Email can be easy to ignore. Your marketing campaigns are one of dozens (if not hundreds) of emails that your customers are getting every single day. SMS, on the other hand, is much more difficult to push to the side. If you want to reach your customers where they’ll actually see it, a text message is one of the most effective tools in your communication stack.
Shopify doesn’t support native SMS automation for most workflows, but Arigato changes that. By integrating your store with Twilio, you can send custom text messages triggered by real store events, whether that’s a fulfilled order, a customer tag, or a subscription cancellation.
Why use Twilio for Shopify SMS?
SMS is faster and gets noticed
Text messages have significantly higher open and response rates than email. That makes them perfect for:
- Time-sensitive updates like shipping notifications
- Personalized messages for VIP customers
- Order follow-ups or subscription status changes
SMS works especially well when you need customers to take action or simply stay informed. Unlike email, it doesn’t sit unread for hours.
Shopify’s built-in options are limited
Shopify doesn’t offer much in the way of real-time SMS workflows. There’s no out-of-the-box solution for sending a text message when an order is fulfilled, or when a customer is tagged “Wholesale.”
You’d typically need another app — or a custom-coded solution — to get this kind of functionality. Arigato gives you a native Shopify alternative that connects directly to Twilio with no workarounds required.
How Arigato connects Shopify to Twilio
Trigger from any Shopify event
Arigato supports hundreds of Shopify triggers. That includes standard events like new customers, orders, or fulfillments — and more advanced ones like metafield changes, subscription pauses, or custom tag logic.
You can set a workflow to trigger whenever:
- An order is fulfilled
- A customer is tagged
- A product with a specific SKU is purchased
- A subscription is cancelled
Each trigger can be combined with filters or conditional logic to make sure SMS messages only send when it makes sense.
Build personalized SMS content
Once a trigger fires, Arigato uses Shopify variables to craft the message. You can reference things like:
- Customer name
- Order number or total
- Fulfillment tracking links
- Product titles or SKUs
The message can be short and simple or more detailed — whatever matches your brand and the context.
Setup guide: How to send a Twilio SMS in Arigato
Send through your Twilio account
Once the message is ready, Arigato passes it to your connected Twilio account via API. You have full control over the number it sends from, message format, and any delivery tracking you’ve set up on the Twilio side.
This setup gives you better deliverability and customization than most third-party SMS tools.
One workflow to try right now: Fulfillment SMS updates
Keeping customers informed after purchase is one of the easiest ways to reduce support tickets and increase trust. With Arigato and Twilio, you can send a text message the moment an order is fulfilled.
Here’s how the prebuilt workflow works: Send SMS fulfillment updates
- Arigato detects when an order is marked fulfilled
- It checks to see if the customer has a phone number on file
- It builds a message with the tracking link, carrier, and shipping method
- Twilio sends the message instantly to the customer
You can adjust this workflow to send only for certain products, fulfillment methods, or customer segments. It’s one of the fastest ways to add real value to your post-purchase flow.
Why Arigato + Twilio is better than other SMS tools
You control the entire logic
Most SMS apps for Shopify send a message at one or two fixed points — usually order placed or order shipped. With Arigato, you decide when a message goes out, what it says, and who gets it.
You can filter based on order value, tags, geography, customer history, or product attributes.
SMS is just one part of a smarter workflow
What makes Arigato unique is that SMS doesn’t have to be a standalone action. You can combine it with tags, emails, Slack notifications, or data updates — all in the same workflow.
That flexibility lets you use SMS as part of a bigger, more intelligent automation strategy, not just another communication channel.
Conclusion: SMS automation made for Shopify
If you want to reach customers with timely, relevant messages — and avoid the limits of Shopify’s built-in tools — Arigato and Twilio are the way to do it. You can send fulfillment alerts, VIP messages, or subscription updates directly from Shopify, using data your store already has.
Set it up once and let the automation run in the background. No more waiting, no more manual sends, no more third-party workarounds.
To get started, visit the Arigato Shopify integration for Twilio.