Klaviyo vs. Mailchimp for Shopify: Pros, Cons, and Features

When you’re running an eCommerce business on Shopify, your marketing efforts must yield results. Use the wrong platform, and you’re just flushing money down the toilet.

With email marketing, it’s no different. You want a platform that’s going to seamlessly integrate, give you all the nifty bells and whistles, and yield a healthy ROI for your business. 

In this blog, we’ll take a deep dive into Klaviyo vs. Mailchimp for Shopify. You’ll come away with a good understanding of the different features and pros and cons on offer from these two email marketing giants. 

Klaviyo vs. Mailchimp: Features

eCommerce businesses have unique needs when it comes to online marketing and email marketing specifically. They need something with easy integration, and that can support a multitude of eCommerce objectives. 

The way an eCommerce business owner would use email marketing would be fundamentally different from, say, an indie author or a nonprofit. And the email marketing platform you’ll ultimately choose would need to reflect that. 

Both Mailchimp and Klaviyo offer the following features that are beneficial to running a successful Shopify store:

• Automations — Automations capabilities in both platforms allow you to send personalized, relevant emails automatically. 
• Reporting — Mailchimp and Klaviyo give detailed reports on engagement and revenue from specific campaigns that can help you better understand subscriber behavior and capitalize on it. 
• Segmentation — Segmentation features from both providers enable you to send highly relevant content based on granular data and improve your ROI. 
• Tags — You can manage highly specific audience data with tags through both platforms.  

While Mailchimp does offer a range of helpful features for Shopify merchants, Klaviyo’s got them beat. With Klaviyo, you get a more robust selection that can further support your eCommerce goals: 

• Better Shopify integration — Klaviyo offers greater segmentation capabilities with Shopify specifically. 
• More than just email — Reach all the customers on all the channels. Klaviyo lets you market to a broader audience in-app, on social, on your website, and through email.
• Enhanced onboarding support — Mailchimp makes reaching customer support into an FBI-level secret. But Klaviyo goes the extra mile, especially for merchants with large email lists. People with 125K + subscribers get dedicated onboarding support to help them strategize and make the most of their marketing. 

No hidden costs. Extra goodies with Klaviyo

Another bonus you’ll get with Klaviyo is there aren’t any hidden fees with the service. What you see is what you get after purchasing the tool. 

Additionally, you get some extra goodies with a Klaviyo account you won’t find with Mailchimp:

• Back-in-stock automations and unique coupon codes for increasing engagement and upsells
• Advanced popups to capture new leads 
• Multi-variate testing to boost your campaign’s effectiveness
• Zapier integrations for more robust marketing initiatives and increased productivity

Price

The more features a platform offers, the more it’s going to cost. This truth is universal, and it also applies to Klaviyo vs. Mailchimp for Shopify. 

Klaviyo is the pricier option. But you get more bang for your buck, and the price for the value is worth it. 

Although on its face, Klaviyo costs more than Mailchimp, you won’t get hit with any hidden fees, which is a risk with Mailchimp. 

With Klaviyo, you only pay for the number of email contacts and any SMS messages you send. That’s it. Mailchimp would charge you for yawning when you configure an email campaign if they could get away with it. 

Klaviyo lets you create an account, import your contacts, sync data, and customize emails — all for free. You can also send up to 250 subscribers a maximum of 500 emails at no cost. The platform only charges a monthly subscription fee once you hit 251 contacts. 

Let’s say you have 10K contacts. You’d pay:

• $150 a month with Klaviyo
• $99 a month with Mailchimp

That might seem like a steep difference. But these accounts aren’t created equally. A $150 per month Klaviyo subscription with 10K contacts would get you:

• SMS texts
• Phone push notifications
• Segmentation reports
• Unlimited monthly email sends
• Future spend and churn probability reports

Unlike Klaviyo, Mailchimp doesn’t give you these advanced features and capabilities. Plus, Mailchimp limits your monthly email sends to 120,000. With Klaviyo, it’s unlimited. 

Klaviyo vs. Mailchimp for Shopify: The verdict is in

Choosing the right marketing tools for your business can be overwhelming. While we highly recommend Klaviyo for our clients, we understand that it might not be the right fit for your unique eCommerce business. It’s important to evaluate the pros, cons, and features of an email service provider before you go all in and invest in one specific tool. 
Do you have any questions about Mailchimp vs. Klaviyo and which one is right for your Shopify store? Shoot us a quick message, and let’s talk!