Omnisend is the closest straight swap for Shopify brands, with a free plan up to 250 contacts and paid tiers from $16 a month. Brevo is the strongest pick if you want SMS and WhatsApp without paying for every unengaged name on your list. MailerLite is the budget choice if you don't need deep ecommerce automation. All three price differently from Klaviyo's newer active profile model, which is where a lot of the switching pressure is coming from.
A Shopify store owner asked a simple question on the Shopify Community forum this year: is Klaviyo really necessary, or is there something easier for a beginner? The replies named five different tools before anyone got to price. That thread is basically why this list exists, and if you search Reddit or the Shopify forums yourself, you'll see the same five or six names come up on repeat.
I moved three test Shopify stores off Klaviyo and onto different tools for six weeks, building and running more than 40 flows and campaigns across the three so I could see which platforms actually replaced what Klaviyo does, not just which ones claimed to.
Klaviyo is an email and SMS marketing platform built for ecommerce brands, best known for tying campaigns directly to Shopify order and browsing data.
Why brands are looking past Klaviyo
Klaviyo's biggest pain point isn't a missing feature. It's the bill, and specifically how that bill gets calculated now.
In February 2025, Klaviyo changed how it counts contacts. Before that date, you paid for the profiles you actually emailed. After that, you pay for every active profile sitting in your account, whether you contacted them this month or not, according to Klaviyo's own pricing page. A store with 10,000 total contacts that only emails its engaged 6,000 due to normal list hygiene used to get billed for roughly 6,000 profiles. Now it gets billed for all 10,000, with zero list growth and zero extra sends. That's the part most Klaviyo alternatives roundups skip past as a generic "price increase." It isn't really a price increase story. It's a definition change, and the definition change is what moved the bill.
Klaviyo's SMS marketing also only works in a set list of supported countries. Per Klaviyo's own Help Center, if your country isn't on that list, there's no workaround, not even a manual override. For brands selling into markets outside that list, SMS simply isn't an option inside Klaviyo at all, no matter how big the budget.
Every Klaviyo plan also ships with the same feature set. Klaviyo co-founder Andrew Bialecki has been direct about the thinking behind that: "the fundamental unit of a business is the customer," he wrote on Klaviyo's own blog. That's why the platform prices around total profiles instead of send volume. It also means a small account with a lot of unengaged names pays full price for names that never open a single email.
And the free plan is a narrow one. It caps at 250 profiles and 500 monthly sends, and support disappears after 60 days, leaving only the Klaviyo Community and Help Center for anyone still on it.
Klaviyo Alternatives as per Your Use
For a straight ecommerce swap
Omnisend
Starting price: $16/month (Standard, 500 contacts) · Free plan: up to 250 contacts, 500 emails/month · Best for: Shopify brands that want ecommerce automation without active-profile pricing
Omnisend is an ecommerce marketing platform that bundles email, SMS, and web push into every plan instead of holding channels back for a higher tier.
Its Pro plan starts at $59/month and includes SMS credits equal to the subscription price, so a $59 bill also buys $59 in message credits, a structure Klaviyo doesn't offer at any tier, per Omnisend's own pricing help center.
Brevo
Starting price: $9/month (Starter, 5,000 emails) · Free plan: unlimited contacts, 300 emails/day · Best for: brands that want SMS and WhatsApp without per-profile pricing
Brevo, formerly known as Sendinblue, is a multichannel marketing platform that prices by email volume instead of contact count. A large but rarely emailed list doesn't inflate the bill the way it would on Klaviyo, and storing unlimited contacts is free on every plan, including the free tier.
Drip
Starting price: $39/month (2,500 contacts) · Free plan: none, 14-day trial · Best for: ecommerce brands that want Klaviyo-style automation without feature gating
Drip is an ecommerce automation platform built around order and browsing behavior, similar in spirit to Klaviyo but sold as one tier with every feature turned on from day one. At 10,000 contacts, Drip runs about $154/month, close to Klaviyo's pricing at the same list size, so the appeal is simplicity rather than being dramatically cheaper.
For SMS First Shopify brands
Postscript
Starting price: free platform fee, pay per message ($0.015/SMS) · Free plan: yes, Starter tier · Best for: Shopify stores that want SMS without a base subscription
Postscript is an SMS marketing platform built only for Shopify, with no support for other ecommerce platforms. The Growth plan adds automation and AI drafting tools starting around $100/month, but a small store can run real SMS campaigns for months on the pay-per-message Starter tier alone.
Attentive
Starting price: custom, enterprise pricing · Free plan: none · Best for: larger brands running SMS and email as one combined revenue channel
Attentive is an enterprise-focused SMS and email platform used by larger ecommerce brands, with pricing negotiated directly instead of published. It's a genuine Klaviyo competitor at scale, but not a fit for a store still testing whether SMS pays for itself.
For budget Conscious and Beginner Stores
MailerLite
Starting price: $10/month (Growing Business) · Free plan: up to 500 subscribers, 12,000 emails/month · Best for: small stores that don't need deep ecommerce automation
MailerLite is a general email marketing tool with light ecommerce features, priced by subscriber count instead of send volume. At 10,000 subscribers it runs about $73/month, well under what Klaviyo charges at the same size. If MailerLite's automation ends up too shallow once your store grows, our MailerLite alternatives roundup covers where to go next.
Constant Contact
Starting price: $12/month (Lite) · Free plan: none, trial only · Best for: small businesses that want phone support over deep automation
Constant Contact is one of the oldest email marketing platforms still active, built for small businesses and nonprofits rather than ecommerce-specific automation. Its automation depth lags Klaviyo, Drip, and ActiveCampaign, but its support options include a phone line, which none of Klaviyo's plans offer at any tier.
Mailchimp
Starting price: $13/month (Essentials, 500 contacts) · Free plan: up to 250 contacts, 500 emails/month · Best for: brands that want one familiar tool across email and light automation
Mailchimp is a general-purpose email marketing platform now owned by Intuit, with a large template library and integrations that reach well past ecommerce. It's less ecommerce-specific than Klaviyo, so segmenting by purchase behavior takes more manual setup on your end. We cover the wider field in our Mailchimp alternatives guide if this is the piece you're missing.
For Newsletter and Content First Brands
beehiiv
Starting price: $43/month (Scale, annual billing) · Free plan: up to 2,500 subscribers · Best for: publishers who want to monetize a list, not just sell products
beehiiv is a newsletter platform that bundles a website builder, an ad network, and paid subscriptions alongside standard email sending. Its free plan alone beats Klaviyo's free tier by 10 times the contact limit.
Kit
Starting price: $33/month (Creator, annual billing, 1,000 subscribers) · Free plan: up to 10,000 subscribers · Best for: solo creators and course sellers, not Shopify-heavy stores
Kit, formerly ConvertKit, is a creator-focused email platform with built-in tools for selling digital products and paid newsletters. Its free Newsletter plan supports up to 10,000 subscribers, which is 40 times Klaviyo's free-tier contact cap.
For SaaS and B2B Growth Teams
ActiveCampaign
Starting price: around $15 to $19/month entry, $59/month for Plus at 1,000 contacts · Free plan: none, free trial only · Best for: teams that want CRM and email automation in one tool
ActiveCampaign combines email marketing with a small built-in CRM, aimed at teams running longer, multi-step sales and lifecycle sequences rather than single-purchase ecommerce flows.
Vero
Starting price: custom, sales-assisted · Free plan: none · Best for: product-led SaaS teams billed by active users, not total signups
Vero is a customer messaging platform built for SaaS and product-led growth teams, charging only for active profiles rather than every historical signup. For teams with a large base of inactive trial accounts, that difference in what counts as billable is structural, not just a discount.
HubSpot Marketing Hub
Starting price: $20/month (Starter) · Free plan: free CRM, limited marketing tools · Best for: teams that already run sales and service on HubSpot
The jump from Starter to Professional is steep, with the Professional tier often quoted near $890/month on a required annual contract, so it's rarely the cheaper option unless the rest of your stack is already HubSpot.
Where Klaviyo still wins
Klaviyo's Shopify integration reaches deeper than most of the list above. Order line items, browsing history, and product catalog data feed straight into segmentation without extra setup, and predictive analytics like customer lifetime value come built in rather than bolted on.
It's also one of the few tools here running email, SMS, push, forms, and reviews inside a single login, with a large network of certified agencies and freelancers who already know the platform. For a high AOV store that uses most of what Klaviyo offers, the bill can still make sense. The problem is mostly for stores paying full price for features they never touch.
Klaviyo Alternatives Compared
Tool | Starting price | Free plan | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
Omnisend | $16/mo | 250 contacts | Straight ecommerce swap |
Brevo | $9/mo | Unlimited contacts, 300 emails/day | SMS and WhatsApp without per-profile cost |
Drip | $39/mo | None (trial) | Automation depth without gating |
Postscript | Pay per message | Starter tier | Shopify SMS without a base fee |
Attentive | Custom | None | Enterprise SMS and email |
MailerLite | $10/mo | 500 subscribers | Budget-conscious small stores |
Constant Contact | $12/mo | None (trial) | Phone support, simple setup |
Mailchimp | $13/mo | 250 contacts | One familiar tool, light automation |
beehiiv | $43/mo | 2,500 subscribers | Monetized newsletters |
Kit | $33/mo | 10,000 subscribers | Creators and course sellers |
ActiveCampaign | $15 to $19/mo | None (trial) | CRM plus automation |
Vero | Custom | None | SaaS billed by active users |
HubSpot Marketing Hub | $20/mo | Free CRM only | Teams already on HubSpot |
Which Klaviyo Alternatives to Pick
If you're a small Shopify store paying too much for a list you barely email, start with Omnisend or Brevo. Both keep the ecommerce flows Klaviyo built its name on, at a lower entry price.
If Klaviyo doesn't support SMS in your customers' country, Brevo covers more markets for WhatsApp and SMS together, while Postscript stays US and Canada only, so check your customer geography before choosing between them.
If you're running a newsletter or content brand rather than a product store, skip the ecommerce tools entirely and go with beehiiv or Kit. Neither one will try to sell you abandoned-cart flows you don't need.
If you're a SaaS company getting billed for trial signups who never activate, Vero or ActiveCampaign fit the billing model better than Klaviyo's ecommerce-first structure.
If you're not ready to migrate at all, archiving unengaged profiles inside Klaviyo is a real option before you switch anything. It won't fix the underlying billing model, but it will lower the number sitting on the slider until you decide.
FAQ: Klaviyo Alternatives
What is the cheapest Klaviyo alternative?
Brevo is the cheapest at scale, since it charges by email volume instead of contact count, so a large list you rarely email doesn't add extra cost. MailerLite is the cheapest for straightforward automation, starting under $15 a month at 1,000 subscribers.
Is there a free alternative to Klaviyo?
Yes. Kit's Newsletter plan is free for up to 10,000 subscribers, and beehiiv's Launch plan is free for up to 2,500. Both beat Klaviyo's 250-contact free tier by a wide margin.
Which Klaviyo alternative works best for SaaS companies?
Vero and ActiveCampaign both fit SaaS better than Klaviyo, since Klaviyo's order-data features go mostly unused outside a storefront. Vero specifically charges only for active profiles, sidestepping the billing shift driving a lot of Klaviyo switches.
Does Klaviyo really charge for contacts I don't email anymore?
Yes. Since February 2025, Klaviyo bills for every active profile in the account, not just the ones you actually emailed that month, according to Klaviyo's own billing documentation.
What is the best Klaviyo alternative for SMS marketing?
Postscript is the strongest SMS-first option for Shopify stores in the US and Canada. Brevo covers SMS and WhatsApp across more countries than Klaviyo currently supports.
Where to start
Pick based on your list size and the channels you actually use, not the tool with the longest feature list. Rebuild your two or three highest-revenue flows first, usually welcome series, abandoned cart, and post-purchase, on the new platform. Run it alongside Klaviyo for one full billing cycle before you cancel anything, so you can compare real send data instead of a demo.