Last Updated on septiembre 5, 2024 by Ewen Finser
If you are down to Klaviyo vs Mailchimp for your business, I’ll walk you through how I made my decision.
Personally, I’ve used dozens of plataformas de marketing por correo electrónico over the last 10 years. Even today, I use different platforms for different businesses (ecom, newsletters, blogs, courses, agencies). I’m not afraid to switch platforms (migrations are easier than ever), and I document what I learn here on this blog and on Reddit. .
So that’s what I’m a credible voice here.
That said, I generally don’t have a dog in the race. For example – in this comparison I do have some strong feelings – but I do see use cases for situations where one or the other platform makes sense.
SO, let’s get started with some of the more significant differences that stand out between Klaviyo and Mailchimp.
The Main Differences Between Klaviyo and Mailchimp
- Klaviyo is almost exclusively focused on ecommerce store operators, whereas Mailchimp appeals to almost any business (specialized vs generalized).
- Klaviyo has a more straightforward two-tier premium plan offering (just email, or email + SMS), while Mailchimp has a 3-tier pricing plan (with an “Essentials” option for more limited / lower cost email).
- Klaviyo has more price tier break points with gradual price increases (e.g. 2501 – 3000 subs), whereas Mailchimp has larger gaps (e.g. 2500 – 5000 subs), but a more dramatic price increase.
- As a brand owned by Intuit, Mailchimp has some unique features like email invoice templates that Klaviyo does not have.
- Klaviyo has more dedicated ecommerce templates and automations (abandoned cart, upsells, etc…) compared to Mailchimp.
Alright, so now that I’ve covered the high level differences I’m going to double-tap some of the stand out features of both platforms.
Where Mailchimp Shines
- Generalist Approach: Mailchimp is one of the most popular, widely accessible email marketing platforms currently on the market. In part, this is because Mailchimp fits almost any use case (including ecommerce). If you bridge multiple business models or just aren’t quite sure where you’ll end up just yet, Mailchimp is a solid option.
- Market Leading Integrations: As one of the older platforms, Mailchimp is often the FIRST email platform any new software system integrates with. This is really helpful if you have a fairly complex stack of interwoven products and use cases.
- Pricing Optionality: Mailchimp has more pricing plans and feature-sets than others (like Klaviyo), making it a good option if you want to stick to the basics, go advanced, or land somewhere in between with the option to cycle up or down.
- Marketing en redes sociales: Mailchimp was one of the early platforms to co-integrate email marketing with social media marketing efforts, making it easy to repurpose content or support email marketing initiatives with social media amplification.
- Built-in Website Builder: This is a relatively new add, but Mailchimp is slowly morphing into an A-Z business suite with an included website builder. This means that for many new businesses, Mailchimp is a one stop shop (and now with Intuit ownership, there’s bookkeeping add-ons, too).
Where Klaviyo Shines
- Dedicated to eCommerce: Klaviyo is laser focused on the ecommerce market and is one of the most popular Shopify apps of all-time. This pays dividends in terms of the tools, templates, and support Klaviyo provides (not losing focus on who they are serving). This really has made them a juggernaut in the email marketing space, and for good reason!
- Amplias integraciones: Klaviyo easily has one of the largest integration networks of any ecommerce focused messaging platform. This includes a multitude of well-known (and some lesser known) tools and partners.
- Deep Talent Network: Because Klaviyo has dominant market position and actively supports their agency networks (see directory below), there’s a deep bench of consultants, developers and marketers to help you maximize value with Klaviyo, if you need it.
- SMS Friendly: Klaviyo was early to add SMS capabilities to their suite, such that it’s not a significant product offering. The benefit to using Klaviyo for SMS is that you can keep all of the data ON platform for better data insights and actionable automations (see below).
- Deep Data Insights: Klaviyo has best in class data collection for ecommerce and this in turn powers deep automations based on customer & visitor insights. This is a huge advantage compared to peers with less time in market.
- Deep Segmentation: You can get lost in the flows and sequence possibilities with Klaviyo, if you want to! I particularly like their ecommerce focused positioning. Triggers around abandoned carts, active on site, loyalty and even review collection are significant unfair advantages for Klaviyo users.
Comparación de planes de precios
Overall, I found Klaviyo’s pricing to be similar at different levels to Mailchimp, BUT there were significant differences across Mailchimp’s packages.
Let’s explore this a bit.
Klaviyo has tiered pricing for just Email or Email and SMS plans. Both pricing tiers are based on the number of “Active Profiles” you have in your account (think of these as just subscribers):
Klaviyo also users an interesting terminology of “active profiles” to dictate pricing tiers. But what do they mean by this?
On the one hand, these suggests that “suppressed email profiles” are not counted towards your active count. This is significant as some other platforms like Mailchimp count even your “inactives” or “unsubs” towards your limits, unless you manually go and delete them.
On the other hand, it seems as though SMS profiles and Push profiles DO count towards your limit, even if they don’t have a corresponding email account associated with them.
Mailchimp has a broad-based pricing plan catering to a wide variety of marketing use cases:
So comparing them directly is a bit difficult because Mailchimp has more varied tiers AND different subscriber break points.
That said, The Standard + SMS plan (most comparable to the Email + SMS plan on Klaviyo), starts at $80/month for 2,500 subscribers on Mailchimp vs $85/month for 2,501 – 3,000 “active profiles” on Klaviyo.
All in all, these are VERY similarly priced.
Some Alternatives to Compare Against
I’m always a big fan of examining email marketing solutions in their broader context. Here’s some of the other email platforms I’d also consider for some similar (or slightly different) use cases:
- Omnisend: Omnisend is similar to Klaviyo in that it’s eCommerce focused, but has a bit more flexibility in pricing plans and can be more affordable in different situations. A could cost comparison and feature reference point. Seen how Omnisend compares to Klaviyo.
- Privy: Privy is a nice, lightweight, and easy to use email & messaging solution for ecommerce. It’s budget-friendly and a good option if you are flying solo and/or most of the email marketing platforms seem a bit overwhelming to start with.
- Hubspot: On the flipside, Hubspot is an upmarket end-to-end suite for marketing and sales automation. If you already love Hubspot or have a longer sales cycle that could benefit from a CRM-like process, Hubspot is a competent alternative to consider here.
- ActiveCampaign: ActiveCampaign also has many CRM and sales features, but is far deeper on advanced automations and funnels. If you really want to go nuts with automations and behavior based marketing, give ActiveCampaign a close look. Vea cómo ActiveCampaign compares to Klaviyo.
- Shopify Email: Yes, it’s basic. But if you are just starting off with a Shopify store and don’t have a sizable email list, you’ll probably be better served leverage the free or affordable paid Shopify Email tiers.
- Attentive: If you want some email marketing capabilities, but really want to lean strongly into SMS, you may be better served with an “SMS first” solution like Attentive.
- Mailerlite: Cheap and remarkably capable for all sorts of business use cases, Mailerlite is one of my favorite swiss-army knives when I want to start building an email list, but am not quite sure what I’m going to do with the list just yet… OR, want to test things out first to see how far I can get before needing a specialist platform.
- Brevo: Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is another great transactional email forward option with a very unique “pay per send” monthly pricing tier. A good option if budget is a concern and you want a more aligned “usage based” pricing mode. Vea cómo Brevo compares to Klaviyo.
Who Should Use Mailchimp?
A note up front: From my personal experience, most people considering Mailchimp vs Klaviyo are generally selling things online in the ecommerce space. BUT, if this isn’t you OR not a core part of your business, this is where I generally lean towards Mailchimp.
- Multi-Model Brands: As discussed above, if ecommerce selling is just ONE part of a more complicated marketing stack (perhaps including a blog, service, software, or newsletter brand), Mailchimp makes a lot more sense due to it’s inherent flexibility. It does everything pretty good, without dropping the ball in any one area.
- Sales Organizations: If you have a high ticket product running on a more complicated, high touch, sales process, Mailchimp’s lightweight CRM features will be more useful here.
Who Should Go with Klaviyo?
That said, for pretty much any brand PRIMARILY selling via ecommerce, I’m sticking with Klaviyo.
Particularly if I’m on Shopify (although really any ecom platform), Klaviyo IS the standard to which all others are compared. It’s no wonder that Klaviyo is one of the most popular Shopify apps in their ecosystem!
Conclusión: If you run an ecommerce store, my first choice would be to give Klaviyo a shot here.