Home / Mailchimp vs Klaviyo: Which Platform Should I Choose?
Although email itself hasn’t changed much over the years, the way marketers use it has changed beyond all recognition – and platforms like Mailchimp and Klaviyo are one of the reasons why. These accessible, user-friendly tools allow brands large and small to get creative and build emails that engage with their audiences, not only boosting sales but improving brand loyalty too.
The fact of the matter is that both of these platforms can deliver fantastic results in the right hands, but they each have their pros and cons. Some businesses might prefer Mailchimp, while others will favour Klaviyo. In this guide, we’re going to help you work out which camp you fall into.
Below, we’ll take a deep dive into the unique features of each platform, summarising their pros and cons and what sets them apart. We’ll examine the various pricing options available too, helping you decide which platform is best for your business.
Chances are you already have some idea of what sets Mailchimp and Klaviyo apart – their branding is something of a giveaway. Mailchimp is big on user-friendliness and simplicity, as you might expect given its playful logo and bright yellow accent colour. Klaviyo looks altogether more serious and businesslike, adopting a more restrained logo and a sophisticated, subtle colour palette.
Aside from being a case study on the importance of branding (that’s a blog for another day), this highlights a key difference between the two platforms. Each one is targeting a different user base; Mailchimp is setting its sights more on beginners and small businesses, while Klaviyo is gunning for experienced agencies like us and larger eCommerce brands.
More differences between Mailchimp and Klaviyo become evident when you take a closer look at their features, so let’s do that.
Despite its approachable, playful image, Mailchimp is a powerful tool with a long list of impressive features. With more than 100 different email templates to choose from, it’s easy to start creating your own email designs in a matter of minutes. Mailchimp’s intuitive UI allows you to drag and drop different elements to create slick-looking emails in no time at all – and you don’t need any advanced knowledge of email marketing to get started.
Mailchimp’s analytics and automation tools, while not as powerful as Klaviyo’s, are still highly effective if you know how to use them. You’ll have access to all the essential metrics you need, allowing you to get an insight into your audiences’ behaviours – stats like open rate, click-through rate and subscribe rate are all easy to access and interpret.
Mailchimp can also be integrated with more than 300 different platforms, allowing you to link it to your website relatively easily. All of this sounds impressive, but it’s Mailchimp’s friendly interface that steals the show – it’s the main reason why so many small businesses and email marketing beginners use Mailchimp to get started.
Although it might not look as friendly and welcoming as its main competitor, Klaviyo is surprisingly simple to use. We say ‘surprisingly’, because in terms of features and functionality, it’s the more powerful of the two platforms by quite some margin.
Yes, Klaviyo is a little harder to get to grips with at first, but its exhaustive feature list more than makes up for the steeper learning curve – particularly for eCommerce brands. With a vast array of automation features, insightful analytics, handy AI features and a raft of personalisation and segmentation options, Klaviyo can simply do things that Mailchimp can’t. This might not matter to you if you’re just starting out, but as your business grows, Klaviyo’s extra features can make all the difference. Klaviyo even has more native integrations than its rival – more than 350.
In essence, Mailchimp might take the cake from a user interface perspective, but Klaviyo has the edge when it comes to features and capabilities.
Provided you have less than 500 contacts on your list, Mailchimp is free – although the free plan doesn’t offer all the same features as paid plans. For instance, if you choose the free Mailchimp plan, you’ll only be able to send 1,000 emails per month, and you won’t have access to the full suite of automation and audience features.
The Essentials plan starts at just over £10 per month for 500 contacts, although this figure will rise as your audience grows. For example, if you have 10,000 contacts, the Essentials plan will set you back £87 per month. The Standard plan comes with more features for a little extra, while the all-singing, all-dancing Premium plan does away with contact, audience and send limits for a monthly price of £279.
Klaviyo also has a free version that allows you to access more features than Mailchimp’s, but its contact limit is capped at just 250. From that point on, you’ll have a choice of two paid plans, one of which only includes email marketing features, and the other which comes with SMS marketing functionality too. Let’s say you have 10,000 contacts; Klaviyo’s Email and SMS plan will set you back £150 per month, while the email-only plan will cost you £138.
For small businesses, both platforms are similarly-priced, although Klaviyo can get more expensive than Mailchimp if you have a particularly large database of contacts. However, in our experience as a Klaviyo Agency, the extra cost is worth it for the features.
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Now to the big question: is Klaviyo better than Mailchimp, or is it the other way around? Over the years, our team has tried both platforms extensively, but now we only use Klaviyo.
The reason for this is simple: as an agency, we won’t settle for anything less than the most feature-rich platform on the market, and Klaviyo ticks that box. Although it’s not as beginner-friendly as its arch rival, Klaviyo is a powerhouse of a platform that has helped us deliver outstanding results for our eCommerce clients.
According to Klaviyo, more than 35,000 different brands have migrated from Mailchimp to Klaviyo so far. If you’re considering doing the same, our experienced team is here to help. As a Certified Klaviyo Partner, we can help you get up and running on the platform and create campaigns that inspire and captivate your audience. Want to learn more? Check out our range of email marketing services today.
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