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Klaviyo Review (2025): The Top Choice for Ecommerce?

Last updated: Feb 12, 2025 See Updates

This article has been written and researched by our expert tooltesters through a precise methodology. Learn more about our methodology

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Although certainly not the first email service provider on the market, Klaviyo has managed to carve out a significant niche in the industry.

Klaviyo was founded in Boston in 2012, and has ranked as one of the best workplaces for employee happiness. Happy employees are often more engaged, which can translate into innovative product updates and better service overall.

Klaviyo has become one of the most popular choices for Shopify store owners. In fact, Shopify has invested heavily in Klaviyo, and currently is an 11% owner. In addition, Klaviyo is the recommended ESP for Shopify Plus merchants. Shopify's choice to invest in and recommend Klaviyo is a strong endorsement of Klaviyo's capabilities.

Klaviyo seems well-positioned as a top choice for ecommerce businesses. But what makes it unique, and what should you consider before committing? Let’s take a look at all Klaviyo has to offer, as well as where it could improve.

Klaviyo Review Summary

Klaviyo doesn't reserve advanced features only for their paying customers. You can use almost all features Klaviyo has to offer even on the free plan (except for their AI-Tools).
Klaviyo has integrated a series of AI tools that make generating content and developing marketing automations even easier. For example, you can use AI to predict future customer behaviors such as the likelihood of making a purchase and the expected timing of the next order. You can then build automations based on these insights.
Klaviyo’s form builder is fantastic. If you need to capture leads and grow your subscriber list, Klaviyo’s smart forms can be a huge help. Instead of the same generic form shown to all your website visitors, Klaviyo is all about targeting. You could set up a Klaviyo form to appear when a first-time visitor is about to leave your site, or display a form offering a discount to visitors with a certain cart value.
We recommend Klaviyo for most ecommerce store owners, but if your budget is limited or you don’t think you’ll need advanced features, consider these alternatives.

Klaviyo review video

Omnisend vs Klaviyo video

Klaviyo tutorial video

Try Klaviyo for free

Klaviyo Screenshots

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klaviyo automations

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klaviyo dashboard

klaviyo templates

klaviyo email editor

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klaviyo form templates

Klaviyo Pricing

$ 0

250 Subscribers

500 Emails

Free plan with 150 monthly SMS/MMS credits email support for first 60 days

$ 20

500 Subscribers

5,000 Emails

Email Plan (limited SMS/MMS credits)

$ 30

1,000 Subscribers

10,000 Emails

Email Plan (limited SMS/MMS credits)

$ 70

3,000 Subscribers

30,000 Emails

Email Plan (limited SMS/MMS credits)

$ 100

5,000 Subscribers

50,000 Emails

Email Plan (limited SMS/MMS credits)

$ 150

10,000 Subscribers

100,000 Emails

Email Plan (limited SMS/MMS credits)

$ 375

20,000 Subscribers

200,000 Emails

Email Plan (limited SMS/MMS credits)

Klaviyo’s pricing structure is straightforward. There are two plans available: Email and Email + SMS. Pricing is calculated based on email and SMS send volume, not what features you use. All plans (including the free plan) have access to everything Klaviyo offers. The only exception is their AI-tools, which you can only access with the paid version.

This makes it easy to pick a plan without worrying about missing out on certain tools.

Plans get expensive at higher send volumes, but many users feel that Klaviyo delivers good value for money.

Pro Tip: Even if you’re not on an Email + SMS plan, you can still buy SMS credits for occasional campaigns.

Pros and Cons

Pros

AI Tools

Klaviyo’s artificial intelligence can predict customer behaviors, generate content, and analyze data. Use it to create targeted campaigns that anticipate customer needs, or write engaging emails automatically.
Infinite Integrations

Klaviyo works with almost every ecommerce platform, making it easy to keep track of products and customer data for marketing. Klaviyo also offers a ton of integrations that add extra features, such as Whatsapp marketing or referral programs.
Targeted Email Marketing

Klaviyo lets you show different products to different customers in your emails with dynamic product feeds. It’s also easy to personalize content so customers are more likely to open your emails.
Built-In CRM

Klaviyo’s CRM features help you keep all your customer info in one place, making it simpler to manage relationships and understand customer needs.
Integrated SMS marketing

Klaviyo includes SMS marketing along with email, so you can manage both from the same place and keep your messaging consistent. If you’re planning an omnichannel marketing strategy, integrated SMS is a must.

Is Klaviyo the right newsletter service for you?

Online store owners who want to send targeted campaigns

We recommend Klaviyo for ecommerce store owners who need advanced features like predictive AI for marketing automation, dynamic content, and integrated SMS campaigns. Klaviyo’s integration with virtually all ecommerce platforms makes it easy to develop personalized campaigns directly linked to customer behavior. If you are comfortable navigating some initial setup complexities and investing in a platform that scales with your business, Klaviyo can become a valuable part of your email marketing strategy.

Rating Details

Ease of Use

Klaviyo is generally easy to use. The navigation is logical, with a series of drop-down menus that keep the dashboard uncluttered. However, there are some bottlenecks in the workflow. There’s no “quick start” option to begin designing a campaign in one click. Also, if you need to build a segment from scratch, you’ll have to understand some computer science jargon. Otherwise, Klaviyo’s reports, templates, email builder, etc. are all beginner friendly. You can also check out our Klaviyo Tutorial to get started.

Editor Info popup

Although it takes a lot of clicks to get started, once you’re in Klaviyo’s email editor it’s simple to use and full of great features. Drag and drop content blocks can be used to modify templates, or to build a completely custom email. Klaviyo also allows you to add your brand elements (like fonts and colors) to your account so you can automatically apply these to new email campaigns.

Personalization Info popup

Klaviyo has useful personalization tools built right into the email editor. When you’re creating an email, look for the “personalization” button. This will open a huge list of pre-made personalization options, like adding your customer’s name or location. You can even personalize the inbox preview text, which is as important as a subject line for increasing open rates.

Email types Info popup

If you can think of an email type, Klaviyo has it. You can build newsletters, promotional emails, and marketing automations. You can also send transactional emails, like order confirmations and shipping notices for ecommerce. Keep in mind that Klaviyo counts transactional emails toward your monthly limit.

Choice and Flexibility of Template Designs Info popup

Klaviyo has a wide selection of seasonal templates with stock images for back-to-school, winter holidays, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Halloween and more.

Klaviyo also has “basic layouts” that you add your own images and branding to. If you’re an ecommerce store owner with an established brand identity, you’ll likely use these with your own logos and colors. The downside is that you have to manually upload all of these brand elements into Klaviyo. Other ESPs we’ve tested automatically pull your branding from your website.

Email Marketing Automation Info popup

Klaviyo has powerful automation tools, including a “flow library” full of over 60 pre-built marketing automations which are super easy to set up. You’ll find all the essentials, like abandoned cart reminders and welcome emails. On top of that, Klaviyo offers some advanced targeted ecommerce automations, like customer birthday emails, replenishment reminders, and a sunset flow to remove subscribers who don’t open your emails.

List Management Info popup

Klaviyo helps users maintain good list hygiene with a dedicated “audiences” tab. Here, you can organize subscribers into different lists, and create segments to target specific groups. You can also filter active versus suppressed contacts in an account, and easily remove subscribers who are not engaged. You’ll also find tools for manual or automated tagging.

If you want to build a segment from scratch, you’ll have to understand some techy language (boolean data type?!) The good news is, Klaviyo doesn’t put any limit on the number of conditions you can use for a segment.

Registration Forms/ Opt-in & Opt-out- Process Info popup

Klaviyo’s form builder is one of the best we’ve tested, and they offer about 70 form templates to get you started. You can target your forms to specific audiences, or show different versions of the form based on website behavior. In the ‘Behaviors and Targeting’ tab, you can configure the form to appear based on criteria like a visitor’s location, device type, email list membership, and cart contents. You can even A/B test your forms to see which works best.

Deliverability Info popup

Klaviyo provides email deliverability features like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication, dedicated sending domains, and IP warming. Their dedicated Deliverability Hub helps monitor reputation, manage list hygiene, and optimize engagement-based sending. Advanced deliverability support is available on paid plans.

Reports and Analysis

Klaviyo has options for both quick KPI (key performance indicator) report summaries and deeper data analytics. Klaviyo’s reports library has dozens of ready-made reports which you can use (or customize) for your campaigns. You can search for reports by keywords or browse questions, e.g. “How much revenue are my messages generating?” or “What messages are having deliverability issues?”.

If you’re new to email marketing analytics, it’s helpful to understand exactly what questions the reports are answering. We love that Klaviyo simplifies complex data into understandable language.

Languages Info popup

Klaviyo’s website is only available in English and French. Their software, however, is available in 7 languages: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, and Korean. Klaviyo’s generative AI tools are multilingual too.

Spam- and Design-Testing Info popup

Preview how your email will look on different devices and send a test email before sending to your whole list. No spam testing feature, unfortunately.

However, Klaviyo can automatically skip recently emailed contacts on multiple send lists to avoid spam complaints. This is called “Smart Sending”.

Bounce Management Info popup

If a contact experiences a hard bounce or 7 consecutive soft bounces, it will be automatically removed from all subscribed lists.

Blocklist Info popup

You can block certain contacts from receiving emails by creating a segment which excludes them. When you set up your campaign, it’s easy to select the blocklisted segment from the “don’t send to” drop down menu. You can also suppress contacts so that they no longer receive any emails from you. This happens automatically when an email bounces, or you can manually suppress a contact- for example, suspected bots.

Storage available for data and images

Unlimited

No storage limit. Klaviyo accepts .jpg, .jpeg, .png, and .gif file types with a maximum file size of 5 MB.

Authentication Info popup

Klaviyo has useful guides for setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication. If you’re using Klaviyo’s sending domain, SPF is already set up for you. (Still need authentication help? We’ve got you. 😉)

Own Domain Info popup

Available even on the free plan. You can use your own domain name for tracking links.

Different levels of account access Info popup

Klaviyo offers seven different account types: owner, admin, manager, analyst, campaign coordinator, content creator, and support. There can only be one owner account, but other account types are unlimited. You don’t have to pay extra to add new user accounts, even if you’re on the free plan.

Integrations

Around 350 integrations, including all major and minor ecommerce platforms, as well as Zapier.

Landing Page Builder Info popup

Klaviyo doesn’t have a dedicated landing page builder, but it does offer a workaround. You can use a full-page sign up form, instead.

Customer Support

We recently tested Klaviyo’s customer service against Mailchimp, and Klaviyo came out on top. We only waited 2 hours for a response to an email support ticket, and the answers were generally helpful. The downside is, if you’re on the free plan you’ll only have support access for 60 days.

Overall rating

4.0

Klaviyo is a great choice for ecommerce, and has some extra features specifically for Shopify store owners. Best of all, you can access all these features on Klaviyo’s free plan, although things start getting expensive once you switch to a paid plan (especially if you have more than 1,000 subscribers).

Using advanced tools from the start makes it easy to scale your marketing as your sending volume increases. To earn an even higher rating, we’d like to see Klaviyo add more segmentation templates and a dedicated landing page builder.

Top Klaviyo Features

CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

klaviyo customer profiles

Klaviyo is one of few email service providers that also includes CRM capabilities.

Essentially, Klaviyo’s CRM centralizes customer information and makes it quick and easy to access. Ecommerce store owners can create customer profiles with useful data such as customer service history, past purchases, custom tags, and more. With these profiles, you can reduce the mental burden of remembering every customer service request and increase efficiency.

If you’re not using Klaviyo, you could use standalone CRM solutions like Salesforce or Zoho to manage customer data. However, by choosing Klaviyo, you can keep all your data within one platform- potentially saving money and simplifying your workflow.

AI Tools

Klaviyo has hopped on the bandwagon and is implementing AI tools across its platform. Here are a few notable AI features:

Generative AI to write email text and subject lines

Generative AI tools (like ChatGPT) are becoming standard in the email marketing industry, so no surprise that Klaviyo is already on board.

Predictive AI for marketing automation

Klaviyo uses predictive AI to help ecommerce businesses engage with their customers on a highly personalized level. (Without the need for tedious data analysis!)

Imagine sending out a discount right when a customer is thinking about making their next purchase. Klaviyo’s AI can predict the next order date, so you can automate your offers to send exactly when a customer is most likely to buy again. Klaviyo’s AI can also identify churn risk, so you could set up an automated “We miss you!” email, paired with an offer to win back their business before you lose them.

AI-Powered Campaign Optimization

Klaviyo goes beyond typical A/B testing by automatically determining and sending the more successful campaign. Essentially, AI does the data analysis and makes decisions about the best email variants for you.

Additionally, Klaviyo uses AI to suggest optimal times for displaying sign-up forms on your ecommerce site, and for sending emails or SMS messages. This data-driven approach to marketing can provide a lot of value and save you time.

Tons of Templates

Why do more work than you have to? Using a template can jump-start your email campaign or automation. Here’s what you’ll find in Klaviyo:

Email Campaign Templates: Klaviyo’s template selection is growing. They now have over 100 ready-to-use templates featuring images and colors, plus around 10 “basic layouts” that offer blank content blocks for custom designs. If you can’t find the exact layout you’re looking for, you can easily customize a template to meet your needs by reordering the content blocks or adding new sections. You can also save your favorite templates under a dedicated tab in the template library. That way, you don’t have to scroll through tons of templates to find the ones you use most frequently.
Marketing Automation (“Flow”) Templates: Klaviyo currently offers around 70 marketing automation templates that can be easily edited in the flow builder. Most of these automations are commerce-specific, so if you haven’t integrated your store you won’t see all of them yet.
Sign-Up Form Templates: We love Klaviyo’s form builder, and having around 70 templates to get started is a huge plus.

Ecommerce-Centered Email Marketing

klaviyo ecommerce integrations

As a Shopify store owner, I appreciate Klaviyo’s focus on ecommerce. Here are some features that are incredibly useful for ecommerce marketing:

Seamless ecommerce integrations: Klaviyo integrates with virtually every ecommerce platform, including Shopify and WooCommerce. It pulls real-time and historical data from your store to help you understand your customers and marketing trends. Plus, all your products are automatically synced, so you can easily feature them in your emails.
Dynamic product feeds: This smart tool lets you display different products to different recipients within the same automated campaign. Customers are more likely to click (and purchase!) if they see products they’ve browsed recently.
Integrated SMS campaigns: Most email service providers include SMS marketing, but often it’s more of an add-on than a core feature. Klaviyo, on the other hand, centers SMS tools by integrating them seamlessly into campaigns.

Forms

We already talked about how versatile Klaviyo’s forms are. Another feature that sets them apart is Lead Capture with Shop. By integrating with Shopify’s Shop app, it pre-fills customer’s payment and shipping information to reduce abandoned checkouts. If your ecommerce store is built on Shopify, simply activate Shop Pay and then toggle on “lead capture” when creating a form in Klaviyo.

klaviyo form editor

Klaviyo is compliant with regulations that require one-click unsubscribe links. Klaviyo makes it easy to add an unsubscribe button to your emails, but if you don’t add one, Klaviyo will automatically add it for you. This helps protect your sender reputation and ensure your emails don’t land in spam.

Room For Improvement

Few Segmentation Templates

Klaviyo really needs segmentation templates! Including a greater range of pre-built segmentation templates, beyond the handful of basic options on offer, would streamline the process for those who may not be familiar with setting up complex segments from scratch. This is a standard feature in other email providers, including Shopify Email.

Limited Marketing Automation Triggers

Klaviyo has the basics. You can trigger automations when someone abandons checkout, views a product, or is added to a list or segment. You can also use date-based triggers, such as birthdays. We’d like to see a wider variety of automation triggers, such as actions taken in a previous email. (To create such a trigger, you need to build a segment first, which is more complicated than necessary). Also, if a customer purchases multiple products on different dates, the most recent purchase date will overwrite previous ones. This can be problematic if you want to trigger an email for a past purchase, but not the most recent one.

Conclusion

Klaviyo stands out as an excellent email service provider, especially for ecommerce businesses. Its deep integration with ecommerce platforms means that all the work you’ve already put into your store can be used to create powerful email marketing campaigns.

Klaviyo lets you personalize messages using your store’s customer data, create dynamic product feeds from your product listings, and send abandoned cart messages (and other marketing automations) through real-time data syncing.

Overall, Klaviyo is one of our top choices for small to medium sized ecommerce stores. If you’re just starting out, Klaviyo will give you access to advanced features for free. Once you start scaling, Klaviyo grows with you. However, for large ecommerce businesses, Klaviyo gets very expensive around the 50,000 subscriber mark. You might want to check some of Klaviyo’s top competitors like Omnisend for higher send volumes or cheaper email marketing fees.

> Try Klaviyo for free

FAQ

Is Klaviyo legit?

Yes, Klaviyo is a legitimate email marketing platform used by thousands of businesses worldwide. (Over 143,000 to be exact!) We’ve fully tested Klaviyo here at EmailTooltester, and trust them to keep data and payment information safe. We’ve also checked customer reviews on TrustPilot and the Shopify App Store. While not all reviews are positive, there’s no indication that Klaviyo isn’t a trustworthy ESP.

Is Klaviyo free?

Klaviyo offers a free plan, but it limits the number of contacts and the number of emails you can send each month. You aren’t able to access email support after 60 days without a paid plan. As your needs grow, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to meet all your marketing needs without upgrading to a paid plan.

Is Klaviyo worth it?

Whether Klaviyo is worth it depends on your specific needs. It’s generally considered a strong choice for ecommerce businesses who need advanced marketing automations, dynamic product feeds, and predictive AI tools. However, it can be more expensive than some alternatives, so it’s best suited for businesses that will use more features than just basic transactional emails.

Does Klaviyo integrate with Shopify?

Yes, Klaviyo integrates seamlessly with Shopify. In fact, Shopify invested in Klaviyo, so you can be sure the two platforms will play nicely.

Integrating Klaviyo with Shopify allows you to track customer behavior directly from your Shopify store, and use that data to create targeted email campaigns and automations. You can also import all your products from Shopify to use in your emails.

Klaviyo Alternatives

omnisend

Omnisend: Omnisend stands out for its focus on ecommerce. It offers unique content blocks to liven up emails, like scratch cards, polls, and videos. You can also use Omnisend to build dedicated landing pages- a feature that Klaviyo lacks. One thing to note is that on the Shopify App Store, Omnisend has both more reviews and a higher average rating. Read our full Omnisend review.

MailerLite: If you’re looking for simplicity and ease of use, MailerLite delivers. You won’t find tons of advanced features, but it’s a great option for basic, uncomplicated email marketing. It’s also one of the more affordable email service providers we’ve tested but is not specialized in ecommerce. Read our full MailerLite review.

ActiveCampaign: Here at EmailTooltester we always rank ActiveCampaign highly for its automation capabilities. ActiveCampaign’s new AI feature helps build automations directly from user instructions and they offer over 7,000 user-generated automation templates. It also offers deep data integrations with online stores such as Shopify and WooCommerce. Read our full ActiveCampaign review.

The authors

Learn more about us

Sarah Baxter

Hi there! I’m Sarah Baxter. I opened my first online shop way back in 2009, and have been developing my own ecommerce websites since then. I’ve had countless hours of first-hand experience using online tools to build my business. I’ve learned a lot along the way, and my goal is to share that knowledge with other small business owners here at EmailTooltester.

Inka Wibowo

Senior Content Manager

Hi, I'm Inka! I spent the earlier part of my career in agency land, helping businesses of all sizes get their email marketing campaigns up and running. Now, at EmailTooltester, I'm using my experience to help businesses like yours find the best email marketing services for your needs. Although I've used dozens of different tools, I'm most familiar with Mailchimp and Kit (I use the latter for my personal newsletter!).

Learn more about us

12 Feb 2025 - Updated deliverability section
08 Jan 2025 - Added YouTube tutorial video
11 Dec 2024 - Deliverability info updated
20 Nov 2024 - Video reviews added
29 Oct 2024 - Update of some numbers; Klaviyo offers software in more languages now
26 Aug 2024 - Added lack of migration support as a con
07 Aug 2024 – Smaller updates and corrections

Our Methodology

This review has been written and researched following our EmailTooltester methodology.

Our Methodology

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