ActiveCampaign vs. Klaviyo

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Wondering which tool is right for you?

No matter the size or maturity of your business, you'll eventually run into the question of which email marketing platform will be the most beneficial to invest in to help you market and sell your product or service.

Both ActiveCampaign and Klaviyo put e-commerce at the center of their platform and are great options to help you drive online store revenue with advanced email marketing. This is especially important now. Why?

According to a Forbes study, 23% of retail purchases are expected to take place online by 2027.

On top of that, for e-commerce businesses specifically, studies show that 55% of online shoppers prefer to communicate with companies through email. There’s no question that to be able to convince your customers you’re worth investing in, you’ll need the help of things like powerful automated email workflows and top-of-the-line deliverability to reach your customers at the right time (with the right content).

As it turns out, ActiveCampaign is the leader of the pack when it comes to both of these things.

If you’re weighing your options between different email marketing tools that’ll not only uphold your current strategy but transform it in the coming years, you’ve landed on the right page. Let's take a look at the features of both ActiveCampaign and Klaviyo and break down where each platform shines. By the time you reach the end, you’ll have an idea of which tool is going to work for you and your business.

ActiveCampaign: powerful features essential to driving business

Founded in 2003, ActiveCampaign is an automation platform that gives you the power to automate your marketing communications, grow your sales pipeline, and send beautiful, personalized emails to your customers. They’ve established themselves as one of the best platforms for advanced automation in the email marketing space and offer powerful features for a competitive price.

ActiveCampaign is perfect for small to mid-size businesses that want a platform they can grow with. It shines when it comes to advanced automation, which is a game-changer for e-commerce stores. Integrating with major e-commerce platforms, ActiveCampaign helps you connect with your customers at the right time through personalized automations.

What to expect with ActiveCampaign

93.4% deliverability rate250+ email marketing templates
950+ integrations10k monthly email sends

At a glance, ActiveCampaign stands out because it provides more powerful automation, segmentation, reporting, and integration capabilities. Whether it's abandoned cart reminders, product recommendations, or tailored follow-ups, ActiveCampaign has all the tools to keep your customers engaged and boost your sales.

Plus, they have more detailed reporting functionality than Klaviyo, helping you understand how your marketing efforts tie to revenue goals.

When you switch from to ActiveCampaign, enjoy free 1:1 migration

Adopting a new or switching to another platform can be an undertaking but it’s inevitable if you’re hitting certain limits with your current tool. When you sign up for an ActiveCampaign Pro or Enterprise plan, we’ll migrate your email lists, transfer your templates, rebuild your automations, and set up your forms and landing pages. All for free.

You’ll get one-on-one sessions with a real person along with resources like help articles and our community to get you set up fast.

Klaviyo: reliable features with less functionality

Klaviyo is a marketing platform founded in 2012 that’s made a big name for itself in the e-commerce world, especially for email and SMS marketing. They claim that their automations helped drive $14 billion in online store revenue in 2022, and many see it as the go-to platform for e-commerce marketing. That said, Klaviyo is a newer tool, so its features are a bit more basic compared to other platforms.

What to expect with Klaviyo

Low deliverability rate160+ email marketing templates
350+ integrations5k monthly email sends

Klaviyo is best for e-commerce businesses that want a simple yet effective way to manage their email and SMS marketing. If you're mainly looking to drive sales through personalized messages and automations tailored to your online store, Klaviyo is a solid option. It’s especially great for businesses that don’t need a ton of extra features and want something easy to set up and run.

But if your business is looking to scale or expand into more advanced marketing strategies, you might want to look at other platforms with more advanced tools, like ActiveCampaign.

Watch this video from EmailTooltester that compares a handful of crucial features between ActiveCampaign and Klaviyo.

How do ActiveCampaign and Klaviyo compare?

At a glance, ActiveCampaign and Klaviyo have some key differences in features.

ActiveCampaign is known for its automation tools that go beyond just email and SMS, offering advanced sales automation, CRM, and powerful reporting features. It integrates with a wide range of platforms and is designed for businesses looking to scale and manage more complex marketing strategies.

Klaviyo, on the other hand, is laser-focused on e-commerce. Its email and SMS tools are built specifically to help online stores sell products, and while it’s great for that, it doesn’t offer the same depth of features outside of e-commerce. So, if you’re looking for more advanced tools to power your marketing and sales, ActiveCampaign stands out, but if e-commerce is your only focus, Klaviyo could be a better fit.

Let’s zoom in a bit more on each feature and how both platforms stack up.

#1 in email deliverability vs. not even in the top 15

What good is your email campaign if nobody sees it? From the past three deliverability tests Emailtooltester ran this year, ActiveCampaign scored first over all other platforms with a 94.2% deliverability rate.

Source: EmailTooltester’s email deliverability report

In stark comparison, Klaviyo didn’t even show up in the top fifteen platforms. This is all the proof you need to know that ActiveCampaign is the platform you should choose if you care about deliverability.

And you should, because an undelivered or lost to the spam folder email is practically useless.

Marketing automation: advanced and powerful vs. basic

When it comes to marketing automation, ActiveCampaign and Klaviyo both offer solid features, but ActiveCampaign simply has more to offer if you're looking for a tool that is truly comprehensive.

ActiveCampaign’s automation capabilities are incredibly advanced—it provides hundreds of "automation recipes" you can use right out of the box and customize with your own tags, custom fields, and content. This means you can easily follow up with customers post-purchase, re-engage those who’ve abandoned carts, or send time-sensitive emails. Plus, you have the option to build your own automations from scratch, giving you full control over the customer journey.

One standout feature is ActiveCampaign’s visual automation builder, which lets you create complex, multi-step workflows. These workflows can include emails, SMS, site messages, and even CRM updates, all from one platform. It's perfect if you're managing both marketing and sales processes since it’s built to handle everything from lead nurturing to post-purchase follow-ups.

ActiveCampaign’s key automation features include:

  • Advanced automation workflows: Create detailed workflows that can trigger based on a wide range of customer actions, like browsing behavior or engagement with previous campaigns.
  • Conditional logic: This feature lets you tailor your automation based on specific criteria. For example, you can send different follow-up emails to subscribers based on their interests or past interactions, ensuring that the right message reaches the right audience.
  • Segmentation and targeting: ActiveCampaign allows you to segment your audience based on various factors, such as demographics, engagement levels, or purchase history. This helps you send more relevant messages and improve overall campaign effectiveness.
  • Dynamic content: Personalize your email content and offers based on user data and behavior.

Klaviyo, on the other hand, offers automations known as "flows." These are great for e-commerce basics like abandoned cart emails, product recommendations, and basic email flows, but they’re much more limited compared to ActiveCampaign’s automations. Klaviyo has fewer templates to get you started, and each flow is triggered by just one action, so you’re more restricted in how you build out your customer journeys.

If you’re solely focused on running an online store, Klaviyo might work for you, but if you’re looking for more flexibility, customization, and a wider range of automation tools, ActiveCampaign is the clear choice.

It should be noted that Klaviyo does not offer sales automations. Their flows are strictly for e-commerce email marketing only.

Klaviyo’s key automation features include:

  • Abandoned cart emails: Send a reminder to customers who added items to their cart but didn’t complete the purchase, encouraging them to return and finish the transaction.
  • Product recommendations: Automatically suggest products tailored to each customer’s browsing and purchase history, driving personalized shopping experiences.
  • Post-purchase follow-ups: Deliver thank-you messages, requests for reviews, or offers additional products after a customer has made a purchase, helping to increase retention.
  • Browse abandonment emails: Target customers who looked at products on your site but didn’t add them to their cart, prompting them to reconsider those items.

While Klaviyo offers decent automation features, ActiveCampaign’s extensive automation workflows, dynamic content, conditional logic, and more make it the more versatile and powerful choice for managing marketing and sales processes.

E‑commerce features: both offer a range of features

Both Klaviyo and ActiveCampaign offer solid e-commerce features, but each has its own strengths that cater to different needs.

Klaviyo has strong integrations with platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce, allowing you to track customer behavior and purchase patterns effortlessly. This means you can create highly targeted campaigns based on specific actions, like cart abandonment or product views.

Klaviyo’s key e-commerce features:

  • Personalized email and SMS marketing: Tailor messages based on customer behavior and preferences to connect more deeply with your audience.
  • Abandoned cart recovery: As mentioned before, you can automatically send reminders to customers who leave items in their cart, encouraging them to complete their purchase.
  • Deep segmentation: Use customer data to create highly targeted campaigns, enhancing relevance and engagement.
  • Integrations: Connect with platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce to pull in valuable customer data and improve your marketing efforts.

ActiveCampaign is a great choice for e-commerce businesses for several reasons. Not only does it offer advanced automation, comprehensive reporting, and integrations with leading e-commerce platforms, it allows you to create complex workflows that include emails, SMS, and site messages, ensuring you engage with customers at every stage of their journey.

ActiveCampaign’s key e-commerce features:

  • Advanced automation: ActiveCampaign offers powerful automation features that go beyond basic email marketing. You can create complex, multi-step workflows that include emails, SMS, site messages, and CRM updates. This level of automation helps you engage with customers at various stages of their journey, from abandoned carts to post-purchase follow-ups.
  • Detailed reporting: The platform provides extensive reporting capabilities, including advanced dashboards, custom reports, CRM and sales analytics, and revenue attribution. This helps e-commerce businesses track performance in detail, make data-driven decisions, and optimize their marketing strategies.
  • Product recommendations: ActiveCampaign can suggest products to customers based on their browsing and purchase history, driving additional sales and enhancing the shopping experience. For example, this automation recommends books based on the genres a contact selected in a form sent before.
  • Built-in CRM: The integrated CRM helps manage customer relationships and track interactions alongside marketing efforts. This integration provides a complete view of customer interactions and supports more personalized marketing and sales strategies.
  • E-commerce integrations: ActiveCampaign integrates with leading e-commerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce. These integrations ensure that customer data is synchronized and utilized effectively for targeted marketing and automation.

Both platforms give you the tools to boost sales, but Klaviyo is more specialized for e-commerce, while ActiveCampaign offers a broader range of versatile features.

Reporting: extensive reports vs. limited and basic

ActiveCampaign and Klaviyo offer different levels of detail and functionality in their reporting.

ActiveCampaign offers advanced and detailed reporting options. You get in-depth metrics for your email campaigns, including open and click rates, heat maps, and detailed engagement analytics. The platform also includes features like deal reports, which provide insights into how your sales processes are performing, including metrics on deal stages and sales pipeline activities.

ActiveCampaign’s key reporting features:

  • Advanced reporting dashboards: ActiveCampaign’s dashboards offer a detailed view of your automations, campaigns, e-commerce performance, CRM activities, and contacts. For eCommerce users, ActiveCampaign can integrate with your store to track the revenue generated by your campaigns and automation sequences. This allows you to clearly measure the ROI of each email campaign and automation.
  • Custom reports: You can create custom reports tailored to your specific needs, allowing for in-depth analysis of various metrics and performance indicators. This flexibility helps you drill down into the details that matter most to your business.
  • CRM and sales analytics: ActiveCampaign includes CRM and sales analytics, giving you insights into your sales pipeline and customer interactions. This feature helps you manage and optimize your sales processes effectively.
  • Revenue attribution: The platform provides detailed revenue attribution reports, helping you understand which campaigns and channels are driving sales. This clarity is crucial for making data-driven decisions and optimizing your marketing strategies.

Klaviyo’s reporting features are a bit more basic and not as detailed as ActiveCampaign. Still, it offers a good range that does a decent job of painting a picture of your customers and how they react to your content.

Klaviyo’s key reporting features:

  • Benchmark data: Klaviyo offers benchmark data to track how you’re performing compared to industry standards and competitors. This can provide some context but is limited in depth.
  • Store revenue tracking: You can track your store’s revenue and break it down by recipient for individual campaigns or all-time. While useful, this feature doesn’t offer the same level of detail as more advanced reporting tools.
  • Basic metrics: Klaviyo’s reporting includes basic metrics such as clicks, bounces, and email opens. These metrics are helpful but can leave you guessing about how to fine-tune your strategy.
  • Campaign and flow performance: While Klaviyo provides useful insights into campaign and flow performance, it lacks the extensive reporting capabilities of more advanced platforms.

While Klaviyo provides some essential reporting features, its capabilities are relatively basic compared to ActiveCampaign. For businesses seeking a comprehensive view of their marketing and sales efforts, including advanced dashboards and detailed analytics, ActiveCampaign is the obvious choice.

SMS marketing: basic vs. deep insights

Klaviyo offers a few handy features for SMS marketing, though they’re more basic compared to some other platforms. Here’s a rundown of what they offer:

  • SMS campaigns: You can create and send SMS campaigns to your customers, allowing you to reach them directly with promotions, updates, or reminders. It’s a straightforward way to engage with your audience through text messages.
  • Automated flows for SMS messages: Klaviyo allows you to set up automated SMS flows, so you can send messages based on customer actions or triggers. For example, you can automate follow-up messages after a purchase or send reminders for abandoned carts. You can also split test SMS flows.
  • Basic segmentation: While you can segment your SMS lists to target specific groups, the options are a bit more limited compared to more advanced platforms. This means you can send targeted messages, but you might not have as many segmentation options.
  • Simple reporting: Klaviyo provides basic metrics for SMS campaigns, like delivery rates and response rates. However, this reporting is more limited, so you might not get as much insight into how your SMS efforts are impacting your overall marketing strategy.

Klaviyo’s SMS marketing features are quite basic but useful for getting started with text message marketing. If you’re looking for more advanced capabilities, you might find other platforms offer a bit more depth and flexibility.

ActiveCampaign offers SMS marketing automation features for their Plus, Professional, and Enterprise plans. Their range of SMS marketing features makes it a standout choice for businesses looking to leverage text messaging effectively. Here’s a look at what they offer:

  • SMS automation: ActiveCampaign lets you set up automated SMS workflows, so you can send messages based on customer actions or behaviors. This means you can automate everything from welcome messages to follow-ups and reminders, ensuring timely and relevant communication with your audience.
  • Deep personalization: With ActiveCampaign, you can personalize SMS messages with dynamic content, tags, and customer-specific details. This level of customization helps you craft messages that resonate with each recipient, making your SMS marketing more impactful.
  • Performance tracking: The platform provides detailed performance tracking for your SMS campaigns, including metrics like delivery rates, open rates, and engagement. This helps you understand how well your messages are performing and adjust your strategy accordingly.
  • Two-way messaging: ActiveCampaign supports two-way SMS communication, allowing you to engage in real-time conversations with your customers. This feature is great for handling inquiries, providing support, or even gathering feedback directly via text.

Overall, ActiveCampaign’s SMS marketing features offer a lot more depth and flexibility compared to more basic platforms. From automation and personalization to performance tracking and two-way messaging, ActiveCampaign equips you with the tools to make your SMS marketing as effective as possible.

Integrations: 950+ vs. 350+

In ActiveCampaign’s app marketplace, you’ll find 950+ apps that integrate with various tools and platforms, including CRM systems, e-commerce platforms, and other marketing tools. It supports connections with popular services like Salesforce, Shopify, WooCommerce, and hundreds more.

Klaviyo also offers a range of integrations, especially e-commerce platforms, but it’s much more limited than ActiveCampaign. Their 350+ integrations include apps like Square, Google Ads, Shopify, Stripe, WooCommerce, and more.

The platform that’s right for you will ultimately come down to which tools you’re already using and if ActiveCampaign or Klaviyo can easily integrate with them. By and large, ActiveCampaign offers more flexibility and power when it comes to connecting all your apps together (which makes every function a lot easier).

CRM: standard features vs. a fully built-in CRM

Klaviyo doesn’t have a traditional CRM system. Instead, it focuses more on email marketing and automation with strong segmentation and analytics capabilities. It does allow you to manage customer data and interactions to some extent, but it’s not as comprehensive in terms of CRM features like contact management, sales pipelines, or task tracking.

If you're looking for CRM functionalities alongside your email marketing, you might want to consider integrating Klaviyo with a dedicated CRM system or choosing a platform like ActiveCampaign that offers both marketing automation and CRM features.

Here’s a look at what CRM features you can expect with Klaviyo:

  • Customer profiles: Klaviyo creates detailed customer profiles that include data on their interactions, purchase history, and preferences. You can also see the products a contact recently viewed. This data gives you get a clearer picture of your customers and tailor your marketing efforts accordingly.
  • Contact segmentation: You can segment your contacts based on various criteria, like purchase behavior or engagement levels. This helps you target specific groups with relevant campaigns, though the segmentation options are fairly basic.
  • Data sync: Klaviyo syncs customer data across your marketing channels and integrates with e-commerce platforms to keep your information up to date. This ensures that your marketing efforts are based on the latest customer data.
  • Basic reporting: While Klaviyo provides some reporting on CRM activities, it’s more limited compared to advanced platforms. You can track key metrics like email opens and clicks, but the depth of analysis is fairly standard.

In contrast, ActiveCampaign includes a dedicated CRM add-on that’s integrated into the platform. This CRM functionality is designed to manage your sales processes and customer relationships effectively, giving you access to features like deal tracking, pipeline management, and sales automation.

Watch this walkthrough of the ActiveCampaign CRM

ActiveCampaign’s CRM allows you to organize contacts, track interactions, build pipelines, create deal records, assign deal owners, and automate your sales communications. It’s designed to connect directly with your email marketing efforts, providing a more cohesive and powerful way to handle both marketing and sales activities.

If you need CRM capabilities to complement your marketing, ActiveCampaign is the platform you should choose. Just keep in mind that the CRM is an add-on available on the Plus plan or higher.

Key features of ActiveCampaign’s CRM:

  • Send a notification or Slack message when a contact’s information changes, or if they complete a certain action
  • Track and divide up the sales outreach process between different members of your team
  • Set up automations to send relevant content to your customers based on things like order size or response times
  • Use Kanban-style boards to visualize sales opportunities
  • ActiveCampaign’s lead scoring helps you find the most promising opportunities based on your prospects’ actions and behaviors
  • The deal scoring feature gives each of your deals a numerical value so you can understand which deals are priority
  • Use automations to create and modify deals in the CRM based on the data you’ve already collected from each contact

While Klaviyo offers some CRM-like features, ActiveCampaign’s full CRM, sales automation, and pipeline management make it the obvious choice for businesses that need a powerful tool to manage customers and easily align their marketing and sales efforts.

Segmentation: choose the platform that helps you meaningfully engage with your audience

Segmentation is all about dividing your audience into specific groups based on various criteria, like their location, engagement levels, or preferences. This helps you send targeted and relevant messaging, which increases the chances that your audience will engage with your content and ultimately convert into customers.

There are some key differences between the segmentation features that ActiveCampaign and Klaviyo offer. One will limit what you can achieve while the other is built to help you engage with your audience with the right content at the right time. Let’s take a look.

Klaviyo’s key segmentation features:

  • Default segments: Klaviyo provides default segments for new subscribers and those who’ve engaged with your emails over the past 30, 60, or 90 days. These are handy for quick setup but might not always fit your specific needs.
  • Laborious setup: Setting up custom segments in Klaviyo can be a bit laborious, especially for those new to email marketing. Features like “dimensions” and the “Boolean computer data type” can be complex and not the most user-friendly.
  • Conditions limit: You can include up to 13 conditions per segment. While this allows for detailed segmentation, it can be somewhat limiting if you need more granular control.
  • Predictive analytics: Klaviyo’s predictive analytics lets you segment customers based on their likelihood to purchase again or their potential lifetime value, providing insights into future behavior.

ActiveCampaign’s key segmentation features:

  • Flexible segmentation: ActiveCampaign offers flexible segmentation based on specific actions, tags, and custom fields. This means you can store extra details about your contacts, such as their location or interests, and use these to create more precise segments. You’re also able to segment on a variety of contact status conditions in relation to your various lists to improve targeting, exclusion, and list management efforts.
  • Conditions limit: You can include up to 20 conditions per segment, giving you more detailed control over how you group your contacts.
  • Dynamic segments: Segments automatically update based on real-time data, so your campaigns are always targeted to the most current audience.
  • Cross-channel segmentation: ActiveCampaign allows you to segment across email, SMS, and other channels, enabling you to create cohesive multi-channel campaigns.

With ActiveCampaign, you’re able to add contacts to relevant (and multiple) lists to segment them properly, apply unique tags to each contact, and create/automate custom fields to save new customer information. Plus, you can even create custom objects to bring in customer data and share it with your integrated apps.

Both platforms offer powerful segmentation tools, but ActiveCampaign takes it further with more advanced conditions, dynamic updates, and cross-channel capabilities. Their segmentation supports true 1:1 automated personalization, allowing for deeper and more meaningful engagement with your audience.

Email builder: the basics vs. advanced email personalization

Both platforms have a good email building experience, but one wins out.

Klaviyo’s email builder offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, making it easy to arrange and customize elements like text, images, and buttons without needing coding skills. You can start with a variety of pre-built templates designed for different types of emails, from promotions to newsletters, and personalize them with dynamic content and merge tags to make your emails more relevant to each recipient.

While the builder includes essential design tools like font choices and color settings, it lacks some of the advanced features found in more sophisticated email builders. However, it ensures that your emails are mobile-responsive, so they look great on both desktop and mobile devices.

ActiveCampaign allows for more detailed personalization, including the ability to send conditional content based on contact behavior, past purchases, and preferences. Plus, with advanced mobile formatting, you can edit emails from both desktop and mobile, giving you that added flexibility.

ActiveCampaign’s email builder is known for its intuitive interface and customization options.

You have access to a wide range of blocks: 

  • Image
  • Text
  • Button
  • Spacer
  • Video
  • Social
  • Banner
  • Timer
  • Menu
  • And HTML for custom code

This makes it super easy to create polished, on-brand emails. You’ll also be able to use conditional content to create a set of rules that determines the content that should appear in an email to contacts on your list. Doing so is a great way to personalize your campaigns.

With AI-powered content generation, you’re able to craft emails in seconds by using predictive text. Plus, experiment with variants across your campaigns to identify what resonates with your customers and understand what elements you may need to change to make their experience more personal.

Both platforms offer user-friendly email builders, but ActiveCampaign takes it a step further with more advanced personalization, conditional content options, and a tight integration with its powerful automation features.

Design and templates: one platform has a large library of custom templates

ActiveCampaign has 250+ well-designed, mobile-friendly templates, and you’re not stuck with just the existing templates and blocks. You have full HTML and plain text editing options, along with flexible content blocks, and you can even import your own templates. This means you can whip up perfect, on-brand emails in no time. The best part? All these options are available on every plan.

ActiveCampaign even has a “sell a product” category, which is perfect for those in the e-commerce world.

Looking to send a form instead? ActiveCampaign has great form designs including inline forms, floating bars, and floating boxes. These forms are customizable, so you can make sure they fit easily into your website or landing page. Plus, once someone fills out a form, you can automatically trigger actions within your automated workflows, like sending a welcome email or assigning a lead to a specific sales rep.

Klaviyo only offers 160+ pre-built responsive email templates so the selection is more limited than the ActiveCampaign template library.

However, Klaviyo does have great form design options that can be easily customized. They offer four styles including embed known as inline forms, popup, full page, and flyout. You can split test these forms which is something ActiveCampaign doesn’t offer on forms (only automations).

Support: both platforms win here

ActiveCampaign stands out with its comprehensive support options, generally offering more assistance compared to Klaviyo. They provide 24/7 live chat and email support, ensuring you can get help whenever you need it. Their extensive resource library includes webinars, detailed guides, and a community forum, offering a wealth of information to help you navigate and optimize the platform.

Additionally, ActiveCampaign offers one-on-one training sessions for those who prefer a more personalized touch, making it easier to get tailored guidance and support.

Some support perks you can expect with ActiveCampaign:

  • In-person Study Hall workshops that allow you to learn how to use the platform in a hands-on experience
  • Extensive support by means of video tutorials, help articles, 1:1 calls, and an active community you can go to when you have a question

Klaviyo also has solid support, with email and chat options available during business hours, plus a good range of tutorials and help articles. They do offer live chat, but it’s not 24/7 like ActiveCampaign. Both platforms have active online communities, but if round-the-clock support and more hands-on assistance are important to you, ActiveCampaign edges out Klaviyo.

Pricing: basic vs. more features to help you grow

ActiveCampaign and Klaviyo have different pricing structures. For the sake of this comparison, we’ll be looking at pricing for up to 1,000 contacts in both platforms.

Klaviyo pricing

Klaviyo offers three tiers: a free plan, their Email plan, and their Email and SMS plan.

Based on up to 1,500 contacts. 

With each of these, you’ll get the following features:

Hyper-precise segmentationCampaigns for targeted, one-off messages
Drag-and-drop automation builderAutomated A/B testing
Built-in forms and pop-upsDetailed customer profiles
Personalized benchmarksPersonalized product recommendations
350+ pre-built integrationsPrecise multi-channel attribution
Templates with built-in best practicesBuilt-in compliance and deliverability

Klaviyo’s free plan also comes with 500 monthly email sends, 150 free monthly SMS/MMS credits (includes applicable SMS carrier fees), and email support for first 60 days.

What are credits? Klaviyo SMS uses a credit-based system, where the price per credit varies on the quantity you buy. Each message already includes carrier fees, and we provide a free toll-free number or a branded sender ID to get started.

For up to 1,000 contacts, Klaviyo’s Email plan starts at $30/​month. You’ll get features like:

10,000 monthly email sends150 free monthly SMS/MMS credits
Mobile push notificationsAnd email and chat support

Finally, Klaviyo’s final plan is their Email and SMS plan that starts at $45/month for 1,000 contacts. This plan is designed specifically for you to reach customers through both email and SMS.

With the Email and SMS plan, you’ll get additional features like:

10,000 monthly email sendsIncludes applicable SMS carrier fees
Mobile push notificationsAnd email and chat support

Klaviyo’s pricing is pretty standard but the features leave more to be desired. Compared to other email marketing platforms, it doesn’t stand out and offers very little in terms of powerful automation capabilities.

ActiveCampaign pricing

Compared to similar enterprise-level automation tools like HubSpot or Salesforce, ActiveCampaign is pretty budget-friendly for the amount of features you get. They don’t offer a free plan (just a free two-week trial), but their Starter plan gives you access to some pretty advanced features for only $15/month.

Prices above are based on a max of 1,000 contacts.

To start, ActiveCampaign’s entry-level pricing starts at $15/month. This plan, aptly named the Starter plan, gives you access to multi-step marketing automation right out of the gate. Klaviyo doesn’t advertise advanced automation on any of their plans.

With ActiveCampaign’s Starter plan, you get access to features like:

10,000 monthly email sendsAn AI-powered automation builder
5 actions and triggers per automation900+ automation recipes
Email campaigns and newslettersThe ActiveCampaign Marketing CRM
Basic and inline web formsOver 950 integrations including standard e-commerce apps
Over 250 email templatesLimited reporting and analytics
A/B testing on emailsSite tracking
Limited segmentation

Moving up to the Plus plan, you unlock more automation and powerful customer insights for $49/month with 1,000 contacts.

The Plus plan adds features like:

Unlimited triggers and actions for your automationsProspecting and retargeting ads for Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn
Web formsBasic segmentation
Landing pages (and templates)Basic reporting and analytics
Generative AI functionalityRevenue reporting

With the Plus plan and up, you can add on the pipeline enhanced CRM to manage your sales automation or the sales engagement CRM that includes additional email and AI capabilities.

ActiveCampaign’s Pro plan will cost you $79/month to unlock full omnichannel marketing automation. This is where you can truly elevate your email marketing. You’ll have monthly email sends 12x your contact limit and three users instead of one.

The Pro plan gives you access to additional features like:

A/B testing on automationsAdvanced segmentation, reporting, and analytics
Conditional contentAttribution tracking 
Predictive sendingConversion tracking

The Pro plan allows you to get more granular about how your email campaigns are performing and understand what content, messaging, and offers move the needle for your business. You’ll have total control over your email cadence.

Finally, ActiveCampaign’s Enterprise plan starts at $145/month for 1,000 contacts and allows you monthly email sends 15x your contact limit plus five users.

With the Enterprise plan, you get everything previously mentioned plus:

Premium segmentationA dedicated account team
Custom objectsSingle sign-on (SSO)
Premium CRM integrations with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and morePremium reporting and analytics

No matter which ActiveCampaign plan you choose, ActiveCampaign offers services like contact migration, customer enablement workshops, chat and ticket support, video tutorials, a knowledge base, and help guides to help you get the most out of the platform so you can focus on running your business.

Why do people switch from Klaviyo to ActiveCampaign?

We know you’re aware that you’re on the ActiveCampaign website reading a comparison between us and a competitor but there really is a reason why so many people choose to migrate away from their current marketing automation platform. We’ve seen plenty of customers migrate and see real results.

One of the biggest challenges that Party Headphones encountered was being able to accurately attribute conversions across the customer lifecycle. Their poor lead attribution made hitting the right target audience difficult and on top of that, fulfilling orders was manual, time-consuming, and error-prone.

Once Party Headphones identified their conversion events, ActiveCampaign enabled them to automatically measure the traffic sources, campaigns, keywords, and other components of the engagement and campaigns that lead to that conversion.

It’s very helpful to be able to drill down to an individual client and watch their exact path… And that’s where we felt ActiveCampaign had the strongest capability.
Alex Mitchell
Founder of Party Headphones

When they chose ActiveCampaign, Party Headphones saw a 3x faster client intake and a 480% increase in their number of contacts. Plus, they were able to identify winning campaigns and content, and iterate on those practices.

ActiveCampaign or Klaviyo: which is best for you?

The platform you choose will depend on which features above are most important to you (and which you need to grow your business).

Choose ActiveCampaign if… you’re a growing business or e-commerce company that needs advanced automation and a powerful CRM to create and manage all types of customer journeys.

ActiveCampaign is great for businesses that need powerful marketing automation and advanced email features without a lot of extra frills—perfect for small to mid-sized teams looking for deep customization and data-driven decisions.

Choose Klaviyo if… you’re an e-commerce business in need of a basic email marketing platform that relies on a strong Shopify integration.

Klaviyo is tailored to small businesses that want to use customer data to create personalized marketing campaigns. If you’re an online store owner using a platform like Shopify or WooCommerce and are focused on building strong customer relationships through targeted emails and SMS messages, it may be the tool for you.

What are real customers saying about each platform?

Are customer stories too biased for you? We get it. Let’s look at a few reviews from real users.

“Klaviyo is the best for enterprise-level email marketing”

Source: G2

"There are comparable options to Klaviyo"

Source: G2

Pros: “Great integration with Shopify made segmentation easy. We've been able to been some detailed segments based on Shopify data that has helped reach targeted audiences.”Cons: “Recent price increase is making it hard for smaller businesses to enjoy Klaviyo's services. Many smaller e-comm businesses find Klaviyo too expensive. Klaviyo's customer service has also disappeared.”

“We love ActiveCampaign!”

Source: G2

"ActiveCampaign is full-featured, fairly intuitive, and grows with you"

Source: G2

Pros: “I was on another marketing platform for a few years and found it tough to navigate. I found ActiveCampaign fairly intuitive to find what you need, make adjustments, and publish website forms, newsletters, nurture emails, etc.”Cons: “We have very few complaints. There are occasionally some buggy issues with Captcha settings.”

Frequently asked questions

Lingering questions? We've got you.

💡 Is ActiveCampaign or Klaviyo better for e-commerce?

Klaviyo is generally the better pick for e-commerce because it’s designed specifically for online stores, offering strong integrations and personalized marketing tools that help drive sales. However, ActiveCampaign can still handle e-commerce well, especially if you need advanced automation and CRM features.

While it’s not as laser-focused on e-commerce as Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign’s versatility and automation capabilities can still help your business grow, especially if you’re looking for a platform that can manage more than just your online store. With features like personalized email campaigns, automation workflows, and deep integration with platforms like WooCommerce and Shopify, it helps you engage customers, boost sales, and keep everything running smoothly.

Learn more about ActiveCampaign’s e-commerce features here.

💡 What’s the difference between flow and automation?

In Klaviyo, a "flow" is like a set-it-and-forget-it sequence of actions triggered by customer behavior—think of it as a path your customers follow after doing something, like signing up for a newsletter or abandoning a cart. It’s all about guiding them through a personalized experience automatically.

On the other hand, ActiveCampaign calls these "automations." They work similarly, letting you set up a series of actions based on triggers, like when someone joins your email list or makes a purchase. The big difference is that ActiveCampaign’s automations are more versatile, allowing you to manage not just e-commerce tasks but also broader marketing and sales processes.

So, "flow" in Klaviyo is more e-commerce-specific, while "automation" in ActiveCampaign can handle a wider range of tasks beyond just your online store.

💡 Who is ActiveCampaign best for?

ActiveCampaign is ideal for businesses that want to take their marketing to the next level with powerful automation and personalization features. It’s a great fit for small to mid-sized teams who need advanced tools to automate their marketing, segment their audience, and track detailed performance metrics.

If you're looking for a platform that offers deep customization, predictive analytics, and a visual workflow builder to create tailored customer experiences, ActiveCampaign could be a perfect match. It’s especially useful if you have a bit of experience with email marketing and want to leverage more sophisticated strategies to drive growth.

💡 Can you use ActiveCampaign as a CRM?

Yes, ActiveCampaign can be used as a CRM. It includes built-in CRM functionalities that allow businesses to manage their sales pipelines, track customer interactions, and automate follow-ups.

The combination of marketing automation and CRM in one platform helps simplify the sales process, improve customer engagement, and maintain organized records of customer data and interactions, making it easy to manage your marketing and sales in one place.

Ready to take ActiveCampaign for a spin?

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