Cancel or Reschedule a Klaviyo Campaign in the Middle of BFCM

A typo in the subject line, an expired promo code, an audience badly excluded: during BFCM, the mistake can be spotted after scheduling, even during the send. Klaviyo documents what you can still do at each stage. This article separates the cases, with the 15-minute rule, the limit of a partial send and resending after a cancellation. It complements our Klaviyo BFCM guide, which places these settings within the overall preparation.

TL;DR. A scheduled or sending campaign can be canceled from the campaigns list, and a cancellation cannot be undone. Mid-send, Klaviyo cannot unsend messages that have already been sent: cancelling stops the ones still waiting to be processed, but messages already being processed may still send. A fully sent campaign can no longer be canceled. To edit a scheduled campaign, you revert it to draft (Revert to draft) then schedule it again. If its earliest send time is in 15 minutes or less, you must cancel and clone it.

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Cancel a scheduled campaign

In the Campaigns tab, you expand the campaign if needed to show its messages, then open the three-dot menu of the message you want to cancel, click Cancel and confirm with Cancel campaign. The message's status changes from Scheduled to Canceled, and Klaviyo says that to resend the campaign, you need to clone the cancelled campaign (Klaviyo, how to cancel a scheduled or sending campaign).

The page adds three points. For a campaign with multiple messages, each message is canceled separately. A cancellation cannot be undone. If the option to cancel does not appear, check that the user's role has permission to manage campaigns.

For large campaigns, the scheduling process itself may take some time: on the scheduled campaign page, the Cancel send button is available while scheduling is in progress and after it completes.

Cancel mid-send

The procedure is the same: three-dot menu of the message, Cancel, Cancel campaign. The status changes from Sending to Canceled.

The page is precise about the limit: Klaviyo cannot unsend messages that have already been sent. Cancelling stops messages that are still waiting to be processed, but messages already being processed may still send. The number of messages ultimately delivered depends on when you click and how far along the sending is.

Statistics for a partially sent message are in its overview report, which shows the scheduled send date but not a separate cancellation date. Deliver's advice: note the cancellation time on your side. A fully sent campaign, for its part, cannot be canceled.

In our view, these rules decide what to do: speed of decision matters more than the procedure, which is short. Our article on throttling explains why some campaigns do not go out at the planned time.

Edit a scheduled campaign

The editing page gives the threshold before any step: if the earliest send time is in 15 minutes or less, you must cancel and clone the campaign to make changes. For a campaign sent in recipients' local time zones, that earliest send time is also used to check the threshold. If Klaviyo is still scheduling the campaign, you must wait for scheduling to finish before editing (Klaviyo, how to edit or reschedule a campaign). Then:

1. Three-dot menu of the campaign, Revert to draft, then confirm with Revert campaign to draft.
2. Go through the campaign creation wizard and make the changes.
3. At the review step, click Schedule or send, choose Schedule and the new date and time.
4. Click Schedule message.

The page warns: if you do not schedule it again, the campaign stays in draft and does not send at the original time. While it is a draft, Klaviyo sends in-app reminders 24 hours and 3 hours before its original earliest send time, unless a reminder's time has already passed when you revert the campaign to draft.

The page on managing campaigns adds that, on the detail page of a scheduled campaign, the Pause and edit button also reverts the campaign to draft, with the same threshold. Messages that have already been sent cannot be edited (Klaviyo, how to delete, edit, view, or archive a campaign).

Reschedule without editing

Reschedule is in the three-dot menu: you choose the new date and time, then Schedule message. The page specifies that a campaign can only be rescheduled if its earliest send time is more than 15 minutes away. Otherwise, cancel and clone.

Two limits: Reschedule is not available for A/B tests of send times, and the time zone cannot be changed when rescheduling. In both cases, the page says to revert the campaign to draft and schedule it again.

For a draft, you change the planned date without scheduling a send: three-dot menu in list view, Quick edit (or Edit details), new date and time, Save. The campaign remains a draft until you schedule or send it.

In our view, the BFCM calendar should take these rules into account: a campaign whose send is approaching can no longer be fixed with a simple edit. Our BFCM send calendar can serve as a base for setting check times well before send times.

Clone the canceled campaign

Within the same account, cloning copies the content and settings, and the messages of a cloned campaign start as drafts: the page asks you to review the copy before scheduling. You open the three-dot menu, Clone, then enter the name and send date and click Clone campaign (Klaviyo, how to clone forms, flows, segments, campaigns, and templates).

Resending after a cancellation

Cancelling does not settle the question of recipients already served. For a partially sent email campaign, the page on managing campaigns gives three steps:

1. Cancel the campaign.
2. Create a segment of the people who already received it: in Audience, Lists & segments, what someone has done, Received Email, at least once, over all time, where Campaign Name equals the name of the original campaign.
3. Clone the canceled campaign, then at the recipients step keep the Send to lists and add this segment to Don't send to. Apply the changes to the clone before sending.

Our article on BFCM audiences and exclusions details the exclusion logic. For an SMS canceled mid-send, these pages do not describe the case: in our view, the same segment logic applies with the channel's event, but that is Deliver's reading. Our article on resending to non-openers covers the other resend case.

A cancellation you did not ask for

When the account reaches its sending limit, Klaviyo can cancel a campaign or skip recipients who exceed the remaining allowance. A campaign canceled for this reason does not automatically continue sending if you later change plans. To avoid it, the page cites Automatically upgrade for paid plans, Flexible overages if the plan supports them, or a manual upgrade before sending. To resend, the segment uses Received Email or Received SMS depending on the channel, with Message ID equal to the ID copied from the canceled campaign (Klaviyo, how to resend a campaign that exceeded account sending limits).

Delete or archive

Only draft campaigns can be deleted, and a deletion cannot be recovered. Scheduled, sending, sent and canceled campaigns cannot be deleted, but draft, sent and canceled campaigns can be archived.

Checklist before BFCM

These points are Deliver's advice.

1. Each campaign has a check time set well before send time, to fix it without cloning.
2. One person is designated to cancel if an error is spotted during the send, with a role that allows managing campaigns.
3. The team knows that messages already sent cannot be recalled.
4. Campaigns reverted to draft are rescheduled the same day.
5. The clone of a canceled campaign excludes recipients already served.

FAQ

Can you cancel a campaign that has already been sent?

No. The page says fully sent campaigns cannot be canceled.

What happens to messages already sent if I cancel mid-send?

Klaviyo cannot take them back. Cancelling stops the messages waiting to be processed, but those already being processed may still send.

Until when can you edit or reschedule?

As long as the earliest send time is more than 15 minutes away. At 15 minutes or less, the page says to cancel and clone.

What happens to a campaign reverted to draft that I do not reschedule?

It stays in draft and does not send at the original time. Klaviyo sends in-app reminders 24 hours and then 3 hours before its original earliest send time.

Can you delete a canceled campaign?

No, only draft campaigns can be deleted. A canceled campaign can be archived.

Want an outside view on your sending organization? We run Q4 readiness audits, or you can talk directly with the Deliver team.