Klaviyo Pricing Plans Explained: How Much Does It Really Cost?

Pricing Based on Profiles and Emails: Klaviyo's pricing depends on active profiles and email volume. SMS charges vary by location and message length.
Selecting Plans Wisely Saves Money: Choose a plan based on your engaged segment size to significantly cut costs.
Wide Pricing Range: From a free plan for small lists to expensive options for millions of profiles.
Free Plan Limits: Up to 250 subscribers with limitations like email watermarks and support restrictions.
Superior Segmentation and Analysis: Klaviyo outperforms competitors with advanced tools.
Klaviyo vs. Mailchimp: Despite higher costs, Klaviyo's transparency and features provide more value.

Klaviyo is a quintessential need for email marketing especially eCommerce stores. Email marketers will swear by its utility in segmenting their audience.

In this blog, we will examine some of the most-oft questions around Klaviyo's pricing structure, choosing the right plan, and the comparative value Klaviyo offers against competitors like Mailchimp. By the end of it, you'll know which Klaviyo plan is ideal for your eCommerce brand.

Let's dive in!

1. How does Klaviyo's Email and SMS pricing plan work for SMBs? How Does Klaviyo Charge its Users?

Klavio's pricing plan is basically based on two things:

Your active number of profiles, and
The number of monthly emails you're sending from your Klaviyo account

This is valid for email and then for SMS, you have certain credits. So based on where your audience is based, the US, the UK, the EU, there are different credits allocated to each SMS going out and the longer your SMS goes out.

The more your SMS text is, the higher you are charged for it. In terms of pricing, Klaviyo automatically chooses the right plan for you based on your active number of profiles and mirrors that with a certain plan, which contains the active number of sends.

For example, if you have a 100,000 profiles on your Klaviyo account, your given the 100,000 Active Profiles plan, and you're given 1,000,000 sends to go along with it.

That's just to account for the campaigns that go out. The flow emails are relatively less in volume in that regard and so they're accounted within that as well.

2. How do you choose the right Klaviyo plan for your eCommerce brand?

So this is a really important question and making sure that you choose the right Klaviyo plan can save you thousands of dollars in billing that's going towards Klaviyo. So whenever you start your live payment plan with Klaviyo, they put you on a plan, which is based on your active number of profiles.

Klaviyo's pricing structure from Klaviyo website- Magnet Monster

Most of the times you aren't going to send a campaign blast to your entire list. You're going to send to a certain engaged segment. So the first step in lowering down and choosing the right plan for you is determine:

What is the maximum engaged segment size that you're going to be sending to?

So, for example, if you have a 100,000 profile account and your engaged segment actually contains about only 50,000 people. Let's just say taking into account any errors or any additional people you might want to send to every now and then if you choose a 60,000 active profiles plan with a 50,000 engaged segment size, then you're almost cutting your bill down by 30 to 40%.

The trouble is most brands don't know this and they just go ahead with whatever plan is chosen for them by Klaviyo. So next time you are in your Klaviyo billing section, make sure to look out for which plan you're on, because choosing the right plan can save you thousands of dollars, if not more.

3. What is the pricing range for Klaviyo?

So, Klaviyo actually starts from a free plan, which is good for up to 250 subscribers on your account. Only drawback is that you get a watermark on your emails footer, as well as your signup form and any other emails that you send out through the platform. But once you upgrade to a paid plan, that watermark goes away and the billing starts at 20 a month for about, you know, up to 500 profiles.

In fact, this is best explained by the number of contacts you have. Klaviyo lets you choose the ideal plan based on the number of profiles in your database. If you have 251-500 profiles, you get email marketing for $20 a month and email + SMS at $35 a month. That's the lowest of the paid plans.

But, it goes up to, 29 million active profiles on the account and that can cost you up to $120,000 per month. So there is a wide variety that you can choose from based on what your needs are. So if you're a small to medium business, which has about, you know, a hundred thousand active profiles, you can go ahead and choose the plan that's right for you.

Or if you're a bigger business that has a million, 2 million, 10 million profiles that you're dealing with, and there's a right plan for you to choose as well.

4. Can you use Klaviyo for free? Who should use the free plan?

Yes, you can actually use Klaviyo for free if you have up to 250 active subscribers on your account. Klaviyo is free and you can send out emails through it.

There is a caveat though!

And that is your emails will contain a watermark in the footer as well as a watermark on your signup form that you use through Klaviyo if you use that, but once you upgrade to even the minimum plan, which is 20, all those things go away and you're good to go.

Additionally, your monthly limit for sending emails is capped at 500. If you exceed this cap before the month's end, your account will be suspended, and you'll not be able to send any more emails. Furthermore, only email-based customer support is available to those on the free plan.

Likewise, Klaviyo extends a complimentary SMS plan, that gives you full access to analytics and dashboard functionalities for managing your SMS and MMS campaigns.

Nonetheless, this offering is less comprehensive compared to the email service due to a cap of 50 active contacts. Moreover, you're constrained by a limit of sending up to 150 SMS or utilizing 50 MMS credits.

But, remember - consuming these SMS credits needs careful planning. For instance, sending a single SMS within the US consumes merely one credit, whereas sending a message to the UK expends five credits. Therefore, a lack of careful management in your SMS and MMS marketing endeavors could lead to a swift depletion of your credits.

So, answering the question of who should use Klaviyo: We think if you're starting an eCommerce brand, you should give Klaviyo a try. Play around with it even before set up your store because email will be your lifeline and you want to reach out to as many customers as possible via email.

Don't miss: Is Klaviyo Email Marketing Software Ideal for Small Businesses?

5. What Are The New Changes Made To Klaviyo’s Pricing Structure?

Klaviyo has not changed its pricing structure since March 2023 when it increased pricing for top-tier customers. The other big change that they had brought in was doing away with the unlimited email sending feature - now, you can only send emails up to 10 times the number of profiles you have in your account.

6. Can You Get An Discount On Klaviyo Pricing Plans?

No, you cannot. Klaviyo does not provide any discount codes to enhance the purchasing capabilities of its users. All users and potential clients must pay the uniform price irrespective of whichever industry you belong to.

Nonetheless, if your contact list exceeds 150,000, you have the option to select tailored plans that may offer more affordable pricing.

7. Is Klaviyo worth it?

100%. We should have probably answered this as the first question above. :)

But, we think Klaviyo is totally worth it. Our email strategists have worked inside of many email marketing platforms like Brevo, Sendlane, Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, but the depth and the segmentation abilities that Klaviyo provides is unmatched.

Besides, the analysis that you can do on the data through custom reporting, setting up automation flow is way beyond any of the other software that we have in this space.

So, we think there's a long time until someone catches up to Klaviyo. And so, until then, we're going to be sticking to Klaviyo for sure.

8. Klaviyo pricing versus Mailchimp pricing? Which one is better?

Mailchimp does seem cheaper, but, from what we've heard, they have hidden costs that get added on eventually, whereas Klaviyo pricing is a lot more transparent. It will be higher, but you'll just see it right away on your account.

Moreover, comparing Klaviyo to MailChimp is not like comparing apples to apples. It's more like comparing apples to bananas.

That is because the segmentation abilities and the data that we get from Klaviyo is incredible. You basically can't get within Mailchimp in terms of the segmentation that you can do and the depth that you can reach in audience segmentation in Klaviyo. So yeah, Klaviyo is a bit more pricey, but it's definitely worth it.

Don't miss: Mailchimp Vs Klaviyo: Which Is Best?

Final thoughts

Klaviyo's pricing is structured to cater to a wide range of needs, from eCommerce/DTC startups to large-scale enterprises, with a keen focus on providing value through advanced segmentation and analysis tools. The choice between Klaviyo and other platforms like Mailchimp ultimately hinges on the specific needs of your DTC brand. In simple words, Klaviyo offers unmatched depth in audience engagement and data analysis.

Remember, investing in the right email marketing platform is not just a cost but a strategic move towards building lasting relationships with your customers.

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