| Free plan | Yes — up to 250 active profiles, 500 emails and 150 SMS/MMS credits/month |
|---|---|
| Starting paid price | Email $20/month at 251–500 active profiles |
| Upper tiers | Email + SMS $35/mo · Enterprise custom quote |
| Trial | No trial needed — free plan has no expiry |
| Best for | Ecommerce stores on Shopify, WooCommerce or BigCommerce |
| Not ideal for | B2B, service businesses, or anyone needing a real sales pipeline |
| Standout feature | Prebuilt flows with revenue attributed to each one |
| Biggest drawback | Pricing climbs fast with list size, even for quiet contacts |
The Short Verdict
Klaviyo is the tool ecommerce marketers graduate to once generic email marketing stops being enough. Connect a store and Klaviyo pulls in order history, browsing behaviour and product data automatically, turning that into segments and flows that a general-purpose tool would need custom setup to replicate. Abandoned cart, back-in-stock, post-purchase upsell and win-back sequences arrive largely built, and every one reports the revenue it drove — not just an open rate.
That specialisation is also the limit. Outside a connected store, Klaviyo is a competent but unremarkable email and SMS tool, and it has no sales pipeline at all — nothing for a B2B or service business trying to track an opportunity. Pricing is based on active profiles rather than total contacts, which is fairer than pure contact-count billing but still climbs quickly as a list grows, regardless of how engaged those contacts actually are.
Bottom line: the best marketing automation tool for a real ecommerce store, and a mediocre choice for anyone who isn't running one.
Who Klaviyo Is (and Isn't) For
A strong fit if you…
- Run a store on Shopify, WooCommerce or BigCommerce and want automation tied to actual purchase behaviour
- Report on marketing by revenue per flow, not just open and click rates
- Want email and SMS managed in the same account and the same automation builder
- Are prepared to pay a premium for depth built specifically for ecommerce
Look elsewhere if you…
- Don't run an ecommerce store — you'll pay for depth you can't use (see Mailchimp or Brevo)
- Need a sales pipeline to track deals and opportunities (see Pipedrive or Freshsales)
- Have a large, quiet contact list and want the lowest possible cost regardless of profile count (see Brevo)
Pricing: Free, Email, Email+SMS, Enterprise
| Plan | Price at 251–500 active profiles | Aimed at | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 (up to 250 active profiles) | New or very small stores | 500 email sends and 150 SMS/MMS credits/month, core flows and segmentation, Klaviyo branding |
| From $20/mo | Growing stores wanting email automation | 5,000 monthly email sends, unlimited flows and segments, email and chat support, no branding | |
| Email + SMS | From $35/mo | Stores that also want text and push | 1,250 SMS/MMS credits, mobile push notifications, the same email allowance and automation depth as Email |
| Enterprise | Custom quote | Large or high-volume stores | Advanced segmentation, dedicated support, custom limits and SLAs |
USD list prices from klaviyo.com, September 2026, at the 251–500 active-profile tier. Klaviyo's own pricing page uses a slider — cost rises with active-profile count on every plan, e.g. roughly $30/mo at 1,000 profiles, $150/mo at 10,000, and $720/mo at 50,000 on Email. "Active profile" means any contact you can currently email, text or push to; suppressed or unsubscribed profiles don't count.
What a real bill looks like
- New store under 250 active profiles: $0 on Free, enough to validate whether the flows are worth paying for.
- Small store, 1,000 active profiles, email only: roughly $30/mo on the Email plan.
- Established store, 10,000 active profiles, email plus SMS: roughly $150–200/mo depending on the SMS credit volume you need — price this against your actual campaign cadence before committing.
Which tier should you actually buy?
Email is the right first paid tier for most stores — the flow library and revenue reporting alone typically justify $20 a month once you're past the free tier's send cap. Email + SMS is worth the extra $15 if text messaging is already part of how you reach customers; SMS open rates are usually higher than email's, and having both in one automation canvas beats stitching two tools together. Enterprise is for stores large enough to need dedicated support and custom limits — most readers of this review will outgrow Email or Email+SMS long before they need it.
Watch out for: active-profile pricing still counts every reachable contact, even ones you rarely email, so an unpruned list inflates your bill in a way Brevo's send-based pricing wouldn't. Suppress or archive inactive profiles regularly rather than letting the count creep upward.
Features Walkthrough
Segmentation
Dynamic segments built from store behaviour — total spend, last purchase date, product category browsed, predicted lifetime value — go well beyond what a generic email tool's tags can do, because Klaviyo has direct access to order and browsing data from a connected store.
Flow builder
A visual automation canvas with branching logic, time delays and conditional splits. What sets it apart is the library of prebuilt flow templates specific to ecommerce moments — welcome series, abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase, win-back — each with revenue reporting attached from day one.
SMS and push
Text messaging and mobile push notifications live in the same automation builder as email, so a single flow can message a customer by whichever channel fits, rather than requiring a separate tool or credit system.
Predictive analytics
Predicted customer lifetime value, churn risk and next-order-date estimates are calculated automatically from store data and can be used to trigger flows or build segments — a genuine differentiator most competitors don't offer natively.
Reporting
Every flow and campaign reports the revenue it generated, not just opens and clicks, which is the single biggest reason ecommerce marketers choose Klaviyo over a general email tool.
Prebuilt Flows and Revenue Attribution
Connect a supported store platform and Klaviyo suggests a set of flows based on your actual store data — an abandoned-cart sequence timed to your typical purchase window, a post-purchase flow that cross-sells based on what was bought, a win-back sequence triggered by a customer's predicted churn risk. Each one ships with sensible defaults you can edit rather than building from a blank canvas, and each one's performance page shows exactly how much revenue it attributed to the store, not just engagement metrics. For a store owner deciding where to spend marketing time next, that reporting is often more useful than the automation itself.
Ease of Use and Setup
Connecting a supported store platform is straightforward and pulls in historical order data automatically, which is what makes the prebuilt flows possible without manual setup. The flow builder itself is visual and approachable for anyone who has used a similar automation canvas before, though the sheer number of triggers, conditions and data points available can overwhelm a first-time user — expect a genuine learning period before you're using the platform's full depth rather than just its defaults.
Integrations
Klaviyo's integration depth is centred on ecommerce: native, deep connections to Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento and most major store platforms pull in order and product data automatically. Beyond ecommerce, it connects to review platforms, loyalty programmes, helpdesks and Zapier, but the integration story outside a connected store is noticeably thinner than inside one.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Prebuilt, revenue-attributed flows for every major ecommerce moment
- Deep native integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce and BigCommerce
- Email and SMS managed in one automation canvas
- Predictive analytics (CLV, churn risk) built in, not an add-on
- Free plan for stores just starting out
- Revenue reporting per flow, not just open and click rates
Cons
- Weak fit outside ecommerce — no sales pipeline anywhere in the product
- Active-profile pricing climbs quickly as a list grows
- Learning curve for the platform's full depth beyond default flows
- Integration story is thin outside a connected store
- SMS credits add up on top of the base plan price
- Enterprise pricing isn't published, so budgeting requires a sales call
Klaviyo vs the Alternatives
| Tool | Starting price | Free plan | Choose it over Klaviyo when… |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mailchimp | $13 | Yes (250 contacts) | You're not ecommerce-only and want the easiest general editor |
| Brevo | $9 | Yes (300 emails/day) | You have a large, quiet list and want the lowest possible cost regardless of profile count |
| ActiveCampaign | $15 | No | You need broader B2B automation logic alongside a sales pipeline add-on |
| HubSpot CRM | Free; $9 | Yes (2 users) | You need a real sales CRM alongside marketing, not just store flows |
Looking for the full field? See our ActiveCampaign alternatives guide, where Klaviyo is ranked against six other tools.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Klaviyo free?
Yes, for up to 250 active profiles, with 500 email sends and 150 SMS/MMS credits a month. An active profile is any contact you can email, text, or push a notification to. Paid plans start at the Email plan, $20 a month for 251–500 active profiles.
How much does Klaviyo cost?
As of September 2026: Free (up to 250 active profiles), Email from $20/mo, and Email + SMS from $35/mo, both at the 251–500 active-profile tier, with Enterprise on a custom quote for large organizations. Pricing scales on a slider by active-profile count, so cost rises with list size on every plan.
Does Klaviyo work outside ecommerce?
It can, but it's not built for it. Klaviyo's flows, segments and revenue reporting assume store data from a platform like Shopify, WooCommerce or BigCommerce. A B2B or service business can use it for basic email, but will get none of the prebuilt, revenue-attributed automation that makes Klaviyo worth its price for a store.
What is active-profile pricing?
Klaviyo charges based on active profiles — any contact you can currently email, text or push a notification to — rather than total contacts stored, a model it moved to in 2025. It's a middle ground between contact-based pricing (Mailchimp) and send-based pricing (Brevo): profiles you've suppressed or unsubscribed don't count, but every reachable contact does, regardless of how often you actually message them.
Klaviyo vs Mailchimp for ecommerce — which is better?
Klaviyo, for a store that wants abandoned-cart, browse-abandonment, post-purchase and win-back flows prebuilt with revenue attributed to each one. Mailchimp has ecommerce integrations too, but its automation is shallower and its reporting doesn't tie campaigns to store revenue the way Klaviyo's does natively.
Final Verdict
Klaviyo earns its reputation as the marketing platform of choice for serious ecommerce stores — the prebuilt flows, the revenue attribution and the predictive analytics all solve real problems a generic tool leaves you to build yourself. That specialisation comes at a cost outside its lane: there's no sales pipeline, the integration story thins fast once you leave ecommerce, and active-profile pricing climbs as your list grows regardless of engagement. If you run a store, start free and expect to outgrow it quickly. If you don't, this isn't the tool for you.
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