Shopify Email or Klaviyo: which your store needs

The short answer

Use Shopify Email (which Shopify’s help center now calls Shopify Messaging) if you are a newer or smaller store sending a few campaigns a month and a handful of basic automations. It is built into your admin, includes 10,000 free emails each month, and costs $1 per 1,000 emails after that, according to Shopify’s help center. Move to Klaviyo when email is a meaningful share of revenue and you want detailed segmentation, more automated flows, SMS in the same tool and revenue reporting by flow. Klaviyo bills by active profiles, so it usually costs more, but for an established store a few well-built flows can cover that difference.

As of 2026, Klaviyo is free up to 250 active profiles and 500 emails a month. Its paid Email plan starts at $20 a month for 251 to 500 active profiles, according to Klaviyo’s pricing page, and the price steps up with each larger tier of active profiles. Klaviyo’s pricing calculator shows the price for your exact count.

How each one is priced

The key difference: Shopify charges for what you send, Klaviyo charges for who you can reach. A large list you email rarely is cheap on Shopify and costs the same on Klaviyo whether you email it or not.

A cost example

An illustrative example: take a store with 5,000 subscribers sending four campaigns a month, plus automations that send another 2,000 emails.

• Shopify Email: 22,000 emails a month. The first 10,000 are free; the other 12,000 cost $1 per 1,000, so about $12 a month.
• Klaviyo: the Email plan price for 5,000 active profiles, whatever you send within the tier’s allowance. Look up that figure in Klaviyo’s pricing calculator.

Subtract the Shopify figure from Klaviyo’s price at your profile count, multiply by 12, and you have the yearly gap. The question is whether Klaviyo’s extra capabilities earn more than that. For many stores doing steady online revenue, recovering a few extra abandoned browsers and lapsed customers each month clears that bar. For a store doing a few orders a week, it often does not yet.

What Klaviyo does that Shopify Email does not do as deeply

• Segmentation on detailed behavior. Segments based on products viewed, categories bought, order count, spend and timing, combined however you like.
• More flows with branching. Browse abandonment, post-purchase by product, replenishment, win-back, VIP and sunset flows, each split by customer behavior.
• Event data in emails. Klaviyo can pull the exact items, images and prices from a cart or order into the email, using event data from Shopify and other platforms.
• Email and SMS together. One profile, one set of flows, one report.
• Revenue reporting by flow and campaign, so you can see which automations pay for themselves.
• Works beyond Shopify. If you might move to WooCommerce, BigCommerce or Magento, your email program moves with you.

When Shopify Email is enough

• Your store is new and most marketing time should go to traffic and product, not email.
• You send a monthly newsletter and a few promotions, plus abandoned checkout, which is free on Shopify.
• Your list is large but you email it rarely, so per-send pricing is far cheaper.
• Nobody on your team has time to build and maintain segmented flows. A simple tool used well beats a powerful tool left half set up.

Want a second opinion on your email?

Book a free 30-minute call. We look at your store, your list and your current flows with you and tell you whether Klaviyo would pay for itself and what we would build first. No obligation. Pick a time.

Signs it is time to move to Klaviyo

• Email or SMS drives a meaningful share of revenue and you want to grow it.
• You want different emails for first-time buyers, repeat buyers and VIPs.
• You need browse abandonment, replenishment or product-specific post-purchase flows.
• You want text messages managed alongside email.
• You want to know exactly how much revenue each flow and campaign produced.

How to switch without losing ground

1. List your current automations and their results so you can compare after the move.
2. Connect Klaviyo to Shopify and let it sync customers, orders and products.
3. Bring over consent status so unsubscribed customers stay unsubscribed.
4. Rebuild flows in priority order: abandoned checkout, welcome, browse abandonment, post-purchase, win-back.
5. Turn off the Shopify versions as each Klaviyo flow goes live, so nobody gets duplicates.
6. Authenticate your sending domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, which Google requires of bulk senders, and warm up by emailing engaged customers first.
7. Suppress inactive profiles so you are not paying Klaviyo for contacts who never engage.

Mistakes to avoid

• Moving to Klaviyo and only rebuilding the basics. If you run the same three emails you had on Shopify, you pay more for the same result.
• Letting inactive profiles pile up. On Klaviyo every reachable profile costs money, so suppress people who have not engaged in a long time.
• Ignoring SMS consent. Text messages need their own opt-in; an email signup is not permission to text.
• Comparing only the monthly bill. Compare the bill against the revenue each platform’s flows bring in.

How JLB USA helps

JLB USA builds and runs Shopify, Shopify Plus, BigCommerce and WooCommerce stores, and our email marketing team works on Klaviyo, MailChimp and HubSpot. We can tell you honestly whether Shopify’s tool is enough for now, and when it is not, set up Klaviyo flows and keep your data in sync through systems integration. Still choosing a platform? See Shopify vs WooCommerce.

Keep reading

• Klaviyo pricing explained: profiles, SMS and how to control cost
• Mailchimp pricing in 2026: plans, contact rules and how to avoid overpaying
• Mailchimp vs Constant Contact: which is better for a small business
• Klaviyo vs Mailchimp vs HubSpot: which email platform to choose

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• Shopify vs WooCommerce
• Klaviyo vs Mailchimp vs HubSpot