Omnisend vs. Klaviyo: A Feature for Feature Comparison
Email Marketing · 7 min read
· Apr 17, 2020
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With the recent Mailchimp and Shopify split, many ecommerce marketers have been left wondering what to do for their email marketing strategies.
If there are two names that come up most often when talking about Mailchimp alternatives, it’s Klaviyo and Omnisend. There’s been quite a bit of debate from customers using both tools over which is better, and today, we’ve got your answer.
We’re going to go through a feature by feature comparison. Omnisend vs Klaviyo: which is the better tool for your ecommerce email marketing strategy?
Let’s find out:
Omnisend vs Klaviyo: Who Is Each Platform Built for?
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Both platforms position themselves as specifically built for ecommerce marketing. Both Omnisend and Klaviyo integrate and play nice with the biggest ecommerce platforms, like Shopify, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, Magento, and WooCommerce. With that said, Omnisend integrates more easily with Prestashop, Drupal Commerce, and Opencart.
Both Klaviyo and Omnisend offer an impressive amount of third party integrations, ranging from loyalty and rewards programs, to shipping tracking providers, and checkout services.
So far, both tools seem pretty similar and stack up evenly against one another. Now let’s dive a bit deeper and take a look at each aspect of the battle Omnisend vs. Klaviyo.
Email Marketing: The Core Function of Omnisend and Klaviyo
Both Omnisend and Klaviyo have visual email composers allowing you to drag and drop elements into your email campaign. Both offer plenty of templates to get your creative juices flowing.
Let’s take a look at each email builder and compare them.
In Klaviyo’s email builder, you can add basic customizable text, images, columns, buttons, and tables. Outside of that, you can’t add anything too flashy.
It’s definitely possible to create lovely emails using Klaviyo’s builder, but there are quite a few ecommerce-related things you’ll have to do manually. For example, creating unique discount codes is pretty complicated. You can, however, add in products directly from your store which is a timesaver.
In Omnisend’s email builder, you have a lot more options for customization. You might start off with less templates than Klaviyo, but you have a lot more to work with in terms of the content you can create.
For example, Omnisend also offers the Product Picker feature that allows you to pull products from your store directly into your campaign. You can also integrate with Nosto for smart product recommendations straight to your campaigns, making your products even more personalized for your customers.
Also, Omnisend offers more ecommerce-friendly features, like unique discount codes, scratch cards, and gift boxes that allow your customers to win their discounts in a more dynamic way. Additionally, you can add videos to your campaign, or custom HTML for more advanced users.
While Klaviyo’s email builder is nice, it’s ultimately missing some ecommerce features that will save online marketers a lot of time when creating campaigns.
| Email Builder Features | Klaviyo | Omnisend |
| Drag and Drop Builder | Yes | Yes |
| Email templates | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile responsive | Yes | Yes |
| A/B Testing | Yes | Yes |
| Saveable content blocks | Yes | Yes |
| Product recommendations | For certain categories | Yes |
| Discount codes | Yes | Yes |
| Gamification | No | Yes |
Email Marketing Winner: Omnisend
Which Tool Builds the Best Subscriber List?
Anyone who knows anything about email marketing knows that list building is crucial to your strategy. After all, it doesn’t matter if you have gorgeous campaigns if there’s no one to see them.
Both Omnisend and Klaviyo offer features that help you build your subscriber list organically from the visits on your site. Both offer targeted popups to help you convert more visitors into subscribers. However, only Omnisend offers landing pages, which are proven to convert more than any other kind of sign up form.
Also, Omnisend offers a gamified Wheel of Fortune sign up form that entices your customer to sign up to spin for their discount.
| Email List Building Features | Klaviyo | Omnisend |
| Popups (immediate, exit-intent, on specific URL) | Yes | Yes |
| Landing Pages | No | Yes |
| Gamified Popups | No | Yes |
Email Capture Winner: Omnisend
Which Tool Offers the Best Segmentation and Targeting?
Both Omnisend and Klaviyo offer targeting through segmentation to help you send the most relevant message to the right person at the right time.
Klaviyo’s segmentation is rather robust. However, it’s worth mentioning that some of the language used in their segmentation definitions can be a bit confusing.
Omnisend, for example, separates segments into three main categories:
- Profile data: whatever kind of information you have on your customer
- Campaign activity: how the customer has responded, or not responded to your campaigns
- Shopping behavior: if the customer has added to their cart, browsed and abandoned, purchased in the last 30 days, etc
These segments make a lot of sense in terms of ecommerce because you can layer them based on what you need. For example, using profile data to target women in their 30s, then campaign activity to select only women who have clicked on the last 2 campaigns, and then shopping behavior to select only those who have purchased in the last 6 months.
With Klaviyo’s segmentation, the language is more basic, asking you to choose a definition based on “what someone has or hasn’t done” which could either be campaign related, shopping related, or something else. So this might be a bit confusing if you’re used to separating it a different way.
Finally, both Omnisend and Klaviyo allow you to sync your segments into Facebook Custom Audiences for retargeting ads, but only Omnisend allows you to sync those contacts for Google retargeting ads.
| Segmentation Features | Klaviyo | Omnisend |
| Profile data | Yes | Yes |
| Campaign activity | Yes | Yes |
| Shopping behavior | Yes | Yes |
| Custom Properties (tags) | Yes | Yes |
| Facebook Audiences | Yes | Yes |
| Google Retargeting Ads | No | Yes |
Segmentation Winner: It’s pretty much a tie, with Omnisend inching slightly ahead of Klaviyo
Which Tool Offers the Best Automation Workflows?
While both Omnisend and Klaviyo have been neck and neck up until this point, with small differences here and there in favor of Omnisend, things are about to change drastically.
The biggest differences in these two tools can be seen in their automation workflows.
Klaviyo certainly has a great visual workflow that is quite powerful. You can use conditional splits and trigger splits to create very complex workflows that are highly targeted to your subscribers.
With Omnisend, you can create automated workflows that are just as powerful, and you can add in other channels to the same automated workflow. And starting from May 2020, at Omnisend you can also use conditional splits and trigger splits to create complex workflows.
For example, you can start an abandoned cart workflow with SMS, follow up with an email, engage your customer the next day with a push notification discount, and then follow up with an email from there. When your customer does finalize their purchase, you can send order and shipping notifications via Facebook Messenger.
All from one automated workflow.
This means you can provide an omnichannel customer experience and offer your customers a choice in how they want to engage with your brand and on what channel.
Both service providers offer advanced and sophisticated automation features. At this point, Omnisend has more channels to reach out to the audience – an addition is Facebook Messenger and browser push notifications.
Another important aspect to note is that Klaviyo and Omnisend track cart abandonment in slightly different ways. Omnisend applies cookie-based tracking (for Shopify) and is able to identify users when they add products to their carts. Meanwhile, Klaviyo identifies the user only at the checkout step. As a result, at Omnisend you can track and win-back more abandoned carts, even if they didn’t yet reach the checkout step.
| Features | Klaviyo | Omnisend |
| Visual Automation Workflow | Yes | Yes |
| Automation splits | Yes | Yes |
| Cart/Browse Abandonment | Yes | Yes |
| Channels | ||
| Yes | Yes | |
| SMS | Yes | Yes |
| Facebook Messenger | No | Yes |
| Browser Push Notifications | No | Yes |
| App Push Notifications (for iOS only) | Yes | No |
Automation Winner: It’s again pretty much a tie, with Omnisend inching slightly ahead of Klaviyo
Which Tool Offers the Better Customer Support?
Both tools provide multiple tutorials and extended knowledge bases.
Customers on Omnisend paid plans get 24/7 live chat and email support.
However, Klaviyo provides limited hours of email support (6 am-10 pm ET) on weekdays, and 10 am-4 pm ET on weekends, with even more limited chat support.
Customer Support Winner: Omnisend.
Klaviyo Pricing?
Both Omnisend and Klaviyo have pricing based on the number of subscribers you have. However, Klaviyo only has one plan that’s offered, which tends to get pricey quickly as you add more subscribers.
With Omnisend, there are three main plans for growing ecommerce merchants, with a Standard Plan starting at $16 per month and a Pro Plan starting at $99 per month and an Enterprise plan with custom pricing.
While the Standard plan offers most of the great email features Omnisend has, in order to take advantage of the omnichannel features, the Pro plan is your best bet. Bearing in mind, that Pro plan offers free text messages.
Both tools tend to be on the pricier side compared to most ecommerce email marketing providers, however this only attests that both position themselves for established online sellers who need more sophisticated features.
| Subscriber Count | Klaviyo | Omnisend | |
| Plans | Klaviyo Basic | Standard Plan | Pro Plan |
| 500 | $20 | $16 | $99 |
| 1000 | $30 | $20 | $99 |
| 5000 | $100 | $60 | $120 |
| 10,000 | $150 | $102 | $210 |
| 50,000 | $700 | $330 | $680 |
| 100,000 | $1200 | $570 | $1190 |
Winner: Depends on what you need and your subscriber count. Globally, a tie.
An Independent Evaluation from G2.com
Biggest Takeaways:
- Both tools are built for ecommerce merchants who are well established and looking to grow even more
- Both tools integrate well with ecommerce platforms and third party apps online sellers need
- Omnisend nudges Klaviyo out with extra email marketing features for ecommerce
- Omnisend offers more email capture options than Klaviyo
- Both tools offer precise segmentation for great targeting and conditional splits in automation.
- Omnisend is a winner in automation, offering more channels for omnichannel customer experience and the budget-friendly SMS pricing.
When choosing something as critical as an email marketing provider, it’s important to do your homework and really test everything that the tool can offer your growing online store.
Try out both tools and see how they really work. After all, not every tool will be right for every business. But hopefully, this in-depth comparison has given you some good points to work from.
What are your favorite features from both tools? Let us know below!
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You have mentioned that Omnisend does embeddable forms?
Not very functional ones Im afraid. Klaviyo has a complete form builder where you can design the layout.
Omnisend has a few default designs that always have a graphic on the left and you cant add things like radio buttons, or extensive registration forms.
It looks like the only way to achieve that in Omnisend is to pay for an additional form builder app from another company and then figure out how to link the data into Omnisend.
Ive found this to be a major pain and would like to see Omnisend include complete form builders like Klaviyo does.
Ive also found Omnisends pricing to be excessive once you get high subscriber numbers which makes no sense. Why does it cost Omnisend more if we have 40,000 subscibers?
You are helping us get subscribers but then penalising us for having too many.
I suggest you re evaluate your pricing to cut back the cost for stores with large subscriber numbers. It is costing us USD $600 a month which is NOT a reasonable price for what the app does. $300 a month would be on the high end for Shopify apps.
I used to be loyal to Omnisend until the prices became excessive. Now Im tempted to jump ship and wont recommend the app to others unfortunately.
Hi Brian,
Thanks for reaching out. I understand your frustration, and I’d like to address your concerns one by one.
You mentioned that we only provide forms with the graphic on the left. When you create a new form, from the Theme tab, you can click on the drop down menu under Layout. This menu will help you choose to put the image on the left, right, as the background, without an image, or just a simple and basic sign up form. There are then different templates to help you get started for each of those categories that you can update from there. These will integrate automatically with your Shopify store, and if you want to adapt Shopify’s embedded form to Omnisend, we have a tutorial on how to do that too. Otherwise, you can learn more about the different kinds of forms we offer here.
As for pricing, I understand your frustration. It’s always a challenge when something becomes more expensive, especially for a growing business. I don’t know how many subscribers you have, but in order to reach $600 USD in Klaviyo, you’d only need 37,000 subscribers. Klaviyo offers one single plan, with little flexibility for scaling. With Omnisend, on the Pro plan, this many subscribers costs you $600 USD. In terms of marketing automation tools on the market, Omnisend’s pricing is quite competitive.
With that said, if pricing is an issue for you, I invite you to reach out to support@omnisend.com. Maybe we can work something out in terms of pricing, or find you a plan that will work better for your ecommerce store and your customers.
I hope I’ve answered all of your questions Brian, and please, feel free to reach out any time, whether that’s here or via email. We appreciate and value customer feedback, as it helps us become better at what we do.
Thanks again, and have a great day!
Whitney
Edit for correction: I mentioned originally in this comment that Klaviyo reached $600 USD at 3700 subcribers, and I seemed to have dropped a zero when checking. Klaviyo is actually at $100 USD at 3700 subscribers. I have since corrected this comment, because it’s not my intention to provide misleading or incorrect information.
I didnt see an option to have no image.
I would like the form to be always visible on the page.. there didnt seem to be an option for this.
Only popups and widget symbols.
For example a contact page form needs to be always visible.
Hey Brian!
So normally, Shopify has embedded forms as a native function, and you can connect them to your Omnisend account (see the first article I popped in my last comment). If you’re looking for a full-on contact page, we also offer landing pages that can help with that too.
I hope that helps!
Whitney
We have 43000 subscribers.
You mentioned an example of a few thousand.. in ecommerce terms this is insignificant and not a practical example.
The subscription rate based on subscriber numbers needs to be adjusted way down.
If you have a beginner store then having 3000 customers might be relevent.. but you are marketing omnisend as a pro level program up against the likes of industry leader Klaviyo.
Keep in mind, the influencers in ecommerce are the stores with high subscriber numbers.. not the small startups. We are the ones who talk and recommend apps to use to those starting out.
By charging crazy high rates to us you are going to damage your influencer reach.
I have stopped recommending your product because of the increase in fees as I dont want others to be stung.
I think your app should be a maximum of $300 a month no matter how many subscribers.
That would still make it one of the most expensive apps on the shopify apps store but cheaper than Klaviyo but more user friendly.
Hey again Brian!
You’re absolutely right- 43,000 subscribers isn’t the same as having 3,700. I only used this example to show you how quickly you reach the threshold of $600 USD in Klaviyo. But looking at their pricing again, it seems I was mistaken anyway (I’ll edit my previous comment with the correct information).
In fact, for 43,000 subscribers in Klaviyo, the pricing comes to $650 USD per month. On the Pro plan in Omnisend, the same amount of subscribers comes out to $620 USD. I completely respect your opinion on our rates, however this is nearly the exact same, if not cheaper, than what you would also find at Klaviyo. Unlike Klaviyo for example, you won’t be able to consolidate your channels under one platform like you can with Omnisend. We don’t price our tool to be the cheapest on the market, but our prices are still really competitive against other marketing automation tools. In my honest opinion, I feel like we have a lot more to offer too.
As I mentioned before, if pricing is an issue for you, and I understand that it can be, feel free to reach out to support@omnisend.com and we’ll see what we can do. We value your business, and are willing to work with you to find a good solution.
And again, thank you very much for your feedback. I appreciate hearing first-hand from our customers, whether good or bad. It helps us do better and be better.
Have a great day Brian!
Whitney
In the “Core Function” table, I just wanted to point out that Klaviyo does offer dynamic Discount codes in their email and templates as well!
Hi Joseph!
Thanks for the correction! The table has been updated to reflect that.
Thanks again!
Whitney
Hello,
Does Omnisend have data limits? Klaviyo has no data limits, so I can capture full data history (rather than up to so many items or orders). Do you have any limits?
I like the extra marketing options Omnisend offers with Google Ads and Facebook!
Hi Leslie,
like Klaviyo, we do not limit your data imported from the store. You would have all the info on Omnisend.
how does omnisend compare to klaviyo, in terms of email deliverability?
Hi Yvens,
We can’t say exactly because we don’t know Klaviyo’s metrics.
However, customers using Omnisend and following the best practices see open rates of 20% to 40% (for email campaigns). Obviously, a lot of that depends on how often they send, what sort of content, and how they collect their subscribers.
We have a lot of valuable content on this topic on our KB: https://support.omnisend.com/en/collections/1715742-deliverability
I have addressed my comments in depth to the Omisend team and they advised they would be forwarded to the product development team but below is a synposis of why Klaviyo is the only viable option for a start up until reaching a Medium to Enterprise level (by which time few companies will possibly migrate, unless necessary).
Omnisend have discounted themselves as a truly viable option in my opinion.
Just before getting to the reasons, may I just highlight from the above article that to compare integrations as being roughly on par is either bias or disingenuous. Whilst Omnisend do have a decent few, being objective, its incomparable to Klaviyo’s 3rd party extension capability.
Ok, so, I’m from a marketing background, and the marketing automation choice will be the most fundamental decision you make to your e-commerce tech/app stack after choosing the e-commerce platform, in our case Shopify.
The Business decision of Omnisend to limit key functionality by tier maybe fine to a point, or for a local store just wanting to do basic forms/discounts and email blasts, but its flawed in so many ways when your’e denying a start up to SMB sixed entity the fullness of available opportunity and revenue stream channels, by limiting the marketing automations reach.
I am primarily referring to the decision by Omnisend to remove messenger capability until reaching Enterprise level (it was previously on Pro Level).
They now say its just for pro Marketers in the advertising. As if pro marketing teams are not involved in start ups? or previous Pro level customers cannot handle it anymore?
Messenger is is a big revenue opportunity, many of your customers as well as ours will use it, your ad spend will not decrease, but your reach and subsequently conversions will suffer and you’ll be limiting your bottom line by not having this option.
It also means that despite the advertising, Omnisend is only truly Omni channel for Enterprise clients not Start ups who know what they’re doing or SMB’s.
Klaviyo has no such problems, the potential messenger capability is not the same, Omnisend wins, but even though the same level of functionality is not native to the same degree, you can still get something like Octane Ai to have a brad messenger reach by extension to fully maximise the potential opportunity and leave no potential money on the table.
Why before was messenger at Pro level and now at Enterprise? dangling the carrot? By no means do we want anything for free, but cost is less important than capability, you should spend money to save time or extend reach, not save money to increase time or curtail your business.
Its sad and frustrating, as having spent months road testing, and watching hundreds of hours of Webinars/FAQ’s to get this fundamental decision right, I honestly love Omnisend, its a fantastic, simple (which is always an advantage), yet powerful marketing tool in the right hands. In so many ways the full versions of Omnisend (taken in isolation, without 3rd party integrations),v’s Klaviyo, Omnisend is superior from my personal observations as a marketing/reach tool, but this business model is just stupid and missing the bigger picture.
Do Omnisend support/partner with start ups and SMBs to become their higher paying Enterprise clients? Well they dont, they’re limiting of key functionality like messenger is going to limit your business maximising its opportunity return. Of course they want you to be their Enterprise clients but they also want to hinder you getting their quicker. Its like from a financial perspective they obviously want you to make it from A to B (for their own bottom line), but you will start with one leg and no arms and once you get to pro level, we will give you 2 arms but just one leg to help you get there!
Klaviyo gives the full kit out of the bag, it will charge you a lot more based on your success, as it should be, you can get a truly Omni channel solution with integrations, It may not offer free SMS (but what good is that if you only have 80% functionality – charge for SMS and subscriber levels), its a marketing gimmick. Low cost does not equal best functionality.
My advice is go with the company that will give you the all the tools you truly need to maximise every revenue stream, and pay more for the success that brings, Don’t go with one (and this applies to all who follow the Omisend model) who will limit your potential by offering a watered down product.
Omnisend was a better option for start ups/SMB’s by going straight for Pro level tier and paying $199 for messenger (more than todays $99 with “feee SMS” without it), but for Start ups/SMB’s, it can only be a better option if youre looking at marketing options at an Enterpirse level (or you’re already wedded to it).
If you’re starting out or an SMB looking at options with digital marketers, Omnisend by its own “restrict you” business model, may well just be driving customers into the hands of Klaviyo, whose business model of giving you every tool they have but charging you considerably more based on success is the right model.
Do you want to pay more and drive a fully functioning Volkswagen with every available customisation option or a bit less and get a BMW with free petrol yet only 3 wheels.
Hello Adam,
Thank you for your comment.
From our customers, we see that once they decide to step up from email-only, it’s firstly SMS and push notification channels that they’re willing to try.
Therefore, they are accessible at our lower-tier plans, with SMS being available starting with Standard and with a special FREE SMS offer + push being available on our Pro plan. Our omnichannel approach does not come from the Messenger channel alone – email, SMS, and push are the channels that are easiest to scale & combine
Our Enterprise plan offer depends on the individual account and their needs and it is not limited to big-clients (vs. SMBs) only – it is mostly suited for customers who need more custom-tailored services and a higher level of dedicated support. If Messenger is something you’d like to try with Omnisend, please contact us for a price offer and you might discover that you’re getting a Tesla for the price of 4-wheeled BMW 🙂
– Karolina and the Omnisend Team