Klaviyo forms: types, targeting rules and the submit rate to aim for

Klaviyo forms are the sign-up forms Klaviyo builds and serves on your store to collect email, SMS and WhatsApp subscribers. There are five types: popup, flyout, full page, embed and banner. Klaviyo says popups convert best and that popups and flyouts should reach a submit rate of about 3% or higher.

Forms are where list growth starts, and they are easy to get wrong in ways nobody notices. A form can show to people already on your list, fire on the wrong pages, or break after a theme update and quietly stop delivering the discount it promised. This guide covers the settings that decide whether a Klaviyo form earns subscribers.

The five Klaviyo form types

Klaviyo offers popup, full page, flyout, embed and banner forms, and states that popups have the highest conversion rate of any form type (Klaviyo Help Center, updated 22 January 2026). Embeds sit in a page, usually the footer; banners run across the top or bottom; flyouts slide in from a corner. Most stores need one popup for new visitors, one embed in the footer, and one exit-intent form for people about to leave.

A form can have up to four pages plus an optional success message, and Klaviyo calls collecting email and SMS on separate steps best practice (Klaviyo, updated 21 October 2026). Asking for the phone number on step two means you keep the email even when a visitor stops there.

Targeting and timing: who sees the form

Every form has display rules (Klaviyo, updated 31 March 2026):

• Timing: immediately, on exit intent, after a time delay, at a scroll percentage, after a number of pages, or on a custom trigger.
• Frequency: show again after a set number of days.
• Devices: all, desktop only or mobile only.
• Targeting: audience, URLs (with wildcards), UTM parameters and location.
• Priority: low to highest, which decides which form wins when two qualify.

The setting most stores miss is “Don’t show to existing Klaviyo profiles”, which limits the form to visitors unknown to Klaviyo. Klaviyo’s own sample settings for welcome and exit-intent forms use it, together with “show again after 90 days” and “Don’t show again if form was submitted.” Without it, customers who already subscribed get asked again on every visit.

SMS: Smart Opt-in

Smart Opt-in confirms SMS consent inside the form with a one-time code the shopper enters, instead of a reply text. It needs a paid SMS plan and is not available for age-gated accounts, back-in-stock forms or WhatsApp forms (Klaviyo, updated 21 October 2026). It also cannot be combined with Klaviyo’s spin-to-win wheel.

Offers, spin-to-win and coupons

Forms can show a static code or a unique code. Unique codes display in the success message only for Shopify coupons, uploaded coupons and API coupons (Klaviyo). Spin-to-win is native: a wheel of two to six slices whose probabilities must add up to 100% (Klaviyo). A teaser, the small tab that reopens a dismissed form, works with popups, flyouts and full page forms but not embeds or banners.

Testing and the numbers to watch

Klaviyo lets you A/B test up to seven variations, but recommends two to four, and can end the test automatically at statistical significance (Klaviyo, updated 14 August 2025). Submit rate is total submits divided by total views, and Klaviyo advises aiming for about 3% or higher on popups and flyouts (Klaviyo form reporting, updated 21 October 2026). Its in-app benchmark badges cover popups only.

Klaviyo does not publish an average submit rate by form type. One Klaviyo strategist’s guidance, from her own experience, puts standard popups at 3% to 8% and exit-intent forms at 10% to 13% (Klaviyo blog, 6 August 2026). Treat those as a sanity check, not a target.

What a broken form costs

When we took on Kinetic Kings, a broken pop-up was stopping new email subscribers from receiving their first discount code. Fixing it was one of the first changes, alongside a rebuilt welcome series and a new post-purchase flow. The case study reports 4,892 new customers, overall email revenue up 105% year over year and flow revenue up 89% (Kinetic Kings case study). The page does not split those results by change, but every welcome-flow sale starts with a form that works.

That is why a form check is the first thing we do as an ecommerce email marketing agency: submit every form on mobile and desktop, confirm the code arrives, and confirm existing subscribers are excluded. Our guide to SMS list growth covers the phone-number step in more depth.

Not sure your forms are pulling their weight? Send us your store URL and we will test every form and report what we find.