Klaviyo Pricing: Free Plan, Profile Bands and Alternatives
For an online store that needs abandoned-cart, browse and post-purchase email, Klaviyo is the tool to start with. Its free plan covers 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, and its first paid email plan is $20 a month at 500 profiles. Cost rises with the profile count, so this guide shows where that curve steepens, what the SMS line adds, and which cheaper tools are worth pricing alongside it.
The Short Version
Free: up to 250 active profiles, 500 email sends a month and $5 of mobile messages. Email plans: sold in profile bands, with listed monthly prices of $20 at 500 profiles, $30 at 1,000, $60 at 2,500, $100 at 5,000, $150 at 10,000 and $400 at 25,000. Email plus SMS: listed by profile count, with prices on request. Billing view: the listings used for this guide show monthly prices, so budget on the monthly figure. AI features: the pricing listings do not itemize AI writing or optimization features by tier, so none are placed in a specific plan here. Build your exact quote on the official Klaviyo pricing page.
Who This Guide Is For
Two kinds of buyer land on this page, and they usually need different tools. The first runs an online store and wants to know what the free plan really includes, when the first band step arrives, and how SMS adds a second bill. The second runs a product, a newsletter or a subscription business and has been told that Klaviyo is the default choice without anyone checking whether a store-built platform fits the way the list is used.
If you run a store
You collect emails at checkout and want cart recovery, browse follow-ups and post-purchase messages running without a long implementation. Klaviyo is built for that catalog-and-order workflow, and its paid email plans are priced so that the cost is easiest to justify when list growth and revenue grow together.
Read the band table in the cost section, then mark where your own profile count will cross each boundary over the next year. Treat SMS as a separate meter from the start.
If you do not sell products
Your list may be mostly trial users, readers or account holders, and your messages may depend on what those people do inside your product rather than on a shopping cart. Klaviyo still works for some of that, but many of its flows are designed for catalogs and orders, so the comparison section matters more for you than the store walkthrough.
Compare Customer.io and Loops against the same list size before you decide, and check the transactional senders if most of your mail is system email.
AI features are part of the buying decision for many teams. Subject-line help, send-time suggestions and product copy generation are common requests. The pricing listings that this guide uses do not spell out which of these are included in each Klaviyo tier, and the same is true for most email tools. Treat any AI capability as something to confirm in writing against the plan you intend to buy, not as a line item you can assume.
What the Klaviyo Free Plan Covers
The free plan allows up to 250 active profiles, 500 email sends a month and $5 of mobile messages. For a new store, that is enough to build a welcome series, an abandoned-cart flow and a simple browse follow-up, then send them to real contacts and see whether the numbers look right. It is a sensible place to learn the interface before a paid commitment.
The limits are the constraints to plan around. A store with a few hundred newsletter signups will reach the 250-profile ceiling quickly, and a launch week with a promotion can use up 500 sends faster than expected. Once either limit is passed, the account needs a paid plan. Start the paid budget from the day the list passes 200 profiles, not from the day you run out, so the switch does not catch you mid-campaign.
Mobile messages are capped at $5 of usage on the free plan. If you intend to use text messages alongside email, that $5 is a trial allowance, not a monthly budget. Plan the SMS line separately, as described in the next sections.
Klaviyo's Paid Email Plans
Paid email plans are sold by active-profile band. The monthly prices listed on the pricing page for the bands used in this guide are $20 for 500 profiles, $30 for 1,000, $60 for 2,500, $100 for 5,000, $150 for 10,000 and $400 for 25,000. The listings used here show monthly prices only, so every annual figure in this guide is simple arithmetic on the monthly price, not a vendor annual rate. For example, 12 × $20 = $240 a year at 500 profiles, and 12 × $150 = $1,800 a year at 10,000 profiles.
Bands are the detail that surprises people. When the list passes a band boundary, the account moves to the next band's monthly price. A store that is at 2,400 profiles in one month and 2,600 the next moves from the $60 band to a higher one, and the increase applies to the whole account, not just the extra profiles. The safe way to handle this is to chart your profile count monthly and look ahead to the next boundary, then decide whether to suppress inactive contacts before the crossing.
Each band also includes a monthly send allowance. The allowance rises with the band, so a store that sends frequent campaigns to a large but quiet list may hit the send limit before the profile limit. Model sends and profiles together rather than looking only at the headline band.
How Klaviyo Counts Profiles and Why It Matters
The active-profile count drives the whole plan, and it is the number most likely to surprise a new buyer. An active profile is a contact that can receive marketing email. Anyone who joins your list, places an order, or is synced from your store platform adds to the count while they remain eligible. Contacts you cannot email are not counted, so suppression and clean-up are the two levers you control.
For stores, the count usually grows with capture. Popups, checkout opt-ins and signup forms add contacts quickly, which is good for revenue and also raises the band. For subscription or SaaS lists, the count can include trial users, past customers and imported contacts who never engage, and those contacts still sit inside the band they fall into. A list that is mostly history costs more than a list that is mostly active, even when the number of messages sent is the same.
Two practical habits keep the count under control. First, set a rule for who should be on the list, for example by consent and recent engagement, and apply it before import. Second, review the list on a fixed schedule and remove contacts who have stopped responding. Both habits reduce the number that the band is priced on without reducing the audience that matters to revenue.
Email Plus SMS: Pricing on Request
Klaviyo lists Email plus SMS plans by profile count, from 500 profiles up to 25,000, but the pricing data used for this guide shows no monthly price for those plans. This guide therefore shows them as pricing on request. Ask for the figure from Klaviyo or build it on the official pricing page before you budget for text messages. The email plan price and the SMS price are separate decisions, so a store that wants text should not assume the email band figure covers it.
Where a store does use SMS, the cost structure matters as much as the price. Text messages add a second channel that can reach the same customer as an email in the same journey. Build the budget so that a single customer's text and email are costed together, and set a cap for promotional text volume before the campaign calendar fills up.
Klaviyo Against the Main Alternatives
The table below compares Klaviyo with the email tools that most often appear in the same shortlist. Prices are the monthly figures on each vendor's pricing page, checked on 7 October 2026. Where a figure is an introductory or offer rate, the table says so. The AI column is deliberately narrow: it only names AI features that the vendor's own pricing listings describe by plan.
| Tool | Best for | Starting price (plan, billing) | Key limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Klaviyo | Online stores with catalog, cart and order data | Free: 250 profiles, 500 sends a month. Email from $20 a month at 500 profiles, monthly | Price moves by profile band; SMS and Email+SMS priced on request |
| Omnisend | Smaller stores that want ecommerce flows at a lower entry price | Free: 250 contacts, 500 emails a month. Standard $11.20 a month for 500 contacts (first-three-months offer rate) | The $11.20 is an offer rate; the later rate is not in the listing used here |
| Brevo | Teams that want a large free contact allowance and volume-based paid plans | Free: 300 daily sends, up to 100,000 contacts. Starter $9 a month, from 5,000 emails a month | Free plan has a daily send cap; automation and A/B testing are listed on Standard |
| Mailchimp | Teams that want a familiar tool with a free plan and contact-tier pricing | Free: 250 contacts, 500 sends a month. Standard $20 a month at 500 contacts, up to 6,000 emails | Several contact-tier prices are not shown in the listing used here |
| Customer.io | Product and behavior-triggered messages, including AI Agent skills in Essentials | Essentials $100 a month, billed monthly; profile tiers from $145 a month at 10,000 profiles | Higher cost at small lists; profile tiers are billed monthly |
| Loops | Product teams that want a simple paid plan with unlimited subscriber sends | Early Stage: free for up to 4,000 sends in 30 days. Growing Audience $99 a month | Free plan has a send cap and a Loops footer |
The table makes one point clear: the cheapest entry plans are not directly comparable with each other. Klaviyo's free plan is limited by profiles and sends, Omnisend's by contacts and sends, Brevo's by daily volume, and Loops' by a rolling send window. Compare the tools at the list size you expect in twelve months, not at the size you have today.
The Alternatives, Tool by Tool
Each section below covers the audience a tool suits, where it falls short, the price as listed, and the vendor's pricing page for the current figure. Read the sections for the tools on your shortlist and skip the rest.
Omnisend
Omnisend is the closest store-focused rival to Klaviyo at the entry level. Its free plan covers 250 contacts, 500 emails and 500 web push notifications a month. Standard is listed at $11.20 a month for 500 contacts and 6,000 emails, shown as a rate for the first three months with an upfront offer. Pro is listed at $41.30 a month for 2,500 contacts, with unlimited monthly emails and SMS starting at $0.007 per message, with pricing varying by country and volume.
Omnisend does well for a small store that wants ecommerce automation without a large entry price. The contact-based plans are easy to read, and the monthly email allowance is generous at the Pro level. It falls short when a store needs deep segmentation or a large catalog-driven data model, and the SMS cost depends on destination country, so it should be quoted for each market you sell into. The $11.20 figure should be treated as an introductory rate; check the vendor's pricing page for the rate after the offer period. Pricing: Omnisend pricing page. Our separate guide is at the Omnisend pricing guide.
Brevo
Brevo suits teams that want a generous free contact allowance and pay by monthly email volume. The free plan offers 300 daily email sends and storage for up to 100,000 contacts. Starter is listed at $9 a month and starts at 5,000 emails a month with no daily sending limit. Standard is listed at $18 a month and includes automation, A/B testing and advanced reports.
Brevo's strength is cost per message at moderate volumes and a free plan that can hold a large contact list. Its weakness for a store is that the feature split between Starter and Standard matters: automation and A/B testing sit on the Standard plan, so a store that wants flows should price Standard rather than Starter. Higher volume plans are priced by the selected monthly email volume, so the cost moves with the send calendar. Pricing: Brevo pricing page.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is the familiar option for many small businesses. The free plan includes one audience, up to 250 contacts, and up to 500 sends a month, with a daily cap of 250. The listed Standard plan starts at $20 a month for the 500-contact selector, with up to 6,000 emails a month at that size. Higher contact tiers are listed at $100 a month for 2,501 to 5,000 contacts and $135 a month for 5,001 to 10,000 contacts, each with a higher monthly email allowance.
Mailchimp suits a team that already knows the interface and wants a free plan to start. It falls short when a store needs the deep ecommerce data model that Klaviyo offers, and several intermediate contact-tier prices are not shown in the listing used for this guide, so the budget for a list between those bands needs a quote from the vendor. There is also a 14-day Standard trial, which is useful for testing automations before you commit. Pricing: Mailchimp pricing page. For a more detailed view see the Mailchimp pricing guide.
Customer.io
Customer.io is built for messages triggered by what users do inside a product, and it is a common shortlist choice for teams that find Klaviyo's catalog orientation a poor fit. The Essentials plan is listed at $100 a month and includes AI Agent core skills, a visual workflow builder, email and community support, and basic data integrations. Premium is listed at $1,000 a month and adds custom profile volume, elevated AI Agent limits and premium support. Essentials profile tiers are listed at $145 a month for 10,000 profiles, $235 for 20,000, $325 for 30,000, $415 for 40,000 and $505 for 50,000 and above, all billed monthly.
Customer.io is the tool in this set with the clearest AI feature listing, because the Essentials plan names AI Agent skills and the Premium plan names higher AI Agent limits. It falls short for a small list, where the entry price is high relative to Omnisend or Brevo, and it is less natural for a store that wants pre-built ecommerce templates. Eligible early-stage companies that have raised under $10M can receive 12 months free through the Startup Program. Pricing: Customer.io pricing page. For a comparison of the entry plans see the Customer.io pricing guide.
Loops
Loops is a simpler option for product teams. The Early Stage plan is free for up to 4,000 sends in any rolling 30 days, sent to the 1,000 newest contacts, with a Loops footer and a rate of 10 emails per second. The Growing Audience plan is listed at $99 a month and includes unlimited sends to subscribers and transactional sends to users outside the audience.
Loops suits a team that wants a clear paid plan and does not need the full ecommerce feature set. Its free plan caps sends and includes a footer, and its paid plan is a single flat price, which makes budgeting easy at higher volumes. It is less suited to stores that need the catalog and order data that Klaviyo is built around. Pricing: Loops pricing page. The Loops guide is at the Loops pricing guide.
Transactional senders: Mailgun and SendGrid
If most of your mail is transactional, such as receipts, password resets and shipping updates, a sending API may be cheaper than a marketing platform. Mailgun lists a free plan with 100 emails a day, and its Basic plan at $15 a month for 10,000 emails a month. SendGrid lists an Essentials plan at $19.95 a month for 50,000 to 100,000 emails a month, and its Marketing Campaigns free plan includes up to 2,000 contacts and 6,000 emails a month. These tools are not ecommerce marketing suites, so they suit developers and teams that want to build their own flows. See the Mailgun guide and the SendGrid guide, then check each vendor's pricing page.
What Each Tool Costs at Realistic List Sizes
The table below prices each tool at the list sizes most buyers consider. Only figures from the vendor pricing listings are shown. Where a plan does not list a price at that size, the table says pricing on request. Klaviyo's Email plus SMS figures are also on request, so the email-only column understates the cost of a store that sends text.
| List size | Klaviyo (email plan) | Omnisend | Customer.io |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 250 profiles, 500 sends a month | Free | Free (250 contacts, 500 emails) | Essentials from $100 a month |
| 500 profiles or contacts | $20 a month, 500-profile plan | $11.20 a month, Standard (first-three-months offer rate) | Essentials from $100 a month |
| 2,500 profiles or contacts | $60 a month, 2,500-profile plan | $41.30 a month, Pro (2,500 contacts, unlimited monthly emails) | Essentials from $100 a month |
| 10,000 profiles or contacts | $150 a month, 10,000-profile plan | Pricing on request | $145 a month, Essentials 10k profiles |
| 25,000 profiles or contacts | $400 a month, 25,000-profile plan | Pricing on request | Not listed at 25,000; $235 at 20,000 and $325 at 30,000 |
| Email plus SMS, any size | Pricing on request | SMS from $0.007 per message on Pro, varies by country | Not applicable |
Two patterns stand out. Klaviyo's price rises steadily with profile count, so a store that adds 10,000 profiles in a year will see the monthly figure move from $20 to $150 across the bands in this table. Omnisend's contact-based Pro price is far lower at 2,500 contacts, but its larger-size pricing is on request, which means the comparison is incomplete above that size. For a store at 25,000 profiles, Klaviyo's listed monthly email price is $400 before SMS, and that figure is the one to test against your own forecast.
Annual budgets follow the same logic. At $150 a month, a 10,000-profile Klaviyo email plan costs 12 × $150 = $1,800 a year before any SMS. At $400 a month, a 25,000-profile plan costs 12 × $400 = $4,800 a year. These are simple twelve-month totals on the listed monthly price, not discounted annual rates, and they exclude any SMS spend.
How to Choose: A Decision Table
Most buyers can narrow the shortlist with one question: what is the list made of? The table below maps common needs to the tool that fits, with the reason in the final column.
| If you need | Shortlist | Because |
|---|---|---|
| Cart recovery and post-purchase flows on a Shopify or similar store | Klaviyo first, Omnisend second | Both are built around order and catalog data; Klaviyo's plans scale further, Omnisend's start lower |
| A small store on a tight starting budget with SMS in mind | Omnisend | Pro is listed at $41.30 a month for 2,500 contacts with unlimited monthly emails; SMS is per message |
| A large free contact allowance with paid volume later | Brevo | Free holds up to 100,000 contacts; paid plans are priced by monthly email volume |
| A familiar tool with a free plan and a 14-day trial | Mailchimp | Free covers 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, and the Standard trial lets you test flows |
| Product-triggered lifecycle messages with AI Agent skills | Customer.io | Essentials names AI Agent core skills; profile tiers are billed monthly from $145 at 10,000 profiles |
| A flat paid price for a startup product team | Loops | Growing Audience is listed at $99 a month with unlimited subscriber sends |
| Mostly transactional mail from your application | Mailgun or SendGrid | API-first pricing tied to email volume, with free tiers for testing |
Use the table as a filter, not a verdict. A store that also runs a newsletter and a course may need Klaviyo for the store and a second tool for the audience, and that split is common. Price both halves before you choose one platform.
Working Through the Choice
Start with the list you have, then the list you expect in twelve months, then the messages you want to send. For a store, the list is usually customers and subscribers who came from checkout or a popup, and the messages are welcome, abandoned cart, browse follow-up, post-purchase and win-back. For a non-store business, the list is often trial users, members or readers, and the messages depend on what those people do next.
Next, put each shortlisted tool at the size you expect in twelve months. A tool that is cheapest today can become the most expensive once the list grows, and the bands and tiers differ in how steeply they rise. Klaviyo's bands climb from $20 to $400 across the profile sizes listed here. Omnisend's listed Pro price is $41.30 at 2,500 contacts, but larger sizes are on request. Customer.io's profile tiers climb from $145 at 10,000 profiles to $505 at 50,000 and above. Compare the slopes, not only the starting points.
Then decide where AI helps you. If the team wants AI writing or optimization, ask each vendor which features are in the plan you would buy, in writing, and read the answer against your send volume. Do not assume that an AI feature is available on a plan because the vendor markets AI generally. The pricing listings in this guide name AI features only for Customer.io, so the other tools need a direct answer before you budget for them.
Finally, check the switching cost. Moving a list from one tool to another is easier at the start than after two years of flows, so choose with the future list size in mind.
Setup and Migration Checklist
Whether you are buying Klaviyo for the first time or moving from another tool, the setup order matters for cost. The table below sets out the steps in the order that keeps the profile count and the bill under control.
| Step | What to do | Why it affects cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Set the consent rule | Decide which contacts you will import, based on consent and recent activity | Every imported contact can count toward the profile band |
| 2. Clean the export | Remove duplicates, bounced addresses and contacts who have not engaged in a long time | Reduces the active-profile count before the plan is set |
| 3. Start on the free plan | Connect the store or import a small test list and build the first flows | Shows whether the flows fire correctly before a paid band is needed |
| 4. Build the core flows | Welcome, abandoned cart, browse follow-up and post-purchase, tested with internal addresses | Test sends count toward the monthly send allowance, so keep them limited |
| 5. Plot the band boundaries | Chart the profile count for the next twelve months and mark each band line | Shows when the monthly price will step up |
| 6. Decide on SMS | Request an Email plus SMS quote if text is part of the plan | SMS is priced separately and is on request on Klaviyo |
| 7. Switch the live list | Import the cleaned list, then turn off the old tool's automations so contacts do not receive both | Running two tools at once can double sends and raise the bill on both |
| 8. Review monthly | Check the profile count, send volume and suppression list against the band plan | Catches a band step before it arrives on the invoice |
Migration mistakes tend to cost more than the software. The most common is switching the list and leaving the old automations live, which can send the same welcome message twice. The second is importing every contact ever collected, which adds profiles that never engage and pushes the account into a higher band. Step 2 in the table is where most of the money is saved.
Budgeting Checklist Before You Sign
- Price the band you will reach in twelve months: the monthly price, not today's band, is the figure to compare.
- Price SMS on its own line: Klaviyo's Email plus SMS plans are on request, and Omnisend's SMS depends on country.
- Check the offer rate: the Omnisend Standard figure of $11.20 is an introductory rate, so budget the later rate from the pricing page.
- Confirm the AI features in writing: the Klaviyo listings used here do not itemize AI features by tier.
- Count sends, not only contacts: Brevo's free plan has a daily cap, Loops' free plan has a rolling 30-day cap, and Klaviyo's free plan has a monthly send cap.
- Re-check quotes each quarter: prices and bands change, so the figure you budgeted last quarter is a starting point.
Who Should Buy Klaviyo
Klaviyo fits best where the store's data is the core of the messaging: products, orders, carts and customer history. Stores on Shopify, WooCommerce and similar platforms use that data directly, and the flow library is built for it. A store with a healthy profile count and a steady revenue line can carry the band steps and treat them as a cost of recovering carts and repeat orders.
Klaviyo is a weaker fit for teams whose main messages depend on product behavior, subscription events or a readership, and for businesses where most of the list is inactive. In those cases the profile-based price can rise faster than the value of the messages, and a contact-based or send-based tool from the comparison table is worth a closer look.
Klaviyo Pricing FAQs
How much does Klaviyo cost in 2026?
The free plan covers 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month. The listed monthly email plans run from $20 at 500 profiles to $400 at 25,000 profiles, and SMS and Email plus SMS plans are on request. Build the exact figure on the official pricing page.
What counts as an active profile?
An active profile is a contact that can receive marketing email. Each one counts toward the band your account falls into while it stays eligible, so suppression and list cleaning directly reduce the price.
Is the free plan enough for a new store?
It is enough to build and test a welcome flow and an abandoned-cart flow with a small list. Passing 250 active profiles or 500 sends in a month requires a paid plan, so start planning the first band before you reach that point.
Do Klaviyo plans include AI writing or optimization?
The pricing listings used for this guide do not itemize AI writing or optimization features by tier, so no AI capability is assigned to a specific Klaviyo plan here. Ask the vendor in writing which features come with the plan you intend to buy.
Is Klaviyo more expensive than Omnisend or Mailchimp for a small store?
At 500 contacts, the listed entry prices are lower elsewhere: Omnisend Standard is shown at $11.20 a month as an offer rate, and Mailchimp Standard starts at $20 a month. Klaviyo's 500-profile email plan is $20 a month. The gap widens when SMS is added, because Klaviyo's Email plus SMS price is on request.
What happens when my list crosses a band?
Plans are sold in bands, so the account moves to the next band's monthly price when the profile count passes a boundary. Chart your count, look ahead to the next boundary and clean the list before the crossing if the step would strain the budget.
Can a SaaS company use Klaviyo?
Klaviyo is built around store data such as catalogs, carts and orders. Teams that need product-triggered or subscription lifecycle messages usually compare it with Customer.io and Loops, both in the comparison table on this page, and with transactional senders such as Mailgun or SendGrid.