Your Home Dashboard

The Home page is the first thing you see when you open xUpsell. It’s deliberately simple: it tells you what needs your attention about your account, and it walks you through getting set up. Everything else lives in the sidebar.

What’s on the Home Page#

When you land on the Home page, here’s what you’ll see from top to bottom:

1. Welcome Banner#

A personalized greeting at the top of the page, using your name — for example “Welcome to xUpsell, Sarah.”

Your name is pulled automatically from your Shopify store owner profile. No configuration needed.

2. Account Status Alerts#

Depending on your account status, you may see one of these banners. They’re designed to make sure you never miss something important:

Every button on these banners takes you to Settings → Plans & billing.

Good to know: Email and SMS sends share one limit. If your plan includes 500 sends, that’s 500 emails and SMS combined. Push notifications never count — they’re unlimited on every plan. On a paid plan your counter starts fresh each 30-day billing period.

Free plan: the 100 sends refresh at the start of each calendar month. If you run out before then, upgrade to keep sending — xUpsell never charges you per send, so sending pauses rather than costing you extra.

3. Setup Guide#

The Setup Guide appears automatically when you first install xUpsell. It walks you through the essential steps to get your account ready. It’s covered in detail below.

Below the Setup Guide sits a row of five counters for your store: Push notifications, Email and SMS/MMS subscriber totals, plus how many times shoppers added to cart and completed checkout.

That’s all the Home page contains. There are no charts or per-campaign numbers here — those live on each individual workflow and campaign overview page.

The Setup Guide#

The Setup Guide is the most important part of the Home page when you’re getting started. It’s a step-by-step checklist that makes sure you don’t miss anything critical.

How It Works#

• A progress bar at the top shows how many tasks you’ve completed (e.g., “1 / 3 completed”). When all three are done it changes to a Done checkmark
• There are three tasks, listed in the recommended order
• The first incomplete task expands automatically so you always know what to do next
• Click any task to expand or collapse it, and use the chevron in the top-right to collapse the whole guide
• Each task has an action button and a numbered list of steps, which tells you where you’re working at each one — In xUpsell, In Shopify admin, In the theme editor or On your storefront — because these tasks move between two different admin screens

Task 1: Turn on browser notifications#

What this does: Activates xUpsell’s blocks in your Shopify theme. This is what makes the push notification opt-in, the lead-magnet discount popup, and the event-subscription form appear on your storefront.

Steps:

1. Click Open Theme Editor — this opens your Shopify admin’s theme customizer in a new tab
2. In the theme editor, open the App embeds section in the left sidebar and find the xUpsell entries
3. Toggle the ones you want on
4. Click Save in the theme editor
5. Come back to xUpsell and mark the task as complete

Tip: the tidier route is Settings → Theme management, which lists the three blocks by name — Enable push notifications, Lead magnet, and Enable custom events subscription — with an Enable or Disable button for each, and a badge showing whether it’s already on. Each button opens the theme editor directly on the right block.

Why this matters: Without enabling the theme blocks, your customers won’t see subscribe prompts or the discount popup on your store. This is the foundation for collecting subscribers.

Related: See the Theme Extension guide for detailed instructions and block customization options.

Task 2: Send your first campaign#

What this does: Sends your first message (email or SMS) to a group of subscribers.

Steps:

1. Open Campaigns from the sidebar and click Create campaign
2. Choose your schedule: send immediately, scheduled, or scheduled with a repeat rule (recurring)
3. Select your channel: Email, SMS/MMS or push notification
4. Pick your audience — all subscribers, or one or more segments
5. Design your content
6. Click Run now (immediate campaigns) or Publish (scheduled ones)

Don’t have subscribers yet? That’s okay. Your Shopify customers are automatically synced as subscribers. If you have existing customers, they’re already in your list.

Tip: the task’s Create campaign button takes you straight to the campaign builder, so you don’t have to go via the Campaigns page first.

Related: See our Campaigns guide for a complete walkthrough of creating campaigns.

Task 3: Build your first automation#

What this does: Sets up an automated sequence that runs on its own whenever a trigger event happens in your store.

Steps:

1. Open Workflows from the sidebar and click Create workflow
2. Select a trigger (e.g., abandoned cart, view product, new customer) — or click Browse Templates to start from a ready-made workflow instead
3. Set up your steps in the editor (emails, SMS, push, wait times, conditions, discounts)
4. Save, then open the workflow’s overview page and click Turn on workflow

Recommended first workflow: Abandoned cart recovery. It’s the highest-ROI automation for most stores.

Tip: the task’s Create workflow button opens the trigger picker directly. From there, Browse Templates is right next to Select a trigger if you’d rather start from a ready-made flow.

Prefer to have it built for you? If you’ve connected your own AI assistant under Settings → Connect AI, you can just describe the workflow you want and it will build a draft in xUpsell for you to review, edit and publish.

Related: See our Workflows guide for everything you can do with workflows.

Completing and Tracking Tasks#

Dismissing the Setup Guide#

Once you’ve completed all tasks — or if you already know your way around — you can hide the Setup Guide:

1. Click the ⋮ menu (three dots) on the Setup Guide card
2. Select Dismiss
3. The guide disappears from your Home page

Once all three tasks are complete, a Dismiss Guide button also appears at the bottom of the card.

Note: Dismissing the guide doesn’t affect your app. All features remain accessible from the sidebar navigation. You cannot undo a dismissal, but everything the guide links to is always available in the main menu.

Connecting Your Own AI Assistant#

xUpsell doesn’t have a built-in chatbot page. Instead, you connect the AI assistant you already use — Claude, ChatGPT, or any other MCP-compatible client — and it can build things in xUpsell for you.

How to connect it:

1. Go to Settings → Connect AI
2. Copy Your connection URL (it’s unique to your store)
3. In your AI client, open its Connectors or MCP servers settings and add a connection with that URL
4. Your Shopify admin opens an approval screen — read it, then click Allow access

The client then appears under Connected AI clients, where you can Disconnect it at any time. Access stops immediately.

What it can do once connected:

Everything it builds is a draft. Drafts send nothing and show nothing to shoppers. You review them in xUpsell like anything else, and only publishing makes them real — your assistant asks you to confirm before it publishes, and xUpsell independently blocks publishes that aren’t safe.

What it can’t see: your subscribers, your customers and your orders are never shared with a connected AI client. It can read your workflows, campaigns, product catalog and store settings only.

Connect AI is available on every plan, including free, at no extra cost from xUpsell. You pay your own AI provider at their rates.

Navigation — Finding Your Way Around#

The sidebar on the left is your main navigation. Here’s every page and what it does:

Those seven items are the entire sidebar.

Settings has seven tabs, in this order: Theme management, SMS & Communications, Mailbox management, Connect AI, Preferences, Post-purchase, and Plans & billing. Plans & billing and Post-purchase used to be their own pages and now live inside Settings.

Note: Analytics are available within each workflow and campaign overview page — click on any workflow or campaign to see its performance metrics. There is no separate Analytics page.

There’s one more thing on every page: the round ? button in the bottom-right corner. It opens Help & Support, where How to use links to the full documentation and Questions / Support lets you send us a message — we reply by email.

What to Do After Setup#

Once you’ve worked through the Setup Guide, here’s the recommended path:

Immediate Next Steps#

1. Pick a plan — Go to Settings → Plans & billing and select one. Email and SMS are blocked until you do, and the free plan counts.

2. Connect your email provider — Go to Settings → Mailbox management and connect SendGrid, Outlook, or Gmail. You need one of them before you can send any emails. (Gmail is awaiting Google’s review, so only pre-registered addresses can sign in for now.)

3. Set up SMS (optional) — If you want to send text messages, go to Settings → SMS & Communications, connect your own Twilio account, and buy a phone number.

4. Set your trigger delays (optional) — Settings → Preferences controls how long xUpsell waits before starting a workflow for abandoned carts, abandoned checkouts and abandoned product pages (minimum one hour each). Orders and every other trigger fire straight away.

Then Start Marketing#

5. Send your first campaign — Try a simple promotional email to your existing customers.

6. Activate your first workflow — Set up abandoned cart recovery — it’s the highest-impact automation for most stores.

7. Check your workflow performance — After a few days of sending, open your workflow’s overview page to see Executed, Impressions, Clicks and Conversions.

Next: [Connecting Your Email →]

Frequently Asked Questions#

What happens if I dismiss the Setup Guide by accident?#

The Setup Guide cannot be restored once dismissed, but nothing is lost. Every feature the guide links to is accessible from the sidebar navigation — Campaigns, Workflows, and Settings are all there.

Can I come back to unfinished setup tasks later?#

Yes. If you complete only 1 of 3 tasks, the guide stays visible with your progress saved. It will show the next incomplete task opened and ready for you.

Where is the AI assistant?#

There isn’t one inside xUpsell — you bring your own. Go to Settings → Connect AI, copy your connection URL into an AI client that supports MCP connectors (Claude, ChatGPT, MCP Inspector and others), and approve the connection in your Shopify admin. Your assistant can then build workflows, campaigns and post-purchase offers for you as drafts. It works on every plan, and you pay your AI provider directly.

Do I need to complete the Setup Guide before I can use xUpsell?#

No. The Setup Guide is a recommended checklist, but you can use any feature at any time through the sidebar navigation. The guide just makes sure you don’t miss the important first steps.

My Home page shows a red “Send limit reached” banner. What do I do?#

Your email + SMS sends for this billing period have been used up, and email and SMS steps in your active workflows are being skipped. You have two options:

1. Wait for your billing cycle to reset — a new period starts a new counter at zero
2. Upgrade your plan for a higher limit — click Upgrade Plan on the banner. An upgrade takes effect as soon as you approve the charge in Shopify

Push notifications keep working the whole time. On the free plan your 100 sends refresh at the start of each calendar month; on a paid plan they refresh with your own billing cycle. Upgrading is the way to keep sending straight away rather than waiting.

My Home page says “Send limit reached”. What does that mean?#

You’ve used every email and SMS send your plan includes — 100 on Free, 500 on Basic. Sending pauses there. xUpsell never charges you for extra sends, so you can’t run up an unexpected bill; sending simply waits. Upgrade to Pro or Premium for unlimited sends, or wait for your sends to refresh (the start of the next calendar month on Free, your next billing date on a paid plan). Push notifications aren’t affected and keep working.

Nothing showed up in my AI client after I clicked Allow.#

Check Settings → Connect AI to see whether the client is listed under Connected AI clients. If it isn’t, the approval request probably expired — the screen has a countdown and requests only stay valid for a few minutes. Start the connection again from your AI client and approve it promptly.