Launch Your Online Business in Just 7 Days
Mailchimp vs. Klaviyo — pros and cons
Mailchimp’s audience management
Ecommerce and marketing automation
Mailchimp’s ecommerce and automation tools
Klaviyo’s ecommerce and automation tools
Mailchimp’s analytics and reporting
Klaviyo’s analytics and reporting
Which platform should you choose?
Systeme.io — The best all-in-one marketing platform
If you’re looking for an email marketing software that’ll take your marketing game to the next level, then you’ve probably come across Mailchimp and Klaviyo.
Both platforms are great for any ecommerce business that wants an advanced tool that offers great features without breaking the bank.
To help you choose, we created this Mailchimp vs. Klaviyo face-off, where we’ll compare their features and pricing, and ultimately help you decide which one is best for your business.
Let’s get started!
Mailchimp logo
Mailchimp is a popular email marketing platform thanks to its easy-to-use tools and beginner-friendly interface.
Chestnut and Dan Kurzius launched the platform in 2001 and the brand has since captured the attention of over 13 million users with its quirky imagery, easy-to-use interface, and often humorous content.
While Mailchimp was initially created as an email marketing platform, nowadays it’s become more of an all-in-one solution.
Can Klaviyo contend with this fan favorite?
Klaviyo logo
Klaviyo was founded by Andrew Bialecki and Ed Hallen in 2012 as an ecommerce platform with data management in mind and has worked hard to give business owners control of their marketing.
Although they’re much younger than their opponent, Klaviyo has seen a recent surge in customers — doubling their user base to 70,000 in just 12 months and raising $675 million from investors so far.
Intrigued? Keep reading to find out how these platforms measure up based on real user feedback.
We know every moment is precious, so we’ve saved you the effort and scoured hundreds of reviews about these 2 platforms.
Here are some Mailchimp pros and cons, according to real users:
Pros
Cons
Now, let’s compare those to the best (and worst) that Klaviyo has to offer, according to their customers:
Pros
Cons
If none of the cons is a dealbreaker for you, we can move forward to the main topic of this post — comparing their features.
Now, let’s take a deep dive into Mailchimp's and Klaviyo’s main features to see if they have what you’re looking for in your future email marketing software.
Below, we’ll cover:
Independently of what email marketing platform you choose, it must (at minimum) allow you to build, design, and launch fully-functional email marketing campaigns for your contact list.
Klaviyo and Mailchimp can do all of this and more for you, with a few differences.
Mailchimp’s email marketing page
Mailchimp’s email marketing tools let you easily create professional-looking emails by choosing one of the 100+ free responsive email templates available and customizing it with their drag and drop email editor.
However, to erase Mailchimp’s branding from your emails you’ll have to be on a paid plan.
With Mailchimp, you also can:
Also, Mailchimp recently launched 2 new tools to help their users create better content for their emails:
1. Content Optimizer — Compare your copy to email best practices and get suggestions to improve your writing, imagery, and layout
2. Creative Assistant — Instantly create good-looking multichannel email designs with the power of A.I.
If email design is your top priority, you might want to check out those tools.
Now, let’s see what features Klaviyo has for you.
Klaviyo’s send time scheduling
Klaviyo has a slight learning curve, but after you get the hang of it you’ll find it easy to create your emails and set up email marketing campaigns.
Klaviyo gives you:
As an email marketing solution, Klaviyo gives you all the necessary tools to craft effective email campaigns that’ll reach and convert your contacts, but it lacks some of the advanced features Mailchimp offers.
Winner: Mailchimp — for offering more advanced design tools and for being simpler to use
Mailchimp: 1 - Klaviyo: 0
To launch a successful email marketing campaign, you’ll need a platform that offers advanced segmentation tools — that way you can ensure that you’ll always send content your contacts want to click on.
Both Klaviyo and Mailchimp offer good segmentation tools to divide your contacts based on their unique attributes.
Source: Mailchimp.com
Mailchimp has 3 main segmentation tools:
1. Tags — Label your contacts based on their interaction with your website
2. Groups — Let your contacts self-categorize themselves
3. Segments — Divide your audience based on the data you’ve collected from them
Many users don’t know how to use these features, so we’ll give you an example:
Let’s say that you’re offering a coaching service.
1. Every time someone signs up to get your service they get tagged as a coaching client
2. Then during the sign-up process, you display three groups for them to label themselves based on their experience level (Newbie, Pro, or Expert)
3. Lastly, you segment them based on the data you collected during the sign-up process (location, tags, clicked elements, selected group, etc.)
With these tools, you can carefully organize your audience according to what they want from you.
Mailchimp also offers:
However, Mailchimp has 3 crucial limitations:
1. You can only export an email list to Mailchimp using Comma Separated Value (CSV) files and copy-pasting
2. You can’t include contacts from different lists in the same email marketing campaign on their free plan
3. The advanced segmentation features are only available in the most expensive plan
Now, let’s see how Klaviyo stands against Mailchimp.
Source: Klaviyo.com
To manage your contacts, Klaviyo gives you some of the same tools that you get with Mailchimp, like tags, segments, and behavioral targeting, but you also get some additional features:
Klaviyo’s customer profiles feature allows you to see all the past interactions your customers had with your store — which helps you make possible predictions of future engagement.
Also, Klaviyo’s segmentation tools are far more advanced than Mailchimp’s, as they let you create 7 different types of segments to optimize your email marketing campaigns:
1. Cross-sell segment — Offer clients products that might complement their previous purchases
2. Location-based segment — Launch targeted promotions to contacts from specific regions
3. Item and brand-specific segment — Present your contacts with only the brands they’re interested in
4. Engagement tier segment — Divide your audience based on the level of engagement with your emails and ecommerce business
5. Churn risk segment — See the likelihood of customers stopping purchasing your products
6. Average order value (AOV) segment — Group your customers based on how much they spend on average
7. Holiday Shoppers Segment — Get a glance at what customers are more likely to make a purchase during special Holiday offers
When importing contacts, just like Mailchimp, you only have the option to do it through CSV files.
Winner: Klaviyo — for offering more segmentation opportunities to personalize your content and give value to your leads
Mailchimp: 1 - Klaviyo: 1
To level up your ecommerce store, you’ll need your future email marketing platform to have advanced email automation capabilities to create automated workflows that will run parts of your business for you.
Both Mailchimp and Klaviyo have great email marketing automation tools, but the former is far more limited.
Mailchimp’s automation workflow
Mailchimp's automation features are very simple in comparison to its competitor, but they’re still good for creating automated triggers based on your marketing needs.
With Mailchimp, you’ll get:
You’ll also get a series of premade workflows that you can choose based on your marketing goals:
However, your automated workflow is limited to “and” conditions — which only allows you to set up a single path for your customer journey and forces buyers to meet all requirements to move to the next stage.
You’ll also need to be on a paid plan to get most of these features or you’ll be stuck with single-trigger welcome emails and order notifications.
Let’s see how Klaviyo does against Mailchimp.
Klaviyo’s automated workflow
Klaviyo offers stronger automation features than Mailchimp by allowing new and experienced ecommerce merchants to set up complex automated workflows with numerous triggers and conditions.
With Klaviyo you get all the features that Mailchimp offers, but with an upgrade.
For example:
And more!
Klaviyo gives you access to all these features in their Free plan, so you don’t need to upgrade to try them out.
Winner: Kaviyo — for offering more automation tools and giving access to them from the start
Mailchimp 1 - Klaviyo 2
To have a successful online business you’ll need a to keep track of your customers’ data, that way you can:
Next in this Klaviyo vs.
Mailchimp comparison, we’ll show you how these platforms can help you collect and manage data from your campaigns and contacts.
Source: Mailchimp.com
Mailchimp offers a wide variety of metrics that provide insight into the effectiveness of your email campaigns and possible areas of improvement.
Mailchimp’s marketing CRM will cover all the basic analytics, and also:
All the data is presented in your campaign page in a way that’s easier for beginners to understand, but, once again, most of these features are only available if you have a Premium account.
Moving on to Klaviyo.
Klaviyo’s business performance page
Klaviyo puts a lot of effort into making their interface as data-driven as possible to help their users make the most out of their features — which can be overwhelming if you’re new to email marketing.
With Klaviyo, you get:
With these tools, you’ll be able to:
To collect even more data, Klaviyo integrates seamlessly with various well-known digital tools and ecommerce platforms, like Shopify or BigCommerce.
Winner: Klaviyo — for offering more actionable metrics to help you predict customer behavior and improve your marketing campaigns
Mailchimp 1 - Klaviyo 3
Despite offering email marketing services for ecommerce companies, Klaviyo and Mailchimp have some extra features that are worth mentioning.
For example:
Now, let’s see which of these platforms will be lighter on your budget.
Both Mailchimp and Klaviyo have a similar pricing method — pay as your audience grows, so you can start with a free account and, after reaching a certain number of contacts, you’ll be upgraded to a paid account.
However, there are some important differences you should consider before making your pick.
Mailchimp has 4 pricing plans:
Mailchimp’s pricing plans
For 500 contacts, each plan costs:
You’ll get different prices and features depending on the plan you choose.
To receive phone support, you’ll need to be on the Premium plan — other plans only offer email support.
If you’re in the Premium plan and you surpass the limit of 200,000 contacts, you can get in touch with Mailchimp’s sales team to build a personalized plan for you.
You can also choose the Pay As You Go plan, where you buy credits and use them every time you send emails, instead of paying a monthly fee, and you get access to the features of the Standard plan.
Klaviyo’s pricing is more straightforward than Mailchimp’s.
Klaviyo’s pricing
Klaviyo’s cost depends on the number of contacts and whether you bought their SMS marketing tool.
500 contacts, will cost you:
You can start for free for up to 250 emails and 50 SMSes and get access to all its features, plus email and chat support.
Once you pass 500 contacts, your total emails and SMS sends will increase accordingly.
Winner: Tie — Mailchimp has lower prices and offers another payment option, but its advanced features are in its most expensive plan, while Klaviyo gives you access to its entire arsenal from the get-go, but at a higher price
Mailchimp 2 - Klaviyo 4
You should choose Mailchimp if:
You should choose Klaviyo if:
If these 2 platforms don’t have the features and price you’re looking for, then we can present you with a powerful free alternative that has everything you need to set up and launch automated email campaigns.
systeme.io logo
Systeme.io is a powerful all-in-one solution that has all the tools you need to craft beautiful emails, build automated workflows, and launch email marketing campaigns in one place and for a single price.
As an all-in-one platform, we have many features, but if you’re only looking for an email marketing tool — we got you covered.
With our native email marketing tools, you’ll get:
Our other tools will let you:
You might think that a platform that offers so much would surely be really expensive, but unlike Mailchimp and Klaviyo — systeme.io has a fixed price for all its pricing plans.
Speaking of pricing plans. . .
We offer 4 pricing plans:
systeme.io’s pricing plans
If you have any questions our world-class, 24/7 email support will answer them in approximately 2 hours.
You don’t need to pay to get started, you can sign up for our Free plan, set up your entire online business, and upgrade after you get results!
Here we have some frequently asked questions (and their answers) about both platforms.
You can’t do affiliate marketing or make and send custom quotes, invoices, and contracts.
Currently, Klaviyo is not optimized to support more than one integration within a single account, but you can create multiple accounts with the same email address and switch between them from your Account dropdown menu.
Yes.
Mailchimp is famous for its ease of use and intuitive UI, so even complete beginners can take their first steps with Mailchimp..
Klaviyo currently has thousands of 5-star reviews in the Shopify app store and is one of the top email marketing tools in Shopify app store search results.
During this Klaviyo vs. Mailchimp comparison, we’ve analyzed their features and pricing to determine which platform better suits your marketing needs and budget.
Mailchimp is more accessible and simpler to get started with, while Klaviyo is more sophisticated and data-driven.
However, both platforms have great tools you can take advantage of if you can afford them.
Systeme.io is a powerful alternative that’s just as effective and no way near as expensive — making it a more sustainable option with more room to grow thanks to all of our additional features.
You can get started with our Free plan, get a taste of our features, and then upgrade once you’re ready!
We’ll be waiting for you.
Other posts Mailchimp and Klaviyo
Download the book
Get this free guide
The New System to Launch
an Online Business
What you'll learn:
We HATE spam. Your email address is 100% secure
PRODUCT
© systeme.io. All rights reserved.
© systeme.io. All rights reserved.