can start any Flow workflow — tag a customer, alert the team, add a row to a sheet — when a subscription starts, renews, fails a payment, recovers, pauses, cancels or reactivates, on every Curobi plan, including Free.
The seven triggers are Subscription started, renewed, payment failed, payment recovered, paused, cancelled and reactivated. Payment failed fires once per billing cycle rather than on every retry, so an alert workflow doesn't email someone four times about one card. A charge that ends a failed-payment recovery fires payment recovered, not renewed, so a workflow that counts renewals doesn't count a recovery as one. Paused fires whoever paused the subscription: the customer in their portal, you in the admin, or Curobi when every retry has failed.
Every trigger passes Flow the full Shopify customer, so a condition can use their tags or total spend, plus the subscription contract ID, the product, the frequency, the amount per charge and the currency. Started, renewed and recovered also pass the order; paused, cancelled and reactivated pass the previous status; cancelled carries the reason the customer gave in the cancellation survey; and payment failed carries Shopify's error code. Flow looks the customer and the order up in your own store, so no customer data leaves Shopify to make it work. Fields may be added but are never renamed or removed, so a workflow you build today keeps working.
Four ready-made Curobi templates in Flow's template library cover the usual first workflows: Tag customers when they start a subscription (curobi-subscriber), Tag customers who cancel their last subscription (swapping that tag for curobi-churned-subscriber only when none of their subscriptions is still active or paused), Tag and alert on failed subscription payments (curobi-payment-failed, plus an internal email), and Clear the failed-payment tag when a payment recovers. Copy one into your store, fill in the email recipient where there is one, and turn it on.
Curobi adds triggers to Flow, not actions, so a workflow can react to a subscription but can't pause, skip or edit one; Curobi's API does that. There is no trigger for a skipped order, an upcoming charge, a gift or a card update, though Klaviyo receives upcoming charges and card updates. Subscription started doesn't fire for subscriptions brought in by CSV import, because they have no order they were bought on. Curobi starts sending events once you turn on your first workflow that uses a Curobi trigger, and earlier events aren't replayed.
What Shopify Flow gives you
- Seven subscription triggers in Shopify Flow, from started to reactivated
- The full Shopify customer, and the order where there is one, for conditions on tags or spend
- Product, frequency, amount, currency, previous status, cancellation reason and error code
- Payment failed fires once per billing cycle, not on every retry
- Field names never change, so workflows keep working
- Nothing to connect in Curobi: the triggers are already in Flow
- Four ready-made templates in Flow's template library
- On every plan, including Free, and on development stores
How to start a Shopify Flow workflow from a Curobi subscription event
Open Shopify Flow
In your Shopify admin, open Apps, then Flow. Curobi's triggers are already there; there is nothing to connect in Curobi.
Create a workflow on a Curobi trigger
Click Create workflow and pick a Curobi trigger, such as Subscription cancelled, or start from one of Curobi's four templates in Flow's template library.
Add a condition and an action
Add a condition on the customer or subscription fields, then an action such as Add customer tags or Send internal email. Pick fields from Flow's variable picker so their names are always right.
Turn it on
Turn the workflow on. Curobi sends events from then on; events from before your first workflow was on aren't replayed.
Related terms: Churn, Involuntary Churn.
Questions merchants ask
Does Curobi work with Shopify Flow?
Yes, on every plan, including Free. Curobi adds seven triggers to Shopify Flow: subscription started, renewed, payment failed, payment recovered, paused, cancelled, and reactivated. Each one passes Flow the full Shopify customer, so a workflow can check their tags or total spend, plus the product, frequency, amount, and currency, and the cancelled trigger carries the reason the customer gave. From there you can tag customers, alert your team, or run any other Flow action. There's nothing to set up in Curobi: open Flow in your Shopify admin and the triggers are there, along with four ready-made Curobi templates in Flow's template library for tagging new subscribers, tagging customers who cancel their last subscription, and flagging and clearing failed payments.
Which Curobi plan do I need for Klaviyo, Gorgias, Shopify Flow or the API?
Any plan, including Free. Klaviyo, Gorgias, Shopify Flow and the developer API — API keys, subscription changes by API, bulk exports, and the Storefront and Customer APIs for headless stores — are on every Curobi plan, so none of them is a reason to upgrade and none needs the trial. Signed outbound webhooks, which push subscription events to your own ERP, 3PL or warehouse, start at Business. The API, webhooks and Gorgias need a store on a paid Shopify plan and stay off on development stores; Klaviyo and Shopify Flow work on development stores too.