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KLAVIYO VS

Over 50K brands hit a ceiling with Mailchimp—and scaled with Klaviyo

Do more with less work: audiences built from real customer behavior, automation across email and SMS, and reporting that shows what earned the revenue, included in every Klaviyo plan.

Text ‘Klaviyo or Mailchimp?’ on a red background, surrounded by blurred data dashboards.

Go beyond basic segments

Build audiences around what customers browse, buy and do, updating in real time. No manual list uploads, no spreadsheet tagging.

See segmentation

Automate the busywork

Composer drafts launch-ready campaigns from your own customer data, and prebuilt flows cover the ones you'd rather not build twice.

See how Composer works

Demand honest ROI

Multi-touch attribution across email, SMS and push, plus industry benchmarks that tell you whether a number is any good.

See reporting

Built to keep up as you grow

75+ new features and counting across AI, new channels, and analytics. The platform you pick today should still fit in two years.

See what's new

Customer Spotlight

Parts Avatar logo featuring a winged P character and the text "PARTS AVATAR™".
We wanted a full overview of the customer, but that wasn’t available in Mailchimp at all.

Sandip Chaudhuri, VP of product marketing, Parts Avatar

Powering 205,000+ relationship-driven brands across 100+ countries

Klaviyo vs Mailchimp, feature by feature

Is Klaviyo better? Depends on what you need your marketing to do. Here’s what each platform includes, and why it matters when you switch.

Feature
Klaviyo
Mailchimp
Why this matters

Email, SMS, RCS, mobile push, and WhatsApp

No RCS, push, or WhatsApp

Use the channels your customers use, without siloed separate platforms. One customer record, one contract, clear behavior signals that enable true cross-channel personalization.

Channel affinity and omnichannel 1:1 personalized send time

Easily reach each customer where they are most engaged across multiple channels at the best time for each individual

AI agent for building and refining automated flows

Identify gaps across your campaigns, segments, and flows to uncover your highest-impact growth opportunities.

Omnichannel AI Customer Agent

Answer questions, recommend products, and drive purchases automatically across every channel, 24/7.

Native Helpdesk

One shared view of every customer so marketing and service work better together and every interaction gets smarter.

AI-based product recommendations

More personalized product recommendations increase the likelihood of a customer converting

Omnichannel, multi-touch attribution

Understand what channels are driving revenue beyond just the last click

Flexible flow branching

Going beyond yes/no splits to build more personalized customer journeys, with less setup work and more revenue.

Native product reviews offerings

Showcase reviews across the customer journey to build customer trust and increase conversions

400+ pre-built integrations

Signups collected where your customers already spend time land in the same profiles your flows use.

Advanced user identification

Turning more website actions to automation flows to drive additional revenue.

See how Klaviyo outranks Mailchimp on G2

On G2, Klaviyo scores higher than Mailchimp on segmentation, A/B testing, revenue analytics, workflow capability, ROI analytics, integration APIs, outbound email, and customization. Source: G2 category scores, September 2026. → See the full G2 comparison

Start for free, and only pay for active profiles

Free plans include multi-step flows, A/B testing, and SMS credits. Unlike Mailchimp, Klaviyo doesn’t charge for inactive, opted-out profiles.

INCLUDED

Email

Reach your customers with personalised email campaigns and automated flows.

Active profiles
500
USD 20USD 19 off
USD 1

They left Mailchimp. Now they’re thriving.

ÖLEND text
83%

sign-up rate on first K:Social auto-reply campaign

Read Ölend’s story
White text 'scuffers.c'.
3.7x

YoY growth in ecommerce revenue, after leaving Mailchimp

Read SCUFFERS’ story
The word GRIND.
53

active flows since migrating to Klaviyo

Read Grind’s story
Dermalogica logo.
82

new flows since switching from Mailchimp

Read Dermalogica’s story

Here’s what your move looks like

First, your data arrives

We automatically sync your contacts, lists and email engagement history.

Then, you build your content

Mailchimp keeps sending while you recreate your email templates, forms, and flows in Klaviyo.

Ready to move beyond Mailchimp?

Start free with Klaviyo to automate across channels, personalize from real customer behavior, and see exactly what drives revenue—without disrupting your current sends.

FAQ for moving from Mailchimp to Klaviyo

How do I migrate from Mailchimp to Klaviyo?

It’s four steps in the migration guide. Your contact data moves over in a one-time sync, then you rebuild templates and automations in Klaviyo. The guide sequences it so your current sending stays live while you work.

Is it easy to learn Klaviyo as a Mailchimp user?

Klaviyo does more, so there is more of it to learn. Most of it maps to what you already do: a list becomes a segment, a campaign is still a campaign. Where it goes further, like behavioural segments and multi-branch flows, Klaviyo Academy, live training, and prebuilt flows give you a running start.

How much does Klaviyo cost compared to Mailchimp’s pricing?

Klaviyo’s paid email plans start at $20/month. Pricing is based on active profiles, meaning the people you actually market to rather than everyone sitting in your list, so a large inactive list doesn’t drive up your bill. Multi-step flows are included in every plan at no extra feature cost. Both pricing pages are public, so you can compare the price for your own list size on each.

How is Klaviyo priced, and what counts as an active profile?

An active profile is someone you can market to: a person subscribed to email or SMS, or someone you sent to during the billing period. Suppressed and opted-out profiles don’t count towards it. Your plan is sized by how many active profiles you have, so your bill changes when that number crosses a tier.

Will Klaviyo work if I’m not an ecommerce brand?

Yes. Klaviyo works with whatever customer data you already have, not just orders: sign-ups, bookings, subscriptions and support history. Its 400+ pre-built integrations cover most of the tools a growing business already uses.

Is there a free plan?

Yes. Klaviyo’s free plan includes full multi-step flows, A/B testing, an SMS credit and the integration library, so you can build and test real automation before you pay for anything.

Do I lose my templates and automations when I switch?

Your contact data moves over in a one-time sync. Templates and automations are rebuilt in Klaviyo, and Composer (Beta) plus the template library make that faster than starting from scratch.

Which channels does Klaviyo support beyond email and SMS?

Mobile push, WhatsApp and RCS. All of them run off the same customer profiles as your email and SMS, so a message on one channel knows what happened on another.

What SMS and WhatsApp capabilities does Klaviyo include?

SMS campaigns and flows with two-way replies, and WhatsApp for both marketing and transactional sends. Both use the same profiles, segments, and flow builder as email, so you are not rebuilding an audience for each channel.

What kind of customer support does Klaviyo offer?

Live training sessions, office hours, Klaviyo Academy courses and certifications, Help Centre articles, and the Klaviyo Community forum.

How do I pick the best marketing platform for my business?

Look for clear ROI and pricing you can predict. Klaviyo is built so you can see what your marketing earned and put more behind the parts that work.