Klaviyo SMS vs. Omnisend SMS: Functionality & pricing comparison for 2022

SMS has joined email as a must-have marketing channel. Omnisend research shows that in 2021 SMS recorded a 12% click-through rate (CTR) and a 0.25% conversion rate.

SMS marketing reveals its versatile opportunities: merchants send bulk SMS campaigns, segment, automate them, and combine them with other marketing channels to create a smooth and seamless omnichannel experience for their customers.

So it seems that the new SMS trend justifies itself and with that, you might be considering an omnichannel marketing platform that empowers SMS marketing.

On the market, there are two strong omnichannel marketing providers: Klaviyo and Omnisend. Today, we’ll look at these providers in terms of SMS comparison, Klaviyo SMS pricing vs. Omnisend’s, and other important features you should consider.

According to Omnisend’s omnichannel statistics, omnichannel campaigns that involved SMS at some point in the process were 429% more likely to end in conversion.

Klaviyo SMS marketing

Klaviyo is an omnichannel platform with a comprehensive feature set. The trump card of this tool is advanced segmentation and extended marketing automation opportunities.

A few months ago Klaviyo added an SMS marketing channel to its offer, enriching the overall omnichannel experience. Merchants are now able to create Klaviyo SMS campaign and automations.

Currently, merchants can add text messages to automated workflows, send them triggered alone or combine with email, app and web push notifications. SMS campaigns and MMS messages became available in April, 2020.

Klaviyo SMS are easy to set up and make them personal. New product announcements, cart abandonment, all kinds of confirmation, and some custom approaches are all available.

In addition, this platform has well-thought-out customer consent management.

Customer consent is stored and tracked on the customer profile so merchants always know when and how a customer subscribed.

However, there are a few downsides of Klaviyo SMS marketing:

1. Klaviyo SMS works only in the US, UK, Canada and Australia (and MMS only in the US and Canada). If your business works internationally, limitations for international messaging might become an issue if you’re trying to reach your customers.
2. Klaviyo has quite a low default throughput (<1mps), so it can take longer to deliver your SMS campaign to multiple recipients (or you pay extra for the higher speed).
3. Klaviyo recently introduced price hikes to their plans, which can see some customers paying 60% more than they used to. Please read below for more info.

Klaviyo SMS pricing

As mentioned earlier, Klaviyo sends text messages to only four countries: the US, UK, Canada and Australia. It’s important to take this into consideration when looking at the Klaviyo SMS cost.

The first 150 text messages are free of charge.

Here is what merchants have to pay for Klaviyo text marketing.

FYI: because Klaviyo now folds its SMS pricing inside its plan pricing, we’ll calculate the cost for these amounts of SMS credits with the Email and SMS plan:

• 10,000 text messages (& up to 10,000 email contacts): $265
• 25,000 text messages (& up to 26,000 email contacts): $650
• 55,000 text messages (& up to 60,000 email contacts): $1,355

Now let’s look at what Omnisend has to offer as an alternative to Klaviyo SMS marketing.

Omnisend SMS marketing

While Klaviyo is a new player in providing SMS marketing, Omnisend has had this channel in the basket for a while. Starting from March 2018, Omnisend has expanded and developed SMS functionality significantly.

First of all, Omnisend is an omnichannel marketing platform that combines email, SMS, push notifications, Facebook, and Google Ads sync. Merchants can maintain their marketing communication through all these channels using this single marketing platform.

What distinguishes Omnisend from Klaviyo is that at Omnisend you won’t find hidden extra costs, and there is no hassle for buying multiple numbers to improve deliverability and sending speed.

In terms of automation, this platform includes pre-built sequences with SMS in cart abandonment, birthday, order & shipping confirmation, etc. So merchants can get these up and running with only a few clicks.

Collecting phone numbers is also surprisingly easy. Forms like popups, signup boxes, and landing pages allow merchants to build their list without leaving the platform, using TCPA-compliant templates to collect phone numbers (and emails too if they choose).

Last but not least, Omnisend supports all country codes for SMS sending so that merchants can reach their international customers and drive conversions from anywhere in the world.

In October 2020, Omnisend launched significant SMS and MMS functionality updates that made this channel even more powerful. You can find out more in the video below:

Omnisend SMS pricing

For a more accurate observation, we can compare the prices of text messages in the U.S.

At Omnisend, marketers on the Pro plan enjoy free SMS credits equal to the price they pay for those plans.

Here, we’ll calculate the pricing based on free SMS on the Pro plan (plus extra paid SMS credits):

• 10,000 text messages (& up to 10,000 email contacts): $150
• 25,000 text messages (& up to 26,000 email contacts): $390
• 55,000 text messages (& up to 60,000 email contacts): $750

On Standard plan, marketers have to buy SMS credits for $50 to start sending the initial SMS campaign.

More than just SMS

Deciding between Klaviyo SMS and Omnisend SMS isn’t just about the SMS features and pricing. That’s because there’s an entire company behind it, offering a wide feature set of not just email marketing and popups and the like, but also the support, deliverability and dependability behind it.

That’s where Omnisend really pulls ahead of Klaviyo.

• Deliverability: Omnisend offers a wide suite of features, such as reputation warm up, list cleaning, and more, to ensure your messages get delivered
• Support: Klaviyo support works limited hours during workdays, and much more limited during weekends. Omnisend’s support works 24/7, every single day of the year, with an average response time under five minutes. In fact, Omnisend recently won a Stevie Award for fantastic support
• Dependability: Klaviyo recently announced price hikes, not long after its previous unannounced pricing changes. Omnisend is much more dependable, and won’t give you any nasty surprises
• Multistore accounts: if you have multiple stores, you’ll need to open a separate account for each one on Klaviyo (and all the hassle that comes with it). With Omnisend, you can manage all your stores from a single account and easily toggle between them

Make sure you look at the entire suite of offerings before making your decision between choosing Klaviyo SMS or Omnisend SMS.

Comparison table

Let’s quickly look at a summary of the Klaviyo SMS pricing compared to Omnisend SMS in their monthly plans:

Let's also look at a comparison of Omnisend's and Klaviyo's SMS-related features:

Wrap up

Both these platforms have a major advantage against other SMS providers—they are all-in-one platforms built to provide a top-notch omnichannel experience for ecommerce customers. So by choosing either of them, you will already be heading in the right direction.

However, these tools slightly differ in feature-set and significantly in price. Your decision on which one to choose depends on your specific business needs and financial possibilities.