As fans and users of both Mailchimp and Klaviyo we get asked which one is better. That is not really the question.
Both platforms will send a good email. Both have a drag and drop builder, solid deliverability and a long track record. So “which is better” has no useful answer.
The question worth asking is: which one is right for your ecommerce business?
There are three things to weigh up:
- Cost
- Ease of use
- Return on investment
Let us start with cost.
Comparing cost: Klaviyo and Mailchimp
Comparing the two on price is not straightforward, because you are not comparing like with like.
Klaviyo charges on one plan. You get every feature it has, and the price moves with the number of profiles you are storing and the number of sends. A store on 10,000 contacts gets the same segmentation, automation and reporting tools as a store on 100,000.
Mailchimp charges on tiers. Free, Essentials, Standard and Premium. The price moves with your list size as well, but the features move with the tier. Some of what you may be comparing against Klaviyo only appears on the higher plans.
That difference matters more than the monthly figure. A cheap Mailchimp plan is only cheap if the plan you can afford does the job you actually need doing.
Both companies change their pricing regularly, so check the live numbers for your own list size rather than trusting a comparison table in a blog post: Klaviyo pricing and Mailchimp pricing. Price both at the list size you expect to have in twelve months, not the one you have today.
Comparing ease of use: Klaviyo and Mailchimp
Both have a drag and drop interface, which we recommend for anyone who wants to build their own campaigns. No HTML required, unless you want it.
Mailchimp is more structured. You pick a template up front and you are committed to it. The builder is close to foolproof, but you cannot move a single column campaign to a multi column one halfway through. That is a nuisance if you like to design as you go.
Klaviyo is more open. You add and remove columns as you build. Better for creativity, at the cost of learning its block styles and doing a little more editing than Mailchimp asks of you.
If you have used Mailchimp before, Klaviyo is a comfortable step up rather than a wall. You cannot break it, so the best way to learn it is to open it and start building.
What Klaviyo does that Mailchimp does not
Mailchimp started life as an email newsletter tool and grew into ecommerce. Klaviyo was built for ecommerce from the first day. That shows up in four places.
1. It knows what people looked at, not just what they bought
Klaviyo can trigger a campaign off where someone has been on your site. Land on a product or a category page without buying, and you can follow up with a series about exactly what they were looking at. Browse abandonment is the obvious one: plenty of people use a cart as a wish list, and this lets you reach the ones who never got as far as a cart.
2. It understands your catalogue
Brands, categories, SKUs, order history, customer lifetime value, how someone found you. Klaviyo holds your store data in a shape you can actually build on, so a segment can be as specific as your data allows.
3. Segmentation with no ceiling
Segments are dynamically populated lists that sit inside your main list, and they refresh themselves as people qualify or drop out. If you hold the data on a customer, you can build a segment on it, with as many conditions as you like, right down to proximity to a location.
Useful ones to start with:
- Wholesale and retail split into two, so each gets its own automations
- Subscribers who have never purchased
- Customers who have bought from one particular category
- Anyone who has not opened an email in three months
- Wholesale customers who have not ordered recently
Mailchimp does segmentation, but not to this depth.
4. Predictive analytics
Klaviyo will estimate future spend, expected number of orders and probability of churn. The one that surprises people is predicted date of next order, which lets you land an email in the week someone was going to buy anyway.
Which delivers a better return: Klaviyo or Mailchimp?
On return on investment, Klaviyo is the stronger platform. Klaviyo’s stated mission is to help you sell more, and in our experience it delivers on that.
That is not an argument against Mailchimp. We have clients getting very good results on both. What Klaviyo gives you is more room to target, and targeting is most of what separates an email that works from one that does not.
Here are some examples from our clients on both platforms:
- An Australian gift store added $17,196.85 in revenue with a welcome series.
- An Australian toy store added $68,936.86 with a fun, compelling abandoned cart series.
- A Queensland chemical supply company added $41,311.87 with a win back lapsed customers series.
- An outdoor supply company generated $29,795.11 from a new welcome series and $75,855.22 from an abandoned cart series.
So which one is right for you?
You have to get specific about your own business. Four questions get you most of the way there.
1. What are you actually planning to do with email?
If it is promotional campaigns and a couple of simple automations, Mailchimp does that well and you do not need more. If the plan is to build depth with your subscribers over time, with layered follow ups and campaigns that react to behaviour, Klaviyo is the better foundation.
2. What is your budget?
A tight budget points at Mailchimp, but weigh the price against what each plan actually includes. What looks cheaper on paper is not cheaper if it cannot do the thing you signed up to do.
3. Do you want complex automation and segmentation?
If you are going to build automations with real conditional logic behind them, it is Klaviyo. This is the single clearest dividing line between the two.
4. Who are your customers?
Plenty of stores have B2B and B2C contacts sitting in one list. That is how the wrong campaign reaches the wrong customer. Klaviyo lets you split them into segments that populate themselves, so the right message goes to the right group without anyone remembering to check.
Already on Mailchimp and thinking about moving?
Switching platforms sounds daunting and it is manageable, as long as you are deliberate about it. Move your audience across, rebuild your existing automations, and re-create any saved segments. Segments are the one people forget, because they do not come with the list.
If you are running our Klaviyo app for Maropost Commerce Cloud (Neto), your customer data syncs across for you.
We have migration packages depending on where you are coming from and how much automation you already have running. If you are starting from scratch with email, we can build a package around your goals instead.
Still not sure which platform is right for your ecommerce business?
That is what we are here for.
We work with both Klaviyo and Mailchimp every day, and we are the developers behind the Mailchimp for Maropost Commerce Cloud (Neto) and Klaviyo for Maropost Commerce Cloud (Neto) apps, which connect your store to either platform.
We can talk you through cost, ease of use and likely return for your business, then help you set it up properly. Get in touch and grab a free quote.
