A classification based notification system is disclosed which performs operations that include: accessing user profile data associated with a user account associated with a client device, the user profile data including a list of user connections; designating a notification type to a portion of the list of user connections, the notification type corresponding to an alert attribute; receiving a notification from a user connection from among the portion of the list of user connections at the client device; and presenting an alert based on the alert attribute that corresponds with the notification type associated with the portion of the list of user connections at the client device.