Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: Which one is better for ecommerce?

Email marketing revenue is currently over $10 billion. And this number is expected to reach over $17 billion by 2027.

But you need the right tool to tap into this revenue.

If you’re looking for an email marketing software solution for your store, you’re right to consider Klaviyo and Mailchimp. They’re some of the best tools in the market.

But which tool offers the best features for an ecommerce store that’s pursuing growth? This detailed Klaviyo vs. Mailchimp analysis will give you an answer.

Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: Quick overview

Klaviyo’s rating on the Shopify App Store is 3.9. Mailchimp has a rating of 3.5. This gives an overview of the market’s perception of these tools.

But in this article, we’ll do an in-depth side-by-side comparison of these tools based on the following parameters:

• User-friendliness
• Effectiveness in building email campaigns
• Marketing automation capabilities
• Signup forms and landing pages
• Segmentation
• Analytics
• Customer support
• Integrations
• Support for multi-channel marketing
• Price

Here’s a quick run-through.

Klaviyo vs Mailchimp comparison: Feature by feature

In this section, we’ll do an in-depth comparison of Kaviyo and Mailchimp. 

Ease of getting started

Email marketing software should make work easier, faster, and more efficient for users.

If its setup process is complicated, then you can always find an alternative. Let’s see how Klaviyo and Mailchimp fare in this regard.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo’s signup process is not complicated. You only need to provide a few basic details, such as:

• Email
• Company name
• Website
• Phone number
• Business address
• Sender information

You don’t need to provide credit card details.

Finding your way around Klaviyo isn’t rocket science either. The navigation is beginner-friendly.

You can complete basic things like changing the sender’s email address from the dashboard.

The only challenge lies in its advanced features.

And you have to pay attention to your contact data list formatting before the import. Klaviyo is not as flexible as other tools. You need to strictly follow their guidelines.  We had to try it a few times before succeeding. 

Mailchimp

Signing up for Mailchimp is also easy.

In addition to what you provide when signing up for Klaviyo, be ready to provide other details like what you expect to achieve with Mailchimp.

Signing up for a free account doesn’t require a credit card. You need one only if you’re signing up for the free trial of a paid plan.

As for the ease of navigation, Mailchimp isn’t far off. But it offers so many features that it can be hard to find basic functions like the landing page builder.

However, we commend the platform’s effort to provide a checklist of everything you need to set up your account.

Using Klaviyo is a bit easier than Mailchimp. Its intuitiveness is close to other beginner-friendly email marketing software like Omnisend or MailerLite.

Building an email campaign

Which tool makes it easy to build effective email campaigns that boost conversions, Klaviyo or Mailchimp? Let’s see.

Klaviyo’s email campaign builder is intuitive. You can name the campaign, and add your logo and other elements with ease.

With Mailchimp, there are two tools you can use to build campaigns:

• The new builder (beta) which has AI-assisted tools
• The classic builder which is the regular email builder

Both tools are easy to use with all the necessary features to build your campaign.

Here’s a comparison of the email campaign builders offered by Klaviyo and Mailchimp.

A few things are missing from both tools though.

The email template flexibility is not really great. The structure of the template you use can affect the appearance of the elements you add. Sometimes they’ll fit full-width, sometimes they won’t. So pay attention to the template you choose.

Both tools also lack a built-in unique discount code generator, which is a great feature for ecommerce brands.

There are, however, some features designed to help ecommerce business owners generate more conversions. Klaviyo, for instance, lets you combine your email campaigns with mobile push notifications.

Mailchimp lets you create surveys and send postcards, among other unique functionalities. You get 25 Litmus tokens of inbox previews to let you see how your emails will appear on different devices.  

Klaviyo is the winner here. It offers more unique features that support building effective email campaigns, such as the capability to add mobile push notifications to your campaigns. They also let all customers use their full template library without locking it for paid customers.

Marketing automation

In this section, we’ll take a look at the automation features offered by Klaviyo vs Mailchimp.

Klaviyo

Marketing automation is one of Klaviyo’s trump cards.

You’ll get a wide range of variables, conditional splits, and webhooks to personalize your automation messages. But adding a webhook action to your workflows might require advanced skills or prior experience.

In addition, you can add text messages and app push notifications to your workflows. This great marketing channel compatibility is gold for ecommerce sites, and, at least for now, can be found on very few email marketing platforms.

Klaviyo offers fully customizable prebuilt workflows to fulfill a variety of goals, such as nurturing prospects, building customer loyalty, and encouraging repeat purchases.

But you can also build your workflows from scratch.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp used to call the marketing automation part “Customer journeys,” but recently changed it to Automations. And, to be honest, that’s a very good decision from a customer usability point of view.

We find Mailchimp’s automation good as well. You can use one of the 70+ prebuilt journeys available. They include welcome emails, cart abandoned emails, communication with Facebook and other social media networks audiences, and many more. 

You can even send text messages via integration with Twilio. Of course, it’s not as convenient as the direct text messages that Klaviyo offers, but you can at least try it out.

One thing you should know about Mailchimp’s workflows is that in most cases only the structure is provided. You have to add the copy yourself.

In Mailchimp, you can integrate social media into the workflows, but SMS and push notifications aren’t available without additional integrations.

Klaviyo wins. It has plenty of advanced marketing automation features.

Although these features aren’t necessarily beginner-friendly, they’re helpful to ecommerce businesses. Once you beat the learning curve, you can leverage these features to grow your business.

Signup forms and landing pages

Signup forms and landing pages are essential to growing your subscriber list. They help you keep the conversation going with your leads. Here’s how Mailchimp and Klaviyo fare on this aspect.

Klaviyo

With Klaviyo you can build:

• Multi-step forms
• Pop-ups
• Embedded forms
• Fly-outs
• Full-page and full-screen forms

The pre-built signup forms are simple, modern, and they work out of the box.

They’re categorized based on their purpose, such as:

• Collecting emails
• Collecting phone numbers
• Collecting emails and phone numbers
• Coupons and offers
• Announcements

The templates are fully customizable. You can change the rules, design, and any other element.

If the templates don’t suit your needs, a custom form builder lets you take matters into your own hands. You can create mobile-friendly forms using a drag-and-drop editor.

In addition, you can choose whom to target with your forms. You can A/B test your forms, use form teasers, and leverage other ecommerce features.

Klaviyo lets you assess analytics data for your forms, such as devices used for signups, signup rates, and other metrics.

Although there’s no dedicated landing page builder, the full-page signup form can act as a landing page. Nonetheless, a regular landing page would be preferable.

List management is clear and beginner-friendly. Klaviyo provides pre-built segments to guide marketers and ecommerce store owners. But there’s also the flexibility to segment the lists as you see fit.

Overall, Klaviyo has made an excellent effort with its pop-ups and overall list management. Adding gamified popups similar to Omnisend’s Wheel of Fortune would make it even better.

Mailchimp

In the case of Mailchimp, the situation is different. You can choose from a pop-up and an embedded form. And although Mailchimp offers quite a flexible pop-up builder, you won’t find any ready-to-use forms and templates. 

For example, there is one pop-up that you can modify to your needs, add an image, or edit texts and that’s it. No fancy designs that you’d expect from your email marketing service provider.

However, unlike Klaviyo, Mailchimp offers landing page templates. You get nine customizable templates and a powerful landing page builder, which is better than what most email marketing software solutions offer.

Managing subscribers on Mailchimp looks pretty standard. You can use tags to segment according to their personal data, engagement, VIP status, purchase behavior, and more.

What’s important to note about managing subscribers on Mailchimp is that contact lists are siloed on this platform. This means that if you have the same subscriber on different lists, you will have to pay for them twice. This isn’t the case with most other email marketing tools like MailerLite, Omnisend, Brevo (formely Sendinblue), and others.

Mailchimp takes the lead here. Although you have to build your pop-up from scratch, having a dedicated landing page builder is important for an ecommerce store.

Segmentation

Customer segmentation helps you target customers who are in different stages of the buyer’s journey or have different interests. Let’s see who does it better.

Klaviyo

You can create an unlimited number of segments using Klaviyo on all plans. You even get seven pre-built segments to get you started.

You can add as many rules as you need to make your segments ultra-specific. You can create segments based on things like:

• The action or inaction of a contact
• User attributes
• Purchase history
• Location, such as whether a user is within the EU or not
• Predictive analysis

Klaviyo continuously updates your segments with real-time data. You can sync your list with Facebook or Instagram for social ad targeting.

However, using Klaviyo’s segmentation feature and maintaining the segments you create requires a bit of experience.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp also lets you create segments based on the customer’s personal data, onsite and email behavior, and interests. However, you get only three pre-built segments. From such a powerful email service you probably might expect a little bit more.

You can add up to five conditions for each segment, which isn’t as many as Klaviyo. In rare cases you would need more.  But like Klaviyo, Mailchimp also lets you create predictive segments. We find this pretty useful for ecommerce sites.

Klaviyo is the clear winner here. It has more ready-to-use segments, you can add more rules, there is a very wide range of segment conditions, and you can use your segments to enhance your social ad targeting.

Analytics

The way to succeed in email marketing is to constantly revise and revisit your strategies. Analytics gives you the insights you need to make the right changes.

So, which tool provides more in-depth insights? Let’s find out.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo has powerful and unique analytics.

Next to standard email marketing metrics like opens and clicks, you get a bunch of ecommerce insights, like conversion rate, number of sales from the campaign, and more. 

In addition to that, Klaviyo provides advanced ecommerce insights that few platforms can offer. For instance, the predictive analytics feature lets you forecast things like the churn risk, next order date, and spending potential of a customer. This is a very valuable feature for ecommerce business owners. However, this feature works only for well-established businesses with at least 500 customers that have purchased from you.

The Peer Benchmarks feature compares your campaigns with those of your competitors and identifies areas of improvement.

You get real-time KPIs, omnichannel performance data, and more.

Moreover, you can use preset or custom templates to customize your reports and have them delivered directly to your inbox. Typically, you get up to 10 reports per user per account.

Mailchimp

With Mailchimp, the analytics go wide, but not as deep as Klaviyo.

You get standard metrics like your open, click, and unsubscribe rates. You can compare your performance to competitors and make the right improvements.

You can compare the performance of your email campaigns using comparative reports. But this is only available to premium customers.

Mailchimp provides real-time statistics on your campaigns including the social ads and insights into your audience’s behavior.

Klaviyo wins again. It has gone above and beyond with analytics. However, such an analytics powerhouse can be intimidating for users with little prior experience.

Customer support

Even with the best features, a tool is practically useless if you can’t use all its features and don’t get the required support from the customer service team. That’s why it’s important to compare the level of support each of these tools offers.

Klaviyo

Free plan users only get email support for the first 60 days. Paid plans come with 24/5 chat support and 24/7 email support.

Klaviyo doesn’t offer phone support and customers often complain about the slow support response time.

But Klaviyo has made quite an effort in providing helpful resources to customers. On the website, you’ll find podcasts and live training. There is also an academy where you can learn how to use Klaviyo, Help Center articles, video tutorials, and more.

Mailchimp

With Mailchimp, free plan customers get support for the first 30 days via email.

Paid plan members get email and chat support. They also get onboarding support and expert advice on marketing.

Premium plan users get prioritized support, including phone support and dedicated onboarding.

We found the support team is quick and responsive. It took us about 2-3 minutes to get a response to our query. 

Mailchimp also offers plenty of resources including a Mailchimp 101 tutorial. It’s easy to find the guidance you need, including blog articles and other resources grouped by different channels, business stages and interests. There are multiple videos on YouTube in different languages. Overall, they have very thoughtful, educational, and good email marketing resources. 

It would be better if both tools could provide unlimited support to free plan users. But overall, Mailchimp wins when it comes to the quality of support it provides.

Integrations

Both platforms claim that they support 300+ integrations with various tools. Mainly these are platforms related to advertising, payments, helpdesk, CRMs, signup forms, and others. 

These integrations expand the functionality of the platforms and facilitate marketers’ work in managing client databases, collecting new leads, providing support, and many other cases. 

Whether you use Klaviyo or Mailchimp, you will find the option to integrate your favorite ecommerce tools with ease.

Compatibility with other marketing channels

Combining multiple channels in your marketing strategy helps you generate more leads, nurture lasting relationships, and build more conversions.

Which tool supports you in this area, Mailchimp or Klaviyo? Let’s see.

Klaviyo

In addition to emails, Klaviyo supports SMS and mobile push notifications.

Currently, the SMS feature is only available for the US, Australia, Canada, UK, and New Zealand customers.

Klaviyo also supports Facebook and Google retargeting through integrations.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp doesn’t support SMS and push notifications. But you can add Facebook and Instagram to your marketing strategy. Also, you can use the endless list of integrations to your favor, and add more social media channels, send SMS via Twilio integration, etc.

Klaviyo takes the lead here. Ecommerce businesses can adopt an omnichannel approach to marketing, especially with text messages that are becoming more popular to reach out to the ecommerce audience. 

Price Comparison

Pricing is a tricky area when it comes to ecommerce marketing tools. You need to ensure the price you’re paying corresponds with the value you’re getting.

Check that the features you’re getting can support the growth of your ecommerce store.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo has a free plan with the vast majority of features available on the platform. The only limitation is a database of your subscribers. It limits the free plan to 250 contacts. So this plan is either for total beginners or for marketers to test Klaviyo out with a selected group of contacts.

Once you exceed 250 contacts you can choose either the Email plan or the Email and SMS plan. Prices for both paid plans grow exponentially.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp also has a free plan. It used to be generous for many years, but now it’s much more limited.

You can send only 1,000 emails per month, and you are limited to six very basic email templates. In other words, if you need a beautiful email template for your campaign, be ready to pay.

Things like A/B tests are also lacking in the free plan and you don’t get pre-built customer journeys or email scheduling.

Here’s what you can expect from the paid plans:

Mailchimp is also available on a Pay As You Go plan. Nonprofits and charities get a 15% discount.

To compare the pricing of these tools side by side is very difficult because the plan offering is very different. 

Klaviyo’s pricing depends on the channels, and Mailchimp’s on the feature set. So the best way to compare pricing would be to compare Klaviyo’s Email+SMS plan to Mailchimp’s Premium one. 

Summary: Which one wins?

Here’s a quick summary of the pricing and features offered by Mailchimp and Klaviyo.

Klaviyo has great advanced features suitable for ecommerce stores. But this also makes it a bit expensive and difficult to use. If you have enough experience with email marketing tools, it’s worth the investment.

For a solopreneur, startup, or blogger, Mailchimp provides enough functionality to grow your ecommerce store. The same goes for non-profit organizations.

If your ecommerce store is in its active growth stage, Klaviyo is ideal for you. But if you want a solution that’s also user-friendly, you’ll need to go for a different email marketing tool like Omnisend.

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Our team strives to be accurate and unbiased in reviewing email tools. However, we recognize that mistakes can happen, and it’s essential for us to stay up to date. If you come across any errors or things that need to be reviewed again, please let us know.