Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Attentive, they don't knowwhy your customers come in on Green Wednesday.
Generic ESPs were built for Shopify shops, not licensed dispensaries. They don't read your POS, can't run wallet loyalty, can't do age-gated SMS, and they'll suspend your account the first time the word “cannabis” shows up in a campaign.
Six things they can't do, and you need.
Mention “flower,” “edibles,” or “THC” and you're a chargeback waiting to happen. Most accounts get frozen within 6 months.
Cannabis SMS requires special carrier registrations (10DLC + cannabis vertical). Generic ESPs don't have them. Your texts don't deliver.
Your customer data lives in Dutchie or Treez. Klaviyo expects Shopify. Manual CSV uploads, daily, forever.
Generic ESPs do email and maybe SMS. They can't issue Apple Wallet or Google Wallet passes. The #1 retention play in cannabis is unavailable.
Per-state SMS rules, age-verification, compliance opt-ins. Sticky bakes them in. Generic ESPs make you build them.
Klaviyo's success team will gladly help you set up a Shopify abandoned cart. They've never seen a dispensary. Sticky's CSMs only work in cannabis.
Why each one specifically doesn't work.
- Cannabis listed in restricted industries
- SMS only via Twilio passthrough, no cannabis 10DLC
- No POS connector, only Shopify-style stores
- Explicitly bans cannabis in TOS §13
- Account terminations average 4 months in
- You lose your subscriber list when banned
- SMS-only, no email or wallet loyalty
- Cannabis vertical not approved with carriers
- Pricing scales with sends, punishes you for growing
We had Mailchimp banned us twice in 14 months. Each time we lost the list. The third time we just moved everything to Sticky in two weeks. Haven't looked back.
Stop renting an account.Own a platform.
Free migration off any generic ESP. List import, deliverability warmup, and a CSM who's only ever worked in cannabis.