A guide for anyone who teaches
How to send class reminder emails the day before on Shopify
People book a class weeks ahead and then forget the time, the address, or that they were meant to bring an apron. A short email the day before fixes most of that, and it gives anyone who cannot come a reason to tell you while the seat can still be filled. This guide covers how to send class reminder emails the day before on Shopify by hand, and what a good one says. The last part shows how Still Works Class Booking sends them for you.
1. What Shopify's own emails can do
Shopify sends emails when something happens to an order: it was placed, it shipped, it was refunded. You can change the words under Settings, then Notifications, then Customer notifications. None of them is tied to a date in the future, so there is no Shopify notification that goes out "the day before the class".
The other tools do not quite fit either. Shopify Email is for marketing, so it only reaches customers who agreed to receive marketing, and it is built for newsletters, not for the eight people in Thursday's class. Shopify Flow, where your plan includes it, reacts to events and can run on a schedule, but the class date is usually just words in a product or variant title, not a date Flow can count back from. So the dependable plain Shopify answer is to send the reminder yourself.
One thing you can do once: add a line to the Order confirmation template that says "We will email you a reminder the day before." Then guests expect it and look for it.
2. Sending the reminder by hand
- Pick a fixed time each day, like 10 in the morning, for tomorrow's classes. Put it in your calendar so it does not depend on memory.
- In Orders, search for the class name, and if each date is a variant, the date too. Open the orders, or choose Export for the orders matching your search, and copy the email addresses.
- Leave out anyone whose order was refunded or cancelled.
- Write one email from your own address and put every guest in the BCC line, never in To, so nobody sees anyone else's address.
- Keep the email as a saved template, so tomorrow you only change the date and the class.
Someone who books after you send it misses out, so for a booking made the day of the class, a quick personal note does the job.
3. What a good reminder says
| Part | Example |
|---|---|
| Subject with the day and the class | Tomorrow: Wheel Throwing, Thursday 6 pm |
| The time and how long | 6 pm, about 2 hours. Doors open 10 minutes before. |
| Where, and how to get in | The studio address. Use the side door, park in the back. |
| What to bring | Clothes you can get clay on. Short nails help. |
| What you provide | Clay, tools and aprons. |
| What to do if they cannot come | Your cancel rule, in one sentence, and how to tell you. |
Keep it short enough to read on a phone in a parking lot. Plain text works well, and it is less likely to land in a spam folder than a heavy designed email.
4. Reminders and no-shows
A reminder does not stop every no-show, but it changes the ones that matter. The guest who forgot comes. The guest who cannot come often replies, and if you have a waiting list, that seat can still sell. Send it the day before rather than a week before, so the details are fresh.
The same steps in Still Works Class Booking
Still Works Class Booking sends the reminder for every booking without you doing anything. Each hour the app looks for classes starting in the next 24 hours and emails every booked guest once. The subject reads "Tomorrow:" and the class and time, or "Today:" if the class is the same day. A guest who books inside those 24 hours still gets it at the next hourly check. If you move a class, guests get a fresh reminder for the new time.
The words come from what you fill in once, under Classes, in the class's settings: the class name, the host, the length, where it happens, "What to bring", "What's provided", and "Anything else for the emails". The address and directions come from Set up, Locations. A single date can also carry its own "Note for guests", like a guest teacher or a different room, under Change this date.
Before the reminder, the guest gets a "You're in" email right after checkout with the same details, alongside Shopify's own order confirmation. Every email links to the guest's booking, where they can add it to their calendar, move to another date, or cancel inside your window, with no account needed. Replies go to the address under Settings. A guest you add by hand on Today gets the same emails if you leave "Email them the details and the reminder" ticked.
You get a reminder too: at 7 each morning, store time, the app emails you tomorrow's classes and who is coming. You can switch it off under Settings, or press "Send me a test now" to see one. Reminders are on every plan, including the free plan for up to 4 class dates a month. The app is on the Shopify App Store.
Related guides
- How to print a class roster from Shopify orders
- How to add a waiting list for a full class on Shopify
- All guides
Where to go from here
The Still Works Class Booking page has the plain description of what the app does and does not do. If something here does not match what you see, email the studio and it gets fixed the same business day.