How to auto-slice an email design for Klaviyo (2026)

29 October 2026 · 6 min read

Yes, there is a tool that slices an email design for Klaviyo automatically. Carvr takes a finished design, from Figma, Photoshop, Canva or anywhere else, finds where to cut it, writes the alt text, adds the links and builds a drag-and-drop template in your Klaviyo account. This guide shows how, step by step, and where slicing by hand still makes sense.

The short answer

1. Export the whole email as one PNG or JPG, 1200px wide.
2. Upload it to Carvr and click Slice All.
3. Check the cuts, click Alt Text All, set any links.
4. Click Upload to Klaviyo. The template is in Content, Templates.

Designing in Figma? The Carvr Figma plugin does all four from a selected frame in one click. It is free for 5 email designs a month.

What auto-slicing does, and what it replaces

Klaviyo’s drag-and-drop editor holds one image per image block. A designed email is one tall picture, so to send it you cut it into sections, export each one, upload them, stack them in a template, link each image and type its alt text. That is slicing, and done by hand in Photoshop or Figma it is the slowest part of building a designed email.

Auto-slicing does the cutting for you. Carvr looks at the design the way a person would, cutting where the background changes, between blocks of content and in the quiet space around buttons, so each section is small enough to carry its own link without turning the email into dozens of images. Then it does the rest of the job too.

Two things often get mixed up with this. Email builders such as Stripo and Beefree are a different job: you build the email from their blocks rather than starting from a finished design. And Klaviyo’s own free Figma plugin sends frames you have already separated to your Klaviyo image library, so the cutting and the template are still yours to do. See Carvr vs Klaviyo’s Figma plugin for the side-by-side.

Before you start

• A Carvr account with Klaviyo connected. Add a brand and connect its Klaviyo account once (connecting Klaviyo). Every template that brand sends lands in that account.
• The finished design as one image. PNG or JPG, the whole email top to bottom. Design at 600px wide and export at 1200px wide so it stays sharp on retina screens. Carvr never shrinks it, and takes images up to 2,400px wide and 30,000px tall.

How to auto-slice an email design, step by step

1. Upload the design. In the Carvr web app, pick the brand at the top of the editor and drop the image in. The template name starts as the file name, and you can change it before uploading.
2. Click Slice All. Carvr draws the cut lines across the design in a few seconds.
3. Adjust anything you want. Drag a line to move it, click to add one, or delete one. Switch to the vertical line tool to split a row into up to four columns, for example to give two products their own links. Undo and Redo work as you’d expect.
4. Click Alt Text All. AI writes descriptive alt text for every section, which is what screen readers announce and what shows when images are blocked. Edit any of it before you send.
5. Set the links. Every section starts with the brand’s default link. Change any section in a click, or apply one link to all of them.
6. Click Upload to Klaviyo. Carvr compresses each section, uploads the images to Klaviyo and builds a native drag-and-drop template. Find it in Klaviyo under Content, Templates, ready to load into a campaign or a flow.

Set the subject line and preview text on the campaign in Klaviyo, as you normally would. If an owner or admin turns on the auto-add HTML footer in Settings, Carvr adds your saved footer to every template, so you never slice its links apart. The full walkthrough, with every button, is in automatic email slicing.

Auto-slicing straight from Figma

If the design lives in Figma, skip the export. Open the Carvr plugin, select the email frame and click Send to Klaviyo. The plugin exports the frame at exactly 1200px wide, slices it, writes the alt text and builds the template. Shift-click several frames to send a whole flow in one go.

When the design changes, edit the frame and choose Update in Carvr. It keeps the same cuts, swaps in the new image, and Update in Klaviyo refreshes the template. With Live text blocks turned on in the plugin, sections that are plain text on a solid colour arrive as editable Klaviyo text blocks instead of images (live text blocks). Setup is in the Figma plugin guide.

Auto-slicing from Claude

Carvr also works as a connector in Claude. Add it once, then ask Claude to upload a Figma frame or an image to a brand, for example “Upload this frame to Klaviyo for Glow Co and name it BFCM 1”. Carvr slices it, writes the alt text and builds the template, and Claude replies with the links (Figma to Klaviyo with Claude).

When slicing isn’t the right call

Image sections show your design exactly as it was approved, in every inbox, which is why brand-led emails are built this way. The trade-off is text. Words inside an image can’t be edited in Klaviyo, so a copy change goes back through the design. An email that is mostly text, product feeds or personalised blocks is often better built natively in Klaviyo. Many teams do both, with designed sections from Carvr and dynamic blocks added around them in the same drag-and-drop template.

Carvr isn’t the only slicer either. For an honest look at the others, see the best Figma to Klaviyo tools in 2026 and Carvr vs Slicely vs Slicr. Sending from somewhere else? The same steps work for Mailchimp and Omnisend, and for designs made in Canva.

Frequently asked questions