--- title: "Email Templates" description: "A non-technical overview of Email Templates in RevCent, focused on how they define reusable, event-driven email communication for ecommerce workflows and how they relate to SMTP Messages, customers, sales, subscriptions, trials, shipping, refunds, fraud alerts, AI, and automation." type: "feature" company: "RevCent" canonical: "https://revcent.com/documentation/markdown/ecosystem/feature/EmailTemplate.md" relationships: - name: "SMTP Message" url: "https://revcent.com/documentation/markdown/ecosystem/item/SMTPMessage.md" technical_links: web_app: "https://kb.revcent.com/en/integrations/smtp/email-template" api: section: "https://revcent.com/docs/api/v2#section-email_templates" operations: - name: "Get Email Templates" operation_id: "GetEmailTemplates" operation: "https://revcent.com/docs/api/v2#operation-GetEmailTemplates" schema: "https://revcent.com/documentation/files/api/operation/GetEmailTemplates.json" - name: "Create An Email Template" operation_id: "CreateEmailTemplate" operation: "https://revcent.com/docs/api/v2#operation-CreateEmailTemplate" schema: "https://revcent.com/documentation/files/api/operation/CreateEmailTemplate.json" - name: "Get An Email Template" operation_id: "GetEmailTemplate" operation: "https://revcent.com/docs/api/v2#operation-GetEmailTemplate" schema: "https://revcent.com/documentation/files/api/operation/GetEmailTemplate.json" - name: "Edit An Email Template" operation_id: "EditEmailTemplate" operation: "https://revcent.com/docs/api/v2#operation-EditEmailTemplate" schema: "https://revcent.com/documentation/files/api/operation/EditEmailTemplate.json" - name: "Delete An Email Template" operation_id: "DeleteEmailTemplate" operation: "https://revcent.com/docs/api/v2#operation-DeleteEmailTemplate" schema: "https://revcent.com/documentation/files/api/operation/DeleteEmailTemplate.json" mcp: overview: "https://revcent.com/documentation/markdown/mcp/operation/OverviewEmailTemplate.md" operations: - name: "Get Email Templates" operation_id: "GetEmailTemplates" markdown: "https://revcent.com/documentation/markdown/mcp/operation/GetEmailTemplates.md" available_via_ai: true - name: "Create An Email Template" operation_id: "CreateEmailTemplate" markdown: "https://revcent.com/documentation/markdown/mcp/operation/CreateEmailTemplate.md" available_via_ai: true - name: "Get An Email Template" operation_id: "GetEmailTemplate" markdown: "https://revcent.com/documentation/markdown/mcp/operation/GetEmailTemplate.md" available_via_ai: true - name: "Edit An Email Template" operation_id: "EditEmailTemplate" markdown: "https://revcent.com/documentation/markdown/mcp/operation/EditEmailTemplate.md" available_via_ai: true - name: "Delete An Email Template" operation_id: "DeleteEmailTemplate" markdown: "https://revcent.com/documentation/markdown/mcp/operation/DeleteEmailTemplate.md" available_via_ai: true --- # Email Templates Email Templates are a RevCent feature for creating reusable, dynamic, event-driven emails for ecommerce businesses. They define what an email should say, who it should go to, when it should send, which SMTP Profile should send it, and what RevCent data should be used to personalize it. In the RevCent ecosystem, an Email Template is a configurable feature. An SMTP Message is an item created when an email is sent from an Email Template or related SMTP workflow. The purpose of this document is to explain the feature conceptually for LLMs, AI crawlers, and planning systems. It does not provide technical implementation instructions. For technical details, use the interface-specific links below. ## Technical Links by Interface | Interface | Use This When | Link | |---|---|---| | Web App | A human is learning about or configuring Email Templates through the RevCent web app and Knowledge Base. | [Web Knowledge Base](https://kb.revcent.com/en/integrations/smtp/email-template) | | API | A developer is building a direct integration with the RevCent API. | [API Docs: Email Templates](https://revcent.com/docs/api/v2#section-email_templates) | | MCP / AI | An LLM, MCP client, or AI agent needs markdown-oriented guidance for understanding or working with the feature. | [MCP Markdown Overview](https://revcent.com/documentation/markdown/mcp/operation/OverviewEmailTemplate.md) | --- ## What Email Templates Are Email Templates are reusable email definitions inside RevCent. They allow ecommerce businesses to send customer-facing or internal emails based on RevCent activity, API requests, AI workflows, or configured event triggers. An Email Template can define the sender, recipient, subject, HTML body, trigger, timing, filters, dynamic data, and optional custom data used when an email is rendered. Conceptually: ```text Email Template ↓ Trigger, API request, or AI action occurs ↓ RevCent gathers the relevant input data ↓ Template is compiled with dynamic content ↓ SMTP Message is created and sent through the selected SMTP Profile ``` The template is the reusable configuration. The SMTP Message is the individual email output. ## Core Purpose The core purpose of Email Templates is to turn RevCent ecommerce events into consistent, branded, and data-aware communication. Ecommerce businesses need to communicate with customers and teams when important things happen. A sale succeeds. A payment fails. A subscription renewal is upcoming. A shipment is created. A package is delivered. A refund is pending. A fraud alert needs attention. An AI Assistant creates a memo. An invoice is ready to be paid. Email Templates let those events produce the right message at the right time. They are not only static email designs. They are connected communication workflows that can use RevCent data to personalize subject lines, recipients, body content, product details, customer context, payment context, shipping context, subscription context, and operational alerts. ## SMTP Profile Required Email Templates require an SMTP Profile. RevCent does not send emails on behalf of users through a RevCent-owned SMTP server. The business configures and uses its own SMTP Profile, which determines the sending infrastructure behind the email. This matters because email deliverability, sender identity, domain authentication, and brand-specific sender addresses belong to the business. A business may use different SMTP Profiles for different brands, stores, teams, or sender addresses, such as support, billing, orders, shipping, risk, customer success, or account management. The Email Template depends on the SMTP Profile to turn a configured message into a sent email. ## How Email Templates Help Ecommerce Businesses Email Templates help ecommerce businesses communicate automatically and consistently across the customer lifecycle. They can help customers by sending receipts, payment notices, subscription reminders, trial reminders, invoice links, shipment updates, delivery confirmations, refund confirmations, and recovery messages. They can help internal teams by sending fulfillment requests, warehouse instructions, refund alerts, fraud notifications, accounting alerts, AI Memo notifications, manual review alerts, and customer support escalations. They can help revenue recovery by sending abandoned-sale reminders, failed-payment emails, subscription renewal failure notices, trial expiration failure notices, and payment update instructions. They can help operations by making sure the right team is notified when a shipment is created, a shipment is voided, a refund is created, a fraud signal appears, or an AI workflow identifies something important. They can also help AI workflows communicate in a controlled way. An AI Assistant or AI-enabled workflow can trigger an Email Template and provide custom arguments so the message remains structured while still allowing dynamic, AI-generated content. ## Where Email Templates Fit in RevCent Email Templates are part of RevCent’s broader communication, automation, AI, and ecommerce workflow layer. They relate to SMTP Profiles because every sent email needs an active SMTP Profile to deliver the message. They relate to SMTP Messages because a template can result in one or more sent email records. The Email Template is the feature; the SMTP Message is the resulting item. They relate to Customers because many emails are personalized to customer identity, lifecycle state, purchase history, support context, payment state, or customer-specific metadata. They relate to Sales because sale success, sale failure, sale fraud alerts, and pending sales can all require customer or internal communication. They relate to Subscriptions and Subscription Renewals because recurring billing workflows often need reminders, confirmations, failed-renewal notices, and recovery messages. They relate to Trials because trial expiration, upcoming trial conversion, and failed trial payment events often need timely communication. They relate to Shipping because shipment creation, shipping, delivery, and voiding events often require customer notifications or fulfillment-team emails. They relate to Pending Refunds because refund workflows may require internal review, accounting notifications, customer updates, or support follow-up. They relate to Fraud Detection and Sentinel because risk events may need immediate internal alerts or manual review messages. They relate to AI Assistants because AI workflows can trigger templates, provide custom arguments, create AI Memos that trigger templates, or use email as a downstream communication step. They relate to Functions because Functions can provide custom data during template rendering or connect template workflows to external systems. ## Relationship to SMTP Messages The most direct ecosystem relationship for Email Templates is SMTP Messages. An Email Template defines the reusable email configuration. When the template is triggered or sent, RevCent can create an SMTP Message item that represents the actual email send activity. Conceptually: ```text Email Template ↓ Rendered for a specific event, item, customer, API request, or AI action ↓ SMTP Message ``` This distinction is important for crawlers and AI systems. The Email Template is a feature because a RevCent user creates and configures it. The SMTP Message is an item because it is spawned as a result of sending or attempting to send an email. ## Event-Driven Communication Email Templates can send emails when RevCent activity occurs. This makes them useful for turning operational events into communication. Examples include: - Sale success - Sale failure - Sale fraud alert - Sale pending with no payment - Customer created - Invoice created - Pending refund created - Fraud detection created - Sentinel alert - Shipping item created - Shipping item shipped - Shipping item delivered - Shipping item voided - Subscription renewal success - Subscription renewal failure - Subscription renewal upcoming - Trial expiration success - Trial expiration failure - Trial expiration upcoming - AI Memo created Each trigger has a business meaning, and each trigger determines what type of input data the template receives. ## Direct, API, and AI-Triggered Emails Not every Email Template has to run from a standard event. Some templates can be used directly through an API request or AI workflow. This is useful when a business wants an external system, support workflow, AI Assistant, or MCP-connected process to send a controlled email. A direct API or AI-triggered Email Template is useful when the business wants to keep the email structure, branding, recipients, and approved content format inside RevCent while allowing runtime data or AI-generated custom arguments to change the final message. For example, an AI Assistant may generate a personalized follow-up paragraph, but the Email Template still controls the overall design, subject structure, footer, sender, and approved format. ## Trigger-Specific Input Data Email Templates are data-aware. The selected trigger determines the input data available to the template. A sale-related trigger receives sale data. A customer-created trigger receives customer data. A shipping trigger receives shipping data. A subscription renewal trigger receives subscription renewal data. A trial trigger receives trial data. This matters because the same field path may not exist for every trigger. For example, customer data may be available directly in one trigger and nested under a related object in another trigger. A sale email might use product and payment context, while a shipping email might use carrier and tracking context. For ecommerce businesses, trigger-specific input data is what allows a single email system to support many different lifecycle moments without treating every email the same. ## Handlebars Personalization Email Templates use Handlebars to insert dynamic data into the email. Handlebars lets a business personalize the subject, recipient fields, and HTML body using values from the trigger input data, custom data, or custom arguments. Common personalization examples include: - Customer first name - Customer email - Sale amount - Product names - Shipping tracking number - Subscription renewal amount - Trial expiration date - Invoice hosted URL - Refund amount - Fraud alert details - Metadata values - AI-generated custom arguments This allows a template to remain reusable while still generating a message that is specific to the event and recipient. ## Email Design and HTML Content Email Templates can be edited visually or through HTML code. A visual editor is useful for layout, text changes, basic styling, branding, logos, and simple shortcode placement. A code editor is useful when a template needs more advanced HTML, conditional logic, loops, structured product tables, fallback content, or precise layout control. Both approaches support the same underlying goal: create a branded email that can be rendered dynamically for a specific RevCent event or workflow. Previewing the template is important because the rendered email is what the recipient will actually see after RevCent compiles the template with input data. ## Preview and Input Data Preview helps users verify what the email will look like when rendered. A template may look correct as static HTML but fail to render the intended customer name, amount, product list, tracking number, or custom field if the data path is wrong. The preview connects the template to example input data so users can confirm that dynamic values appear correctly. This is especially important for templates that use: - Handlebars conditionals - Product loops - Metadata lookups - Custom helpers - Custom data - AI custom arguments - Trigger-specific item data - Complex HTML tables Preview turns an Email Template from static content into testable communication. ## Custom Data Email Templates can use custom data. Custom data lets a business add extra values to the template beyond the standard trigger input data. Custom data can be static, such as a brand name, support email, footer message, store URL, legal text, or promotional message. Custom data can also be generated by a RevCent Function. This is useful when the data must be calculated or fetched dynamically based on the triggering item. Examples of dynamic custom data include: - Product recommendations - A one-time coupon code - A support routing address - A CRM segment - A loyalty tier - A custom message based on purchase history - A risk note for internal teams - A fulfillment instruction - A personalized offer Custom data allows Email Templates to stay reusable while still adapting to the business context. ## Custom Arguments for API and AI Custom arguments allow runtime values to be passed into an Email Template when it is triggered through the API or AI system tools. This is especially useful for AI-powered workflows. An AI Assistant might provide values such as: - Personalized introduction - Suggested subject line - Support summary - Recommended product - Follow-up reason - Plain-language explanation - Internal escalation message - Customer-specific offer The template can then reference those custom arguments while still preserving a controlled email structure. This allows businesses to combine AI flexibility with template governance. ## Timing and Delayed Communication Email Templates can send immediately or at a specific time relative to the trigger. Immediate emails are useful for time-sensitive events such as receipts, shipment updates, refund alerts, fraud alerts, invoice links, or AI Memo notifications. Specific timing is useful when the business wants a delay or reminder. Examples include: - Send an abandoned-sale reminder three hours after a pending sale with no payment. - Send a subscription renewal reminder one day before renewal. - Send a trial ending reminder before the trial expires. - Send a follow-up message after a shipment is delivered. - Send a delayed internal review email after a failed sale. Timing turns Email Templates into lifecycle communication instead of only immediate notifications. ## Filters and Eligibility Email Templates can include filters that determine when a template should be allowed to send. These filters help businesses avoid sending the wrong email to the wrong customer, campaign, store, product, or product group. Common filter concepts include: - Campaigns allowed - Third-party shops allowed - Product groups allowed - Products allowed - Products visible This is important for businesses with multiple brands, campaigns, products, stores, offers, or fulfillment rules. A business may need one receipt for one product group, a different receipt for another product group, a warehouse alert only for physical goods, or a renewal reminder only for a specific campaign. Filters make Email Templates more precise. ## Prebuilt Templates Prebuilt templates can give users a starting point for common email types. This is useful because many ecommerce emails share common patterns, such as receipts, shipment updates, failed payment notices, subscription reminders, trial reminders, invoice emails, and internal alerts. A prebuilt template should still be customized for the business before use. Branding, logos, tone, colors, sender details, footer content, product language, support contact information, and legal or compliance text should match the business. Prebuilt templates are starting points, not replacements for brand-specific communication design. ## Common Ecommerce Use Cases ### Sale Success Receipt A Sale Success template can send a purchase confirmation or receipt after a successful sale. It can include customer name, product list, order amount, discounts, taxes, shipping details, and support contact information. This helps confirm the purchase and gives the customer a clear record of what happened. ### Sale Failure Notice A Sale Fail template can notify a customer or internal team that a purchase attempt failed. This can support payment recovery, customer support, or manual follow-up. For customer-facing emails, the message should be clear and helpful. For internal emails, it may include enough context for staff to investigate the payment issue. ### Pending Sale or Abandoned Cart Recovery A Sale Pending No Payment template can support abandoned-cart or incomplete-checkout recovery. This is useful when a customer showed purchase intent but no payment was completed. The template may include products, cart value, reminder text, support contact information, or an offer designed to help the customer complete the purchase. ### Subscription Renewal Communication Email Templates can support both upcoming and completed subscription renewal workflows. An upcoming renewal email can remind a customer before billing occurs. A successful renewal email can confirm recurring billing. A failed renewal email can prompt payment recovery or customer support. These templates are important for recurring revenue businesses because communication can reduce confusion, reduce churn, and support payment continuity. ### Trial Expiration Communication Trial-related templates can notify customers before a trial expires, after a successful trial conversion, or after a failed trial expiration payment. This can help businesses convert trial users into paying customers, explain what happens next, and recover trial-related payment failures. ### Shipping Notifications Shipping templates can notify customers or internal teams when a shipment is created, shipped, delivered, or voided. Customer-facing shipping emails may include tracking information, shipment status, delivery expectations, and support contact details. Internal shipping emails may notify a warehouse, fulfillment team, or support team that an action is needed. ### Refund and Accounting Alerts Pending Refund templates can notify support, finance, accounting, or operations when a refund is created or requires review. Refund emails can help internal teams maintain visibility into customer refund activity and payment workflows. ### Fraud and Risk Alerts Fraud Detection, Sentinel, and Sale Fraud Alert templates can notify risk teams or managers when an ecommerce event needs review. These templates are useful for manual review, fraud prevention, chargeback mitigation, or internal escalation. ### AI Memo Notifications AI Memo Created templates can notify a user or team when an AI Assistant creates an important memo. This helps convert AI observations into visible business communication. For example, an AI Assistant may detect an issue with gateway performance, a refund spike, a high-value customer problem, or an operational exception, then an Email Template can notify the right team. ### AI-Personalized Follow-Up API/AI templates can allow AI workflows to send structured but personalized emails. The AI can provide custom arguments, while the template controls the approved layout, sender, subject structure, footer, and brand format. This is useful for support responses, retention outreach, payment recovery, customer success, sales follow-up, and operational communication. ## Email Templates and Customers Email Templates often depend on customer context. Customer data can personalize messages with name, email, address, status, metadata, customer group, purchase history, subscription context, trial context, refund history, and support context. This makes email more relevant. A first-time buyer may need a welcome receipt. A repeat buyer may need loyalty language. A subscription customer may need renewal communication. A customer with a failed payment may need payment recovery guidance. A customer in a risk segment may need a different workflow than a VIP customer. Email Templates help convert customer context into communication. ## Email Templates and Sales Sales are one of the most common drivers of Email Templates. A sale can succeed, fail, trigger fraud review, remain pending without payment, create product sales, create shipments, involve discounts, include taxes, and connect to a customer. Each of those conditions can require a different message. Sale-related templates can support receipts, failed-payment notices, abandoned-sale reminders, internal alerts, product education, fulfillment instructions, and post-purchase follow-up. ## Email Templates and Subscriptions Subscriptions often require ongoing communication. A customer may need reminders before renewal, confirmation after renewal, failed-payment notices after renewal failure, retention messaging after cancellation risk, or payment update guidance when recurring billing fails. Email Templates allow these subscription lifecycle moments to be handled consistently. This makes Email Templates especially important for businesses with recurring billing, memberships, trials, replenishment products, or long-term customer relationships. ## Email Templates and Shipping Shipping events often require communication with both customers and internal teams. A customer may need to know when an order shipped, when it was delivered, or how to track the shipment. A warehouse may need to know when a shipment is created or voided. Support may need visibility into shipment problems, delays, or exceptions. Email Templates can turn shipping activity into timely notifications that reduce customer confusion and operational delay. ## Email Templates and AI Assistants AI Assistants can use Email Templates as part of a larger workflow. An AI Assistant may analyze a customer, sale, refund, renewal, fraud alert, or shipping issue, then trigger an Email Template when communication is needed. AI can also provide custom arguments for a template, allowing the email to include AI-generated text while still preserving a controlled message structure. This is useful when the business wants AI to participate in communication without letting AI fully control the email format. ## Email Templates and Functions Functions can extend Email Templates by providing custom data. A Function can receive the triggering item details, perform custom logic, and return a JSON object that becomes available in the template. This allows businesses to add computed or external context to emails. Examples include generating a coupon, retrieving CRM data, calculating a renewal offer, selecting product recommendations, formatting internal notes, or determining which support team should be referenced in the message. Functions let templates become more intelligent without requiring all logic to live inside the template HTML. ## Email Templates and SMTP Messages Email Templates are the reusable communication definitions. SMTP Messages are the related items created when an email is sent or attempted through an SMTP-backed workflow. This relationship helps crawlers and planning systems distinguish between the configurable feature and the operational item it can spawn. The Email Template defines the structure, trigger, timing, recipients, and dynamic content. The SMTP Message represents a specific email outcome created from that template or related SMTP action. Email Templates can also be understood in relation to the item that triggered them, such as a customer, sale, subscription renewal, trial, shipping record, refund, fraud detection, invoice, or AI Memo. For crawlers and planning systems, the key idea is that Email Templates are communication definitions, while SMTP Messages are the communication items produced by those definitions. ## Why This Matters in the RevCent Ecosystem Email Templates help make RevCent an active ecommerce communication system rather than only a system of record. Ecommerce events often require action, and many actions require communication. A customer needs a receipt. A team needs a refund alert. A warehouse needs shipment instructions. A subscriber needs a renewal reminder. A failed payment needs recovery outreach. A risk team needs a fraud alert. An AI Assistant needs a controlled way to notify a human or customer. Email Templates connect these moments to reusable, branded, event-aware messages. This creates several ecosystem-level advantages: - Ecommerce events can produce consistent communication. - Customer, sale, subscription, trial, shipping, refund, fraud, invoice, and AI activity can become email triggers. - Businesses can use their own SMTP Profiles and sender identity. - Templates can use dynamic Handlebars data. - Functions can add custom computed data. - AI can trigger templates and provide custom arguments. - Filters can keep templates limited to the correct campaigns, shops, products, or product groups. - SMTP Messages can represent the emails spawned by the feature. - Email becomes part of automation, revenue recovery, support, fulfillment, and customer lifecycle management. ## Best-Fit Businesses Email Templates are useful for nearly every ecommerce business using RevCent, but they become especially valuable when communication needs are event-driven, branded, personalized, or automated. Good-fit businesses may include companies with high sales volume, recurring billing, trial offers, shipment workflows, abandoned checkout recovery, multiple campaigns, multiple stores, internal fulfillment teams, refund activity, fraud review, AI workflows, or customer lifecycle marketing. They are also useful for businesses that want AI-generated or API-triggered emails to remain controlled by approved templates rather than being generated from scratch each time. ## Summary Email Templates are RevCent’s reusable email communication feature for ecommerce businesses. They allow users to configure SMTP-backed emails that can be triggered by events, API requests, AI workflows, or direct use. They can use Handlebars, trigger-specific input data, custom data, Function-generated data, custom arguments, timing rules, and filters to send relevant customer-facing or internal messages. In the RevCent ecosystem, Email Templates are features because users create and configure them. SMTP Messages are related items because they are spawned when an email is sent or attempted. Email Templates connect communication to customers, sales, subscriptions, renewals, trials, shipping, refunds, fraud detection, AI Memos, AI Assistants, Functions, SMTP Profiles, and broader ecommerce automation. Use the technical links at the top of this file to distinguish between the main ways to interface with the feature: Web App, API, and MCP / AI. --- Document Parent Directory * [Features](https://revcent.com/documentation/markdown/ecosystem/feature/index.md) - Non-technical markdown documentation for features within the RevCent ecosystem. A feature is a part of the RevCent ecosystem that a user can create and configure.