Resend Automations

What is Resend Automations?

Resend Automations is a way to build event-driven email workflows. Instead of sending emails manually, you trigger multi-step email flows from custom events (such as a user signup, an order status change, or another app event), using your event data to control what gets sent and when.

The core purpose is to orchestrate reliable sequences with timing and logic—such as waiting for a later event, branching based on payload properties, and inserting delays between steps—while keeping visibility into what happened during each run.

Key Features

• Custom event triggers via API: Define events with strongly typed schemas and send them to trigger workflow steps, letting you start automations from application activity.
• Multi-step workflow orchestration: Build sequences where each step runs based on your workflow logic, including sending emails at specific points in the process.
• Conditional paths based on contact data or event properties: Route users into different steps or segments without creating separate automations.
• Event waiting (“pause until”): Pause a workflow until a specified event occurs, then continue when the user takes the relevant action or the expected event is received.
• Time delays between steps: Add minutes, hours, days, or weeks of delay so messages arrive at appropriate times rather than immediately back-to-back.
• Run observability and visibility: Every automation run is saved, with recorded step outcomes (e.g., completed, failed, skipped) and runtime information.

How to Use Resend Automations

1. Define and trigger your custom events: Create event definitions (with strongly typed schemas) and trigger them from your application using the Resend events API.
2. Design your workflow steps: Choose actions such as “Send email,” and arrange them into a multi-step flow.
3. Add logic and timing: Configure conditions to branch based on event properties or contact data, include “wait for event” steps where needed, and insert time delays between steps.
4. Monitor runs: Review saved automation runs to see how each run progressed through steps and capture outputs for troubleshooting.

Use Cases

• Welcome users after signup: Trigger a workflow on user.signup, optionally delay for a set period, and then send a welcome email to new users.
• Abandoned cart reminders: Start from an order- or session-related event (e.g., an order being initiated but not completed) and send reminder emails after a delay to prompt checkout.
• Drip campaigns for leads: Use a series of timed email steps to nurture leads, sending follow-up messages over multiple days based on workflow configuration.
• Order lifecycle messaging: Trigger workflows from order events such as order.created and order.confirmed, branch logic by event properties (e.g., status), and send messages aligned with each stage.
• Wait for a follow-up action: Pause the workflow until a later event (e.g., order.completed) is received, then send the next email step when the expected action occurs.

FAQ

• Can I trigger automations from events other than signups? Yes. Resend Automations supports custom event triggers, including events like payment failures, order shipping, or any event your app emits.

• How do conditional paths work? The workflow can branch based on contact data or event properties, allowing different recipients or steps to be selected within the same automation.

• What does “wait for event” do? It pauses the workflow until a specific event occurs, then continues by firing the next step once the event is received.

• Is there a way to control timing between emails? Yes. You can insert time delays between steps (minutes, hours, days, or weeks) to space messages out.

• Do I get visibility into what happened during runs? Yes. Each automation run is saved with granular visibility into runs and steps, including statuses such as completed, failed, or skipped.

Alternatives

• General-purpose workflow automation platforms: Tools that orchestrate triggers and multi-step actions (often across many channels) can be used to send emails, but may require more setup to manage event schemas, branching logic, and email-specific templating.
• Email marketing automation tools with event triggers: Category tools focused on marketing journeys can handle timed sequences and segmentation, but may differ in how strongly typed event schemas and developer-driven event triggering are supported.
• Custom event + messaging code (build your own automation): You can implement event-driven email sending using application code and a queue/worker system, but you would be responsible for persistence, conditional logic, delays, and run observability.
• Event-driven notification systems (email as one channel): Systems centered on event notifications may support triggers and multiple delivery channels; the difference is whether email-specific multi-step orchestration and run-level visibility are as direct for email workflows.