The core difference
Klaviyo was built from the ground up for e-commerce. Every major feature — the Shopify sync, the behavioral triggers, the revenue attribution dashboard — exists because e-commerce stores need to send emails based on what customers actually do, not just who they are.
Mailchimp is a general email marketing tool that added e-commerce features over time. It works. But it was not designed with a Shopify store's data model in mind, and that shows when you try to build the automations that actually move revenue — browse abandonment, VIP sequences, win-back flows triggered by days since last purchase.
For stores with serious retention marketing goals, this distinction matters a lot. Both tools send email. Only one is built around the specific behavior data that e-commerce generates.
"Mailchimp sends emails. Klaviyo builds retention programs."
Quick comparison: Klaviyo vs Mailchimp
| Feature | Klaviyo | Mailchimp |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 250 contacts, 500 sends/mo | 500 contacts, 1,000 sends/mo |
| Paid entry (500 contacts) | $20/mo | Essentials $13/mo |
| At 10K contacts | $150/mo | ~$100/mo (Standard) |
| Shopify integration | Native, deep, real-time behavioral data | Available, less behavioral depth |
| Abandoned cart | Yes — sophisticated trigger logic | Yes — less sophisticated |
| Browse abandonment | Yes (with pixel) | Limited |
| Revenue attribution | Built-in, per-email revenue reporting | Basic |
| SMS | Built-in add-on | Separate add-on |
| Segmentation | Excellent — behavior-based | Good — less behavioral |
| Best for | E-commerce with retention goals | General email, early-stage stores |
Klaviyo — deep dive
Klaviyo's Shopify integration is genuinely best-in-class. It syncs purchase history, browsing behavior (once you install the Klaviyo pixel), cart data, and your full product catalog in real time. That data is what makes the rest of the platform actually useful.
Where Klaviyo wins:
- Flows — Klaviyo's term for automation sequences — are built on behavioral triggers: abandoned cart, post-purchase, browse abandonment, win-back, birthday, VIP threshold. These run continuously after setup with no manual intervention.
- Revenue attribution is built in. You can see exactly which flow or campaign generated what revenue, down to the individual email. This is how you know what is working.
- Predictive analytics give you estimated customer lifetime value, predicted next order date, and churn risk scores — all derived from your actual purchase data.
- The Klaviyo pixel tracks on-site behavior, which powers browse abandonment emails and accurate engaged/unengaged segmentation based on real activity, not just email opens.
- SMS is a native channel alongside email. You can build coordinated sequences that send an email, wait 12 hours, then follow up with a text — without stitching together two separate platforms.
- Segmentation is excellent. You can build segments based on any combination of purchase behavior, browsing activity, predicted LTV, order count, product categories bought, and more.
Where Klaviyo has limitations:
- More expensive than Mailchimp at comparable contact counts — $150/month versus ~$100/month at 10,000 contacts.
- The free tier is limited to 250 contacts. If you are just starting out, Mailchimp's free plan is more generous.
- Setup takes more effort. Configuring flows, installing the pixel, and setting up proper segmentation is not complicated, but it is not instant either.
Klaviyo's abandoned cart flow is the single highest-ROI automation most e-commerce stores can run. Klaviyo's own benchmarks put recovery rates at 5–15% of abandoned carts. For a store doing $50k/month with a 70% cart abandonment rate, that is meaningful revenue from an automation that runs indefinitely after setup.
Mailchimp — deep dive
Mailchimp's free tier is more generous than Klaviyo's: 500 contacts and 1,000 sends per month, which is enough to get started without spending anything. The drag-and-drop email builder is beginner-friendly and the interface is less overwhelming than Klaviyo's for someone who just needs to send a newsletter.
Where Mailchimp works well:
- The free plan is a real free plan. 500 contacts and 1,000 monthly sends is workable for a store in its early months.
- Customer Journeys — Mailchimp's automation builder — covers the basics on paid plans: abandoned cart, welcome series, re-engagement sequences.
- Integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and most major e-commerce platforms.
- The email builder is genuinely easier to use for people who are not experienced with email marketing tools.
- Paid plans start at $13/month for Essentials — lower entry cost than Klaviyo if you are price-sensitive at a small list size.
Where Mailchimp has limitations:
- Behavioral trigger logic is less sophisticated than Klaviyo's. You can do abandoned cart, but the nuance of the triggers — time windows, product-specific logic, suppression rules — is shallower.
- Browse abandonment is not meaningfully available. If someone visits your store and leaves without adding to cart, Mailchimp cannot trigger an email based on that behavior.
- Revenue attribution is basic. You cannot easily see which specific automations are generating revenue at the flow or email level.
- Shopify integration works but lacks the behavioral data depth that Klaviyo's native integration provides.
- The free tier's 1,000 send limit per month is a real constraint as your list grows — it will force an upgrade faster than Klaviyo's contact limit does for stores sending frequently.
"Mailchimp's free plan is the right starting point for a store with fewer than 500 contacts that wants to send a monthly email and a basic welcome sequence. Beyond that, the gaps start to show."
How we choose at Aplos AI
When we work with e-commerce clients and food and hospitality businesses on their email setup, the choice between these two platforms usually comes down to where the store is in its growth and what kind of email program they are trying to build.
We recommend Klaviyo when: The store has meaningful revenue and wants to build a real retention program. It is on Shopify or WooCommerce. The owner wants behavioral automation — browse abandonment, win-back sequences, VIP tier triggers — not just newsletters. Or they want SMS alongside email in one platform without managing two separate tools.
We recommend Mailchimp when: The store is early-stage with a small list, needs a free plan to start, sends mostly newsletters and one or two basic automations, or does not yet have the revenue for behavioral automation to pay off.
We flag the migration point: Many stores start on Mailchimp and migrate to Klaviyo once they are generating enough revenue for behavioral automation to matter. The migration is manageable — list export, re-import, flow rebuild — but it takes real effort. If you think you will outgrow Mailchimp within 12 months, starting on Klaviyo saves that work later.
Five questions to make the decision
- What is your monthly revenue? Under $10k/month, Mailchimp is fine — the behavioral automation features Klaviyo offers will not generate enough additional revenue to justify the price difference. Over $20k/month, Klaviyo's abandoned cart and win-back flows start paying for themselves within the first month they run.
- Are you on Shopify? Klaviyo's Shopify integration is one of the best in the category. If Shopify is your platform, Klaviyo is the natural fit — the depth of data it syncs is what makes the behavioral flows possible.
- Do you want browse abandonment emails? Klaviyo with the pixel installed. Mailchimp does not do this meaningfully. If someone visits your product pages and leaves without adding to cart, that is a recoverable customer — but only if you can trigger the email.
- Do you want revenue attribution per email or per flow? Klaviyo shows you exactly what each automation generates. Mailchimp's attribution is basic. If you want to know which sequences are working and which are not, Klaviyo's reporting is significantly more useful.
- Do you need SMS alongside email? Klaviyo handles both natively in one platform. Mailchimp requires a separate SMS add-on with less coordination between the channels. If SMS is part of your retention strategy, Klaviyo is simpler to manage.
The automation gap
Klaviyo and Mailchimp both handle email and SMS within their own platform. That is the scope of what they do.
Neither connects automatically to your customer service data. If a customer files a complaint, neither platform knows to pause their promotional email sequence for a week. Neither connects to your loyalty program — if a customer hits Gold tier, your email platform does not automatically fire a congratulations flow and shift them into a different sequence. Neither syncs to your paid ad audiences — if a customer just bought, neither platform automatically removes them from the retargeting campaign they are currently seeing.
Building a complete cross-channel retention stack — where your email platform, CRM, support tool, and ad platform actually talk to each other — requires connecting these systems. That is not something Klaviyo or Mailchimp does on its own. It is something you have to build.
This is where Aplos AI works for e-commerce businesses: building the automation layer that makes your email platform, loyalty data, support tickets, and ad audiences work together in ways neither platform enables out of the box.
Running Klaviyo or Mailchimp but not sure your flows are actually converting? We audit your email setup and identify exactly which sequences are missing or underperforming — and what it would take to fix them.
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