Cheaper than Klaviyo: 6 High ROI marketing tools in 2026

Cheaper than Klaviyo is easy enough to find. Klaviyo’s monthly plans bill using active profiles, the ones you can market to, and there are several tools with lower entry prices for the very same contact counts.

Of course, not all affordable Klaviyo alternatives offer comparable or superior ecommerce features. One of the best things about Klaviyo is that it keeps things simple, with one paid Email plan providing access to all standard features.

Our job today is to determine which email tools are cheaper than Klaviyo, and which compete on features and provide similar or better value.

This article compares six email marketing platforms you should seriously consider if you’re an existing or prospective Klaviyo customer. We’ll also provide practical advice for switching.

Why your Klaviyo bill keeps climbing (and why it’s not an accident)

Klaviyo charges you for active profiles, which are the contacts that you’re allowed to send marketing to. It counts the ones you email and the ones you don’t, for as long as they remain marketable.

It isn’t an accident that your bill keeps climbing when you have a growing list; it’s how Klaviyo moves you into more expensive tiers.

The active profiles pricing model explained

Active profiles are any profiles you can market to. These include those who subscribed to marketing via a form and those collected during checkout.

Exclusions for active profiles are suppressed contacts and those who have unsubscribed, as neither can receive your marketing.

Klaviyo moved to an active profile pricing model in February 2025. It previously billed using the number of profiles you emailed. You could theoretically store a list of 10,000 contacts and only email 1,000 of them in a cycle, and pay for a plan for 1,000 contacts.

Billing for active profiles works in Klaviyo’s favor because it lands you in a more expensive tier without ongoing list management, which not everyone has the time for. It came as somewhat of a shock for those who were caught unawares by the change.

What Klaviyo’s pricing costs at each contact tier

Check out Klaviyo’s tiers from 250 to 100,000 contacts as of June 2026. All paid tiers from 500 contacts use a 10x active profile multiplier for the email quota:

The lowest entry point to Klaviyo is the free plan. It’s competitive for contact count and email sends compared with several other tools, but it doesn’t let you use A/B tests and only includes email support for the first 60 days./sh

Klaviyo’s SMS pricing

Klaviyo provides an SMS add-on. It includes 150 SMS credits in all plans. You can then purchase an additional batch of credits, from 1,250 credits for $15/month. 

That SMS add-on is in addition to your Email plan, so the minimum spend is $35/month ($20/month for Email, $15/month for SMS credits).

The next plan is 2,500 credits for $25/month, so there are discounts for bulk buys, in this case, a $5/month reduction versus two batches of 1,250.

Let’s say you’re on the $20/month Email plan. It includes 5,000 emails/month, and you want to match that quota with SMS credits. 5,000 SMS credits are $45/month. Your total price for 5,000 emails and 5,000 mobile messages/month is $65.

A quick comparison of the platforms that are cheaper than Klaviyo

Our table below compares six top email marketing and automation tools, several of which come in cheaper than Klaviyo at common tiers. All prices are accurate as of June 2026:

The absolute cheapest Klaviyo alternative here is MailerLite at $15/month for 1,000 contacts, followed by Brevo, and then Omnisend.

Omnisend vs. Klaviyo pricing: A detailed breakdown

Omnisend’s plans provide better value than Klaviyo regardless of how many profiles you have.

Klaviyo has one Email plan and an SMS add-on. Omnisend has a Standard plan for email marketing and a Pro plan that provides access to SMS marketing and advanced features that rival Klaviyo’s enterprise ones:

The Omnisend Standard plan undercuts Klaviyo by a significant margin. The Pro plan starts from $59/month for 2,500 contacts, versus $60/month for the same contact count in Klaviyo’s email plan. We’ll cover these in detail below.

The table below compares Omnisend and Klaviyo’s features as of June 2026:

What Omnisend includes that Klaviyo doesn’t support or charges extra for

Klaviyo’s Email plan includes all standard features, but it also sells add-ons that could inflate your monthly cost. Omnisend includes more standard features in all plans. A few highlights:

• Lifecycle stage maps. All Omnisend plans have them, based on RFM analysis. Klaviyo requires the paid Marketing Analytics add-on at $100+/month.
• Global SMS coverage. Omnisend covers all markets, whereas Klaviyo restricts your SMS marketing to 24 countries as of June 2026.
• Professional support. Klaviyo requires a success and support package from $300/month on top of your paid Email plan. Omnisend includes an account expert when your plan exceeds $400/month and offers the kickstart service for assisted migration when your plan exceeds $250+/month.
• Web push notifications. Not natively supported by Klaviyo. Only Omnisend lets you add these to your automations and create web push campaigns.
• Free plan restrictions. Omnisend provides 24/7 live chat and email support indefinitely for free. With Klaviyo, you only get email support for the first 60 days. Additionally, Omnisend allows A/B tests in campaigns and automations for free.

Savings scenarios for 1K, 5K, 10K, 15K, and 25K contacts

You’ll save money with Omnisend, although your savings depend on whether you pick the Standard or Pro plan.

We’ve provided Omnisend vs. Klaviyo pricing comparison tables below, spread across popular contact counts. All prices are accurate as of June 2026:

Standard plan

The Standard plan provides access to all standard email marketing features. It undercuts Klaviyo anywhere from $10/month to over $140/month across popular tiers:

Pro plan

Omnisend’s Pro plan is closer to Klaviyo’s pricing. The value comes from its enterprise features and unlimited email sends across all tiers. Klaviyo places a cap on email sends.

Also, you’d pick the Pro plan primarily for its SMS capabilities. You buy these in batches in Omnisend, starting from $10/month for 1,111 SMS at $0.009/SMS. Klaviyo’s SMS credits cost more, starting at $0.012/send for 1,250 credits at $15/month (both US sends).

SMS savings versus Klaviyo

You pay less to send text messages to your customers with Omnisend.

Omnisend’s minimum spend for SMS credits is $10/month for 1,111 credits versus Klaviyo’s $15/month for 1,250 credits. The volume rate at those prices is $0.009/credit with Omnisend versus $0.012/credit with Klaviyo (US rate).

At the same $15/month price, Omnisend provides 1,667 credits/month to Klaviyo’s 1,250 credits, equating to around 33% more SMS credits for the same spend.

Best for: Omnisend is best for ecommerce automation and ROI. Omnisend customers generated a $79 ROI for every $1 spent in 2025 across email, SMS, and web push notifications. 

Brevo vs. Klaviyo cost: Is it actually cheaper?

Brevo has cheaper entry points than Klaviyo, although it isn’t the easiest to compare against because it uses send-based pricing and has three paid plans:

Klaviyo charges on active profiles, the contacts you can market to. Brevo charges on emails sent per month, and ties your contact allowance to the email tier you pick.

The table below compares Brevo’s paid plans from 5,000 to 20,000 emails as of June 2026. The Professional plan starts at a much higher send quota:

The send-based pricing sees you choose a monthly email quota. Brevo’s plans then provide a set contact count number, with the only way to increase your allowable contact count being to add more emails to your plan.

Let’s assume you’re sending four emails per contact per month and create a Brevo vs. Klaviyo cost scenario: Here’s how they compare:

The second column for emails sent is what you send at a weekly cadence, not each plan’s limit. Brevo bills on emails, Klaviyo bills on contacts, so sending more often pushes you up Brevo’s tiers and shrinks the gap.

You’re probably wondering when that pricing structure makes sense. It does so when you’re sending low email volumes and have a large list.

The downside to those low prices is that Brevo has significant feature restrictions in its lowest-cost plans. You miss out on A/B testing, reusable content sections, click heatmaps, and landing pages in the Starter plan.

Even the Standard plan has no reusable content sections, back-in-stock alerts, dynamic coupons, AI segmentation, or popups, all of which Omnisend includes for free.

You can look at this two ways. Either you’re paying for the features you need, or you’re paying more for features we’d say are crucial for ecommerce. Omnisend, for comparison’s sake, offers more ecommerce features across all its plans.

There’s something else to know. Like Klaviyo, Brevo sells add-ons that can inflate your price, including:

• Sales Essentials: Adds from $31/month to your plan. Includes sales automation, deals, pipelines, forecasting, and revenue reports.
• Sales Advanced: From $65/month, includes the features in Sales Essentials, plus an AI chatbot and phone VoIP.

Best for: Brevo is one of the top cheaper alternatives to Klaviyo if you have a large list, but send to it infrequently. As soon as you hit $29/month spend in the Starter plan, you can store up to 500,000 contacts and send 20,000 emails.

MailerLite vs. Klaviyo: What you gain and what you give up

MailerLite is cheaper than Klaviyo, Omnisend, and Brevo. It offers three plans (one free, two paid) with a balance of ecommerce and creator features:

The table below compares MailerLite vs. Klaviyo prices in 2026:

MailerLite’s cheaper tier (Growing Business) undercuts Klaviyo at every level. Its highest tier (Advanced) only pulls ahead once you’re past 1,000 contacts.

The Growing Business plan starts at $10/month for 500 subscribers and unlimited monthly emails. That’s half the price of Klaviyo, and $4/month less than Omnisend.

It also has product-selling features. You can send paid newsletters, sell recurring subscriptions, and sell digital products and bookings in all plans. There’s a website builder, too, with unlimited website builds across all paid plans.

However, only the Advanced plan from $20/month has a custom HTML editor, promotion popups, advanced automations, and an AI writing assistant. At that price, you’re paying the same as Klaviyo up to 1,000 contacts for fewer ecommerce capabilities.

The table below compares Klaviyo and MailerLite’s capabilities:

MailerLite’s flows lack trigger and entry point complexity. Building multichannel customer journeys also isn’t possible as MailerLite doesn’t natively offer SMS or web push notifications.

One use case where MailerLite does pull ahead is if you’re a bulk sender and want to blast newsletters now and again. MailerLite’s free plan supports 500 subscribers, and it lets you send 12,000 emails/month, making it a top cheaper alternative to Klaviyo.

Best for: Mass campaigns and predictable customer journeys with flows. Its product-selling features can also serve as a revenue-generating channel with payment processing. Klaviyo is a superior email tool for advanced automation, but it is more expensive.

Other platforms worth considering

You now have a three-strong pool of affordable Klaviyo alternatives in Omnisend, Brevo, and MailerLite. But there are three more to consider in Privy, Drip, and Shopify Messaging, which we’ll cover in detail below.

Privy (and the Sendlane ecosystem)

Privy bought Sendlane, a popular email and SMS tool, in February 2026 and folded it into its platform. So, if you’ve seen Sendlane mentioned as a Klaviyo alternative in any recent articles, you should be looking at Privy instead.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s discuss Privy. It’s an email plus SMS marketing tool, but it’s perhaps best-known for its popups and other list-building tools:

You can purchase an Email plan that includes popups and display features, or you can subscribe to the Pop-Ups & Displays Only plan for $24/month.

It isn’t uncommon for some Shopify merchants to use Privy’s list-building features alongside Shopify Messaging as a low-cost solution to covering basic customer journeys.

Is Privy cheaper than Klaviyo? Across most tiers, it is, as the table below shows:

10,000 is the interesting contact tier when comparing pricing, as it’s the only tier where Privy is more expensive than Klaviyo (+$15) up to 25,000 contacts.

Privy’s suitability as your unified email and SMS platform depends on whether its basic flows are capable of covering your complete customer lifecycle.

It has limited automation and reporting depth compared with Klaviyo and doesn’t function as a B2C CRM, either. Additionally, it lacks Omnisend’s global SMS coverage.

Best for: Small Shopify stores wanting to build high-converting forms, mini quizzes, popups, and other elements for list growth. It can potentially replace Shopify Messaging for email and bring SMS capabilities to your store.

Drip

Drip is an ecommerce email and SMS marketing tool, with SMS capabilities available after contacting support to activate them.

Its plans start at 2,500 contacts for $39/month with unlimited emails, undercutting Klaviyo’s price for the same contact count by a healthy $21/month.

Those unlimited emails are the same value proposition MailerLite offers in its paid plans. You only get a 10x contact send limit in Klaviyo, so Drip is the better tool for mass sends.

Here’s how Drip vs. Klaviyo pricing plays out across popular contact tiers:

Drip is cheaper than Klaviyo at most tiers but crosses above Klaviyo at 10,000 (+$4), then drops back below at 25,000, in a similar story to what happens with Privy’s pricing.

The pitch for Drip is that it’s a simpler, more intuitive ecommerce email tool than Klaviyo. But you do give up predictive analytics, advanced triggers, and deeper ecommerce integration.

Best for: Small to mid-size ecommerce stores needing unlimited email sends regardless of plan level. Basic automations are well-covered by Drip, but it doesn’t offer the analytics that Klaviyo does, nor does it provide a free plan.

Shopify Messaging

Shopify Messaging is Shopify’s native marketing app for campaigns, working alongside another app, Shopify Flows, to manage your email automations linked to customer behavior.

It’s free for 10,000 emails/month. After that, the price is $1 USD for 1,000 emails, equating to $0.001/send, up to 300,000 emails. Surpassing the 300,000 send limit drops the price to $0.65 per additional 1,000 emails.

For instance, if you send 16,000 emails this month, 10,000 are free, and 6,000 are chargeable, costing you $6 in total.

Automation templates cover welcoming subscribers, recovering site visitors, post-purchase experiences, and customer appreciation.

It also supports SMS following a December 2025 update. The standard price per message for SMS in Shopify Messaging is $0.012/send to US numbers.

The point of Shopify Messaging versus Klaviyo is that it’s native to Shopify, so it exists within the Shopify dashboard and does not require logging in anywhere else.

You’re probably wondering: Can I use Shopify Email instead of Klaviyo? You sure can, if you’re happy with its basic automations and email-building capabilities.

Also, consider that you need additional apps for forms, popups, and other interactive elements, whereas Klaviyo includes these in one platform.

Best for: Small Shopify stores with no appetite for learning a new tool and managing email and SMS marketing separately. It’s also a cheaper Shopify email marketing tool regardless of how many emails you send.

How to switch from Klaviyo without losing your data

Omnisend has built-in tools to assist you in switching over from Klaviyo. You can also call on 24/7 support during your migration, or make use of the free kickstart service if you’re on a plan with $250+ in monthly spend, to move over and preserve your data.

1. Create an Omnisend account and pick a marketing plan that matches your contact database size in Klaviyo
2. Log in to Omnisend
3. Connect your store to Omnisend
4. Select Apps in the top menu:

5. Search for Klaviyo Data Import Tool on the App Market page to open the app:

6. Click Connect now 

7. Log in to your Klaviyo account and copy your API key

8. Paste your private API key into the API field in Omnisend:

9. Click Connect

10. Click Sync contacts & segments

Your data will now import automatically from Klaviyo into Omnisend. The sync is a manual action, meaning it does not continually pull in data in real-time. 

If there’s a gap between your initial sync and closing your Klaviyo account, it’s good practice to initiate another manual sync to pull in your latest data.

Some segments that use AND/OR combinations and unsupported fields won’t migrate over from Klaviyo into Omnisend, but you can rebuild them using pre-built segments. Omnisend’s AI segment builder will also assist you in rebuilding the segments you need.

Recreating your automations is possible using the 28 pre-built flows in Omnisend, and building flows from scratch. You can filter pre-built flows by type, goal, and channel:

Rebuilding your email templates is also intuitive using HTML. Omnisend lets you import HTML code into templates and mimic your Klaviyo templates quickly.

When does Klaviyo actually make sense?

Klaviyo makes sense if you’re a growing ecommerce store with email and SMS as primary channels, and you collect data that can feed into its predictive analytics and the B2C CRM.

Building complex customer journeys with multiple steps, triggers, and entry/exit points is where Klaviyo earns its keep and can generate excellent ROI.

There’s also the case for staying with Klaviyo if you’re integrated deep into its ecosystem. Any flows with complex AND/OR logic and filters are going to be difficult to perfectly rebuild in any other tool unless it offers the same depth of features.

To sum up:

• Klaviyo is worth it if you send email, SMS, and RCS across basic and complex customer paths, and can generate an ROI despite the monthly costs.
• It makes sense if you’re a mid-sized or large ecommerce store wanting to unify customer service, helpdesks, and basic CRM features with your email marketing.
• If you have other CRM, CDP, and customer data analytics tools, then Klaviyo’s 350+ app integrations probably cover your stack.

Conclusion

Klaviyo’s prices per tier are higher than our alternatives across most contact counts, and its add-ons for the likes of Marketing Analytics pile on additional costs.

Much is made of Klaviyo’s pricing for active profiles in other people’s articles, but the truth is that it’s the industry norm to bill for contacts you can market to. The story here is that Klaviyo’s Email plan prices are beaten by several others.

The thing to remember about Klaviyo is that unsubscribed and suppressed profiles are not active, billable profiles. List management can extend the window to your next tier. Even so, you could save money with an alternative tool.

Omnisend offers better value for most ecommerce stores. Its Pro plan, in particular, rivals Klaviyo’s enterprise ecommerce capabilities and provides unlimited monthly emails. Start there and explore the other tools in our article to find your fit.

FAQs

Why is Klaviyo so expensive?

Klaviyo has one email marketing plan with access to all standard features, so it doesn’t have a cheaper plan that appears low-cost on paper. Its $20/month starting price for 500 contacts and a 10x send limit is relatively expensive, more so than Omnisend and MailerLite, but you do get enterprise-level flows, segments, and reporting.

Does Klaviyo charge for unsubscribed profiles?

No, Klaviyo doesn’t charge for unsubscribed profiles, nor does it charge for any suppressed profiles. Customers who unsubscribe no longer count towards your active profiles.

How much does Klaviyo cost per month?

Your minimum spend is $20/month, and if you need SMS, then the mobile messaging add-on requires an additional minimum purchase of $15/month for 1,250 credits.

Is Omnisend cheaper than Klaviyo?

Omnisend undercuts Klaviyo at the entry point and gives you more: $16/month for 500 contacts and 6,000 emails, against Klaviyo’s $20 for the same list and 5,000 emails. Step up to Pro, and you get unlimited sends from $59/month at 2,500 contacts, a dollar less than Klaviyo’s $60, which caps you at 25,000.

What is the best cheaper alternative to Klaviyo?

Consider Omnisend for advanced email and SMS automation. It has a lower learning curve for enterprise features. Shopify Messaging works well enough for small Shopify stores needing only basic automations. Brevo is a serious contender if you have a large list and send infrequently.

Is it easy to migrate from Klaviyo to another platform?

Klaviyo lets you export your lists and data into spreadsheets. The ease with which you can import that data depends on the other platform in question. Omnisend has the Klaviyo Data Import Tool, which syncs your contacts and segments using your Klaviyo API key. Any flows, forms, and emails need rebuilding manually, as with every other tool.

How do I lower my Klaviyo bill without deleting contacts?

You can suppress contacts to make them not marketable. They won’t count towards your total active profiles for as long as they are suppressed.