Klaviyo vs. Mailchimp - Which Tool Beats the Rest?

In making this comparison, we looked at the following points:

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Introduction

Email is a very powerful way to generate more traffic and revenue for your e-commerce store. However, there are so many different marketing tools that it can sometimes be challenging to choose. In this comparison, we have narrowed it down to two well-known and proven solutions: Mailchimp & Klaviyo. To summarize the article for you: Klaviyo is the winner for online stores, in our opinion. After extensive analysis and our experience working with both platforms, the choice is clear: Klaviyo delivers better results for our clients due to its extensive features and the fact that it is built for e-commerce.

In this article, you will find a comprehensive analysis of the two platforms.
Want to know more about Klaviyo? Be sure to read this article: What is Klaviyo and why is it a good fit for e-commerce? Create your free Klabiyo account here to explore the possibilities yourself.
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In making this comparison, we looked at the following points and components:

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What is the difference between Klaviyo and Mailchimp?

Both Mailchimp and Klaviyo are marketing automation solutions. However, the differences between the two are quite significant when it comes to functionality. In this article, you’ll read a comprehensive analysis of both platforms so that you can make an informed choice between Mailchimp and Klaviyo.

Mailchimp has been around since 2001—11 years longer than Klaviyo. Mailchimp is designed to make email marketing as simple as possible. Klaviyo has been around since 2012 and is specifically built for online stores. One is a general-purpose tool, while the other is specialized.
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Let’s start with one of the frequently asked questions: What does it cost? Note: Price alone says nothing about the capabilities, use, and results you can achieve.
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Costs of Mailchimp

Many e-commerce entrepreneurs tell us that Mailchimp initially seems like a good choice. The costs are low for the entry-level package, and you even have an account with 2,000 contacts. But is that the case in the long run?

The price of Mailchimp is determined by two things: the number of features and the number of contacts. In summary, Mailchimp offers four packages with an increasing number of features and a rising price. These four packages are: Free, Essentials, Standard, and Premium. Once you’ve chosen a package, the price will rise based on the number of contacts you have.

Here’s how it looks per package:

Free

You guessed it: the free subscription costs $0/month. It’s a good way to start with email marketing, but it only offers the most basic Mailchimp features, lacks support, and only allows a list with a maximum of 2,000 contacts. If email marketing is new to you, this is a good way to get started, but in most cases, you will need to switch to a package with more features soon.

• 1 user

Essentials

This starts at $9.99/month for lists with a maximum of 1,499 contacts and goes up to $259/month for lists with a maximum of 50,000 contacts. Mailchimp's Essentials package provides additional features beyond the basic features of the free subscription, such as:

• All email templates
• A/B testing capabilities
• Support via email and chat
• Campaign scheduling options
• 3 users

Standard

The prices for the Standard package range from $14.99 per month to $499 per month for a maximum of 2,499 and a maximum of 100,000 contacts, respectively. The Standard plan includes the following additional features:

• Retargeting ads
• Automated email flows
• Custom email templates

Overall, this is the best package if you’re exploring Mailchimp because it offers sufficient features without costing too much. And for just $5 more per month than the Essentials subscription, this is a good upgrade.

• 5 users

Premium

The same considerations for upgrading from Essentials to Standard do not apply to the upgrade to the Premium package. The lowest price for the Premium package starts at $299 per month for lists with a maximum of 14,999 contacts, and at 200,000 contacts, you pay $1,099 per month. For larger lists, you must contact Mailchimp for a price.

The Premium subscription is designed for businesses. While there are some handy features, such as multivariate testing and advanced segmentation tools, the real upgrade here is the unlimited number of users. If these features are not important to you, it’s best to look at one of Mailchimp’s other packages or another platform that offers better testing and segmentation tools.

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Costs of Klaviyo

Klaviyo's pricing is simpler than that of Mailchimp. There is only one type of subscription, and its price is solely based on the number of contacts you actively email in a month. This is a significant difference from Mailchimp. The number of email addresses you send emails to is referred to by Klaviyo as active profiles. There are no long-term contracts, and you can cancel, upgrade, or downgrade at any time.

There is a free version that allows you to email up to 250 active profiles and has a maximum of 500 emails per month.

Paid packages range from $20 to $650 for 250 active profiles to 45,000 active profiles. For these plans, you can send an unlimited number of emails per month.

From 45,000 to 210,000 profiles, you pay between $700 and $2,000. With these packages, you can send between 500,000 and 2.1 million emails. For the complete list, see: https://www.klaviyo.com/pricing

All features are available regardless of the number of profiles you have. Features include:

• Free email and flow templates
• Custom email templates
• A/B testing capabilities
• Advanced segmentation capabilities
• Automated email flows
• Retargeting
• Dynamic coupon codes
• Advanced popups (with segmentation)
• No limitations on the number of users
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Conclusion costs

If you want to send simple newsletters, we recommend Mailchimp. If you take e-commerce growth seriously, you will eventually want to add marketing automation. If you use Mailchimp, you will need to add expensive add-ons to your subscription. This makes Mailchimp a much more expensive option than initially thought.

At first glance, Klaviyo may seem a bit more expensive, but in our opinion, there are three reasons for this:

• Klaviyo has more and better functionalities than Mailchimp.
• Klaviyo delivers better results, leading to a higher ROI.
• Klaviyo charges an all-in price, whereas Mailchimp becomes expensive with add-ons.

If you are only looking for the cheapest solution, both Klaviyo and Mailchimp are probably not the right choice. Purely looking at price, Mailchimp is cheaper than Klaviyo. However, Klaviyo has all (and more) features that you only find in the most expensive Mailchimp package (Premium) or for which you need additional (paid) plugins in Mailchimp.

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Winner: Mailchimp (for basic newsletters)

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One of the most important components of good email marketing and marketing automation is to be able to communicate very specifically with your contacts. The right message at the right time to the right person ensures a good customer journey, better results, and prevents unsubscribes. Therefore, it is crucial that lists are segmented.
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Segmentation Mailchimp

Segmentation options are quite limited and must be set up separately for each list. If you want to create a segment of everyone who has purchased Product A, Mailchimp will only show the people from the list where you created this segment. This makes it difficult to then extract detailed information from Mailchimp that provides insights into specific behavior.

Segmentation Klaviyo

Klaviyo, on the other hand, excels here and offers users countless options for segmentation. The only limitation to Klaviyo's segmentation capabilities often lies with your own creativity and what you can come up with.

To help you get started, a number of handy segments are created by default as soon as you create an account.

Because Klaviyo focuses on e-commerce, it’s easy to create segments based on, for example, the frequency with which customers have viewed certain products on your website, how often they have purchased products, how often they use coupons, or even whether a customer is likely to churn.

Think of segments like: Everyone who has visited the site at least 5 times and looked at certain products, or all men (or women) who have purchased at least 3 products in the last 60 days and have not returned these products.

To save you time and increase results, Klaviyo takes data science very seriously. This is also reflected in the segmentation capabilities. You can use these capabilities to, for example, identify who might become a VIP customer, who is likely to churn, or what the next purchase date might be.
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If you want to create (super) segmented lists based on user behavior, the clear winner is Klaviyo.
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Winner: Klaviyo

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The biggest difference between Klaviyo and Mailchimp is how they handle lists/segments.

Lists and Segments in Mailchimp

In Mailchimp, it is advisable to have only one list per website and further segment using groups or tags. If a contact appears in two lists, Mailchimp counts them twice, thereby increasing the total number of contacts in your subscription.

Lists and Segments Klaviyo

In Klaviyo, it doesn’t matter how many lists or segments you have. Klaviyo charges based on the number of individual (active) profiles in your account. A profile can be added to an unlimited number of lists and segments. This gives you more flexibility to organize, segment, and filter your lists, etc.
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Winner: Klaviyo‍

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As an email marketer, open rates and click rates are always on your mind, especially if they are not what you expect. Is it due to a poor subject line, or has the email landed in the promotions folder? There’s no guarantee that emails will end up in the inbox, but there are best practices you can follow. Additionally, the tool you use can have an effect. Unless you have a dedicated IP address, you will be in a shared IP group from which your emails are sent. Both Klaviyo and Mailchimp assign you to a group associated with a number of IP addresses. You share these IP addresses with others in the same group. This also means that others with a poor reputation or those who don’t follow best practices can ultimately affect your emails.
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Deliverability Mailchimp

Now it gets interesting; Mailchimp is one of the most well-known email marketing solutions. Because of this recognition, inexperienced individuals begin their email journey with Mailchimp daily. Some of these may also be spammers.

Deliverability Klaviyo

Both Klaviyo and Mailchimp have automatic systems to prevent spam, but we see that Klaviyo actively monitors this as well. If you import a new list and immediately start emailing, it can trigger a manual review by the Klaviyo team. We consider this a good sign. This ensures that less spam is sent from the shared IP, and thus your emails arrive more quickly.

Klaviyo’s customer base is smaller than that of Mailchimp. The chance of having a shared IP with other ‘spam accounts’ is therefore significantly lower. Klaviyo's customers are generally further along with email marketing and are more likely to adhere to best practices.

Winner: Klaviyo‍

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Marketing automation is, in our view, the driving force behind revenue from email. It is a scalable way to grow your revenue. Both Klaviyo and Mailchimp are marketing automation solutions. The question here is how far you want to go to communicate effectively with your customer(s).
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Marketing automation Mailchimp

Mailchimp provides a good solution with templates that can be set up in a few minutes. The automation in Mailchimp must also be set up per list, similar to segments. In our opinion, this is a somewhat illogical structure. Mailchimp is actively working to change this, as evidenced by the new features launched from time to time.

Marketing automation Klaviyo

Klaviyo also offers many diverse standard flows (automated email sequences within the Klaviyo platform). These standard flows can be set up quickly and linked to your webshop, making it a convenient way to start and get acquainted. This is handy because it can quickly become quite advanced and sometimes complex due to the numerous possibilities.

Examples of some standard flows:

Within Klaviyo, you can extensively work with all the data available through integrations (more on that later). This includes requesting reviews, direct links to your e-commerce software, pulling in products to dynamically display in emails, and much more.

Thanks to Klaviyo’s data analytics solution, you can trigger flows based on real-time data. This allows you to send targeted emails based on your customers' behavior.

When it comes to marketing automation, Klaviyo is superior to Mailchimp. This is primarily due to the extensive capabilities for creating highly advanced flows, deep integrations, and data science opportunities. Mailchimp works well if you want to establish basic marketing automation. If you take the customer journey seriously, then Klaviyo is the best choice.

Winner: Klaviyo‍

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Measuring is knowing; guessing is missing, and gambling is paying... To optimize the funnel, data analysis is essential. Both Mailchimp and Klaviyo offer reporting and analysis capabilities.
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Rapportage en analyse Mailchimp

In Mailchimp, you have a complete overview of the last 7 days, 30 days, or a year. Other criteria, such as selecting the month, are not possible. Once you want to dig deeper or create your own reports, you quickly end up at the email detail level, causing you to miss the overall picture again. Furthermore, you need a premium subscription for comparative reports. It’s not easy to see the differences between automations and newsletters at a glance. Creating extra detailed analyses, deep dives, and custom reports is not possible.

Rapportage en analyse Klaviyo

Klaviyo is built for data-driven e-commerce, which is reflected in the reporting. All reports are performance-driven, and you do not need upgrades to utilize the reporting features.

There are standard reports to look at data in various ways. You can access this from the dashboard, metrics page, analytics tab, or specific emails.

In Klaviyo, we again see the difference and the reason why Klaviyo is indeed made for e-commerce; all reporting is performance-driven, and you do not need upgrades to take advantage of this. It is included by default.

There are various ways to view the data. From, among others, the dashboard, metrics page, analytics tab, or specific emails.

At a glance, you can see on the dashboard what the overall performance of email is and what percentage email contributes to total revenue. For Polaris Growth, this is a handy overview: if less than 30% of revenue comes from email, we can certainly help with this.

Furthermore, all emails, both flows and regular newsletters, can be viewed in one place. Here you can see not only which types of emails perform best based on revenue from placed orders but also report on other goals. Goals such as: “product viewed on the site,” “product added to cart,” “refund issued,” or “review submitted.”

Additionally, you can build your own dashboards in Klaviyo based on almost all the data available to you in Klaviyo. With 2 to 3 clicks, you have a dashboard containing useful information.

Because the integration with Klaviyo is so strong and they make the data readily available, there are many ways to report. Through the metrics menu option, you get a list of all the different goals.

You can then dive deeper into each goal. You have charts, activity feed, cohorts, best people, and the activity map. Charts provide an overview of the number of achieved actions over the selected time period, where you can apply additional filters for even more detailed reporting.

The activity feed is a list of profiles that have performed these actions most recently.

The cohorts also allow for further analysis, and the best people shows all the top individuals at a glance.

Overall, Mailchimp has relatively easy-to-use reporting and analysis options.

In comparison to Klaviyo, it is somewhat simplistic. Good for a beginner but limiting if you want to go further.

Due to the advanced and extensive reporting capabilities, the winner in this category is clear.

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Winner: Klaviyo‍

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Nowadays, it's almost impossible to work without integrations. No solution can do everything. Integrations allow these different solutions to communicate with each other, making life a lot easier, especially when you want to leverage data.

Both Mailchimp and Klaviyo offer an extensive list of integrations with third-party tools.

Integrations in Mailchimp

Due to its popularity, Mailchimp excels in this area with integrations with hundreds of tools. When you’re the most well-known, everyone wants to integrate with you. Even Klaviyo integrates with Mailchimp to simplify the transition. However, one well-known solution is missing from this list: Shopify. You can view the complete list of integrations here: https://mailchimp.com/integrations/ 

Integrations in Klaviyo

Klaviyo also has a large list of tools and platforms it integrates with, some of which have very deep integrations. They automatically link with the most popular e-commerce solutions, such as Shopify, Magento, Bigcommerce, and Woocommerce.

You can view the complete list here: https://connect.klaviyo.com/integrations/

For Shopify, you have handy options like automatically generating dynamic coupons and back-in-stock functionality. If you use Mailchimp, you will have to use the integration via a workaround.

The winner in this category is a bit more complicated and depends on what you're looking for. Mailchimp wins because it has more standard integrations. Klaviyo wins due to specific deep integrations like Shopify, which can be interesting for e-commerce businesses.

Winner: Klaviyo‍

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Both Mailchimp and Klaviyo offer pop-up functionality.
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Pop-ups Mailchimp

The functionality of Mailchimp is quite limited compared to the extensive options available in Klaviyo. You can create and design pop-ups and activate them on your website. It does what it needs to do.

Pop-ups Klaviyo

Klaviyo, like Mailchimp, allows you to create pop-ups/fly-outs and forms by default. Where Klaviyo goes further is that they also link this component to data. Additionally, it is possible to display only messages in a pop-up (without sign-up functions), schedule pop-ups, and effectively A/B test them.

The real strength lies in the ability to combine these pop-ups based on data. If someone is in a certain segment (it's their birthday, they are a VIP customer, they haven't purchased anything in a while?), you can show targeted messages. This allows you to display messages to the right audience with laser focus.

Winner: Klaviyo

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Both Mailchimp and Klaviyo offer support options, and there is a difference here.

Customer Service in Mailchimp

Mailchimp has many articles on their site, ranging from guides to tips to publications from their research. Most of these are text-based. Customer service is available via chat and email for paying customers. A free account has 30 days of email support, and premium offers the option for phone support.

Customer Service in Klaviyo

Klaviyo has a comprehensive help center where you can find everything about Klaviyo (and more). You can find literally everything here, from guides, webinars, conference recordings, videos, training sessions, instructions, etc. If you get stuck, others in the community can help you. You will also find our Founder, Omar Lovert, regularly as one of the Klaviyo Champions.

Customer service is available via email for both paying customers and free accounts. For free accounts, email support is available for the first 60 days. For paying customers, live chat is also available. For larger customers, you even get an account manager assigned to help with onboarding if you don't have a partner to assist you. From experience, we know that partners have a higher success rate in implementations than through account managers.

The biggest difference we've seen between Mailchimp and Klaviyo is the objective. Klaviyo aims to help e-commerce entrepreneurs get the most out of “Owned Marketing.” Everything they do and all available materials are focused on helping you become more successful. An example of this is during the COVID-19 outbreak, where they provide daily insights based on their data and surveys among many e-commerce businesses. This is to help companies gain insights into what is working, what isn’t, etc.

Winner: Klaviyo‍

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Mailchimp is a good marketing automation tool if you are just starting out. If you only want to send newsletters, this is the best option.

The results from Klaviyo are significantly higher than those from Mailchimp. This is due to the extensive functionalities of Klaviyo that grow with your e-commerce store. If you take growth seriously, you should choose Klaviyo. Their data-driven approach ensures that the system works better as more data becomes available.

Do you want to know more about migrating from Mailchimp to Klaviyo? Or what the revenue potential is of switching to Klaviyo? Then contact us for a no-obligation conversation.

This article provides a comprehensive explanation of the differences between Klaviyo and Mailchimp and which of these two tools we recommend for e-commerce.