There’s plenty of email marketing apps to choose from for your online store.
Just searching ‘email marketing’ in the Shopify app store generates over 400 results (granted a lot of them are simple email capture tools).
However when it comes to ecommerce email marketing, one name tends to stand out: Klaviyo.
Especially since Mailchimp ended their Shopify integration, Klaviyo has become one of the most popular Shopify email apps.
What Klaviyo Offers
Klaviyo offers a complete email marketing solution for your online store.
At its core, Klaviyo has a drag and drop email composer along with various pre-built email templates for common email campaigns. There’s also powerful automation tools that enable you to create complex automated email flows.
Some of the features and email campaigns you can create with Klaviyo include:
- Abandoned cart flows
- Post-purchase follow up emails
- Sync email lists to Facebook custom audiences
- Segmentation based on a variety of ecommerce related factors
- Optimization tools such as multivariate testing
- Personalized product recommendations
Klaviyo is also integrated with Shopify along with plenty of other tools and platforms such as Justuno, Salesforce, Stripe and more.
Klaviyo Review – Shopify
While Klaviyo has integrations with WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce and other smaller ecommerce platforms, we’ll be focusing this Klaviyo review on their integration with Shopify.
This is because of Klaviyo’s predominant focus on the Shopify platform. If you’re reading this, chances are also that you have your ecommerce store on Shopify.
Composer
As previously mentioned, Klaviyo utilizes a drag and drop WYSIWYG email composer. This lets you create your email designs with relative ease and gives you a preview of what the email will look like in subscribers’ inboxes.
That said, Klaviyo doesn’t sell themselves on great email design. While you’ll be able to create emails that are fully mobile responsive, Klaviyo’s not the tool for creating mind blowing designs.
Features
Klaviyo’s strong suit is definitely in how advanced and in-depth you can take your email marketing when it comes to automation and targeting. With Klaviyo you can set up multi-faceted segmentation rules and email flows that branch off in a multitude of ways depending on complex rules.
There really isn’t any other Shopify app that lets you get so in-depth with tweaking every step along the way.
This is in part due to Klaviyo’s deep integration with Shopify. By analyzing so much of the data your Shopify store has, Klaviyo lets you create massively complex email automations.
Usability
All the advanced features and tools can come with a steep learning curve for people not familiar with Klaviyo or with experience in email marketing.
Often whether Klaviyo’s advanced feature set is more of an advantage or liability comes down to what you want out of email marketing. If you’re a seasoned email marketer and know your way around advanced software, then it’s likely an advantage.
On the other hand, if you’re just looking to set up best practice email flows like abandoned carts and post-purchase follow ups. Or if you’re new to email marketing, or even if you just don’t have the time to develop complex automations, then it’s likely a liability. In this case you’re probably better off with an easier-to-use Klaviyo competitor.
Sign-up to our newsletter and receive a 30% discount on your first 6 months with SmartrMail
Support
Klaviyo offers both email and live chat support. However live chat support is only available Monday to Friday between 9am and 5pm ET. You also have to be a paying user to access it. Free accounts do not have access to live chat support.
As for the quality of support, threads in Quora and online reviews often mention long wait times. This can be particularly problematic if you’re not used to dealing with enterprise level email marketing software.
Klaviyo Pricing
Klaviyo offers a single pricing tier. This includes a free account option for up to 250 contacts and 500 monthly emails. You’ll also need to include Klaviyo’s branding in your emails and require double opt-in for people signing up to your list.
As soon as you reach the free account subscriber limits, you’ll find that Klaviyo’s pricing quickly grows. You can use the quick reference table below for an idea of Klaviyo’s pricing at various subscriber counts.
| Subscribers | Klaviyo Price (USD/month) |
| 300 | $20 |
| 1,500 | $45 |
| 3,000 | $100 |
| 15,000 | $350 |
| 30,000 | $500 |
| 150,000 | $1,700 |
For email lists with more than 150,000 subscribers, you need to reach out to Klaviyo’s sales team for pricing.
Klaviyo’s pricing is often a pain point for many online stores. In fact, it’s more expensive than other leading ecommerce email apps including Mailchimp and SmartrMail.
Only having a single pricing plan also means that you’re paying for all of Klaviyo’s features whether you use them or not. And given the large number of niche tools, you’ll likely never utilize even half of what Klaviyo offers.
While Klaviyo’s pricing increases very quickly as your email list grows, the good news is that you’re only paying for active subscribers. Unlike other email marketing services such as Mailchimp, you aren’t charged for people who unsubscribe from your email marketing campaigns.
The Bottom Line
There’s no denying that Klaviyo is a powerful email marketing software solution, especially for enterprise users.
However the sheer amount of functionality, settings and customization comes with a steep learning curve. This can make it intimidating to people, especially those not fully familiar with email marketing.
If you’re looking for a truly advanced email marketing solution and have the knowhow and time to invest into it, then definitely give Klaviyo a go.
But if you’re looking for an easier to use email marketing app, one that lets you set up best practice automations quickly and without the hassle, then check out apps like SmartrMail.
