Klaviyo alternatives, and when switching makes sense

The Klaviyo alternatives worth looking at for a Shopify store are Omnisend, Mailchimp and Shopify's own messaging tool. Each one is cheaper in some situation. Switching only makes sense when the bill is the real problem and you are not using what Klaviyo sells: purchase data turned into flows and segments. If you are, a cheaper tool usually costs you more in orders than it saves in fees.

A note before we start: we are a Klaviyo partner and it is the platform we use in most of the accounts we run. So we only state what each brand says on its own pages, checked on October 6, 2026 and linked at the end, and we say where Klaviyo is the wrong choice.

What the top results for this search have in common

Search for Klaviyo alternatives and the first page is lists written by competing platforms and by agencies that sell them. Each one puts its own product first, which is not strange, but it means almost none of them answers the question you have before comparing tools: should I switch at all?

That is the gap this article covers. We compare three alternatives with facts from their own pages, and then give the criteria we use with clients to decide whether moving is worth the work.

The three alternatives, side by side

Two rows deserve a closer look.

Free is not the same across tools. Klaviyo and Omnisend start in the same place: 250 profiles and 500 emails a month. Shopify Email gives you a very different kind of free: you are limited by emails sent, not by contacts. It is 10,000 a month, then a flat rate per email. For a store with a big list that sends little, that is the cheapest setup that exists.

How each one counts contacts changes the bill more than the list price. Klaviyo does not bill unsubscribed or suppressed profiles. Omnisend does not bill unsubscribed contacts either. Mailchimp does bill them unless you archive them. Our Klaviyo vs Mailchimp comparison works through that with a 25,000-contact example.

To see what Klaviyo costs at your list size, use our Klaviyo pricing calculator. We do not copy Omnisend's prices here: its page shows the price through a selector by contact range, so the figure you need is the one you see for your own list.

Omnisend, the closest to Klaviyo

Omnisend describes itself as one platform for ecommerce email and SMS, with automations that mix channels, and it connects to Shopify. It is the nearest thing to Klaviyo in approach, which is why it tops almost every list.

Where it fits: a store that wants flows and segments but is under real cost pressure, and that does not need Klaviyo's per-customer prediction.

Where it does not: if you rely on the predicted date of the next order or churn risk, check that Omnisend has an equivalent before you count on it. Do not assume it moves with you.

Mailchimp, for newsletters first

Mailchimp is cheaper on list price once you pass 5,000 contacts, but it was built for newsletters and added ecommerce later. If most of what you send is content, it is a sensible choice. If email is meant to be a sales channel, read the automations and prediction sections of our Klaviyo vs Mailchimp article before deciding.

Shopify Email, if you send little

Shopify says you can send up to 10,000 manual or automated emails a month for free, then $1 per 1,000 more. It also offers automation templates such as welcome, winback and upsell, and lets you build custom workflows with triggers, conditions and wait steps.

It is the right tool for a young store that wants a welcome email and a monthly campaign without paying for a platform. We tell those clients not to start with Klaviyo yet.

The trade-off is depth. The pages we checked describe templates and workflows, not the flow library, segmentation and prediction you get in a dedicated platform. If your plan includes the flows every store should have running with different branches by customer type, check that the workflows can build them before you commit.

When switching makes sense

In our experience it makes sense when:

• you send mostly newsletters and have no flows beyond a welcome email;
• your list is large and mostly inactive, and cleaning it does not bring the price down enough;
• you are a young store with little order history, so prediction has nothing to learn from;
• you cannot afford the hours to build and maintain flows, so you pay for a platform you do not use.

When it does not

• You have flows that bring in revenue today. Abandoned cart, abandoned checkout, post-purchase and back in stock all have to be rebuilt, tested and left to run before you see the same results again.
• The bill is high because the list is dirty, not because Klaviyo is expensive. Klaviyo bills active profiles, so suppress the ones who never open before you do anything else.
• Your emails already struggle to reach the inbox. A new platform means a new sending setup and a new reputation to build. If you are not sure why your mail lands in spam, read why your emails go to spam first: moving does not fix a domain problem.

If you do switch, in this order

1. Authenticate the sending domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC before the first send. Our SPF, DKIM and DMARC guide explains how.
2. Export your suppressions and unsubscribes and load them first. Writing to someone who already asked to leave is the fastest way to damage a new account.
3. Rebuild the revenue flows first, starting with abandoned cart, and leave the old ones running in parallel.
4. Warm up the new account by sending to your most engaged contacts before the rest.
5. Keep the old platform for a few weeks until the new flows are producing orders. Then cancel.

If you want the first step checked, our email deliverability checker tests the domain setup.

Sources

Checked on October 6, 2026.

• Omnisend pricing, including how it bills contacts
• Omnisend for Shopify
• Klaviyo pricing and what an active profile is
• Mailchimp: which contacts count
• Shopify Email and automations