When it comes to establishing automated email campaigns, both Mailchimp and Klaviyo offer unmatched functionalities. Their reporting capabilities and analytics tool help you make essential business and marketing decisions. These eCommerce marketing tools boost your overall ROI by optimizing customer journey and lead generation funnels. However, choosing one between klaviyo vs Mailchimp is very challenging.
With an average person receiving 100 emails daily, the race to gain a competitive edge and get clicked intensifies. As per HubSpot, 95% of B2B marketers still agree email marketing is the most effective in meeting their business objectives. Email marketing campaigns are still the most used way to reach online customers. However, your campaign’s efficacy and conversion rate relies on the email marketing platform you use.
Mailchimp and Klaviyo are valuable tools to support businesses with customized marketing, but both platforms are different in their ways. Here is a full breakdown of the differences between Mailchimp and Klaviyo to help you choose the right email marketing tool to meet your business goals.
In-depth Analysis of Klaviyo vs Mailchimp
1. Price
Mailchimp:
Mailchimp offers a free plan for casual and beginner email marketers. Novice marketers can send over 2500 emails/month to around 500 subscribers.
As you add more subscribers, you must start paying for one of Mailchimp’s cost-effective mid-tier plans. The price of the plans is dynamic and increases with your subscriber count.
Compared to Klaviyo, Mailchimp is significantly cheaper. For one, Mailchimp’s top-tier plan is priced the same as Klaviyo’s low-tier plans.
Mailchimp is already an established company with a large user base and a massive cash reserve after its recent acquisition.
It enables the platform to undercut its competitors and offers enticing conversion plans to its free users.
Even though Mailchimp has well-structured pricing plans, it does not reveal the pricing for the additional features post-purchase. As a result, you may need to fork out extra cash to enjoy the full benefits of the platform.
The free version of the platform does not offer advanced features for analyzing campaign performance. You need to pay top dollar, and maybe a few more, to gain access to all the features.
Klaviyo:
Klaviyo also offers a basic plan that lets you send 500 emails to a maximum of 250 contacts. But, there’s a catch to using this version; Klaviyo will emboss their logo at the bottom of your email template, and you have to necessarily use double opt-in forms to gather subscribers.
Neither of these conditions is a deal-breaker for small businesses. Rather, double opt-in forms encourage the business to maintain the hygiene of its email list from the beginning.
Similar to Mailchimp, you need to subscribe to a paid plan to enjoy the premium features like unlimited emails and better customer support. However, these plans can truly drill a hole in your budget.
For handling 146,000 contacts, you need to pay around $1700 per month. Beyond that, you need to get yourself a custom plan.
Nevertheless, these high prices can be justified by the features being offered by Klaviyo. Customer support becomes better as you get the pricier plans.
And, if it becomes too large, you will be allotted a separate account manager who will exclusively serve your needs and help you with your campaigns.
Moreover, the essential features for email campaign management and analysis aren’t hidden behind paywalls. You can even access all the advanced tools in their free version.
2. Analytics and Reporting
Mailchimp:
Mailchimp offers multifunctional analytics and reporting tools to gauge the performance of your campaigns. Even with the free plan, you can access their intuitive customer relationship management (CRM) tool.
The CRM dashboard shows you detailed audience data. The data can be segregated and sorted based on different filters. The CRM also enables you to view individual customer profiles that display their purchase history and email engagements.
Mailchimp also offers an incredibly useful AI tool called the Content Optimizer. This tool highlights the elements that are working well in your template and the ones that are not.
Their AI-powered tools also offer insightful suggestions to improve the overall engagement rate of your emails. Mailchimp also includes industry benchmarks and compares your performance metrics with them. Open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates are also included in the report.
Apart from that, Mailchimp’s analytics and reporting features have a simple layout compared to Klaviyo. Mailchimp offers you all the functionalities and broad-stroke analytics without overwhelming you with various other parameters and tools. But, often, expert email marketers may find themselves constricted due to the limited customization options.
Klaviyo:
On the other hand, Klaviyo offers finer parameters and instruments to make your analysis as accurate as possible. The customization options are more granular, and features are richer with data.
Of course, the countless tools come with a steeper learning curve. But, a professional marketer will be right at home while engaging with Klaviyo analytics and reporting dashboard.
In addition to that, you do not have to pay any extra amount to access these features. All the tools and advanced analytics are considered to be standard features by Klaviyo.
The reporting features are also highly accessible and make it easier to monitor the performance of your email campaign. The reports contain information beyond your usual open and click rates, like revenue generated from the campaigns.
Klaviyo’s report dashboard is modular and enables you to add different views. Now, in each view, you can add different cards. Each card contains information about the performance of your email campaign. In short, you can customize your dashboard and remove background noise to focus only on the key performance indicators.
3. Segmentation Capabilities
Mailchimp:
Like any other top email marketing platform, Mailchimp offers segmentation capabilities to better target customers and nurture leads. Mailchimp has a minimum of 9 overarching segments with various operators and parameters for each one.
Naturally, some segments have more options and flexibility than others. And, the advanced segmentation options are only available to premium plan users.
However, in their bid to simplify the user interface, Mailchimp compromised with certain important functionalities. For one, their segmentation process is list based.
In simpler terms, the segments and parameters only show the contacts that were added to the list. Due to this complicated process, sometimes, the segments will show duplicate contacts from the various list in your Mailchimp profile.
While Mailchimp’s segmentation process can be challenging, we have professional Mailchimp experts who have years of experience using it to create successful segmentation strategies.
Klaviyo:
Right from the launch day of Klaviyo, veteran email marketers have been drooling over its segmentation features. Immediately after activating your account, you get multiple suggestions for setting up various segments for your subscribers.
Further, you can segment the emails based on customer behavior and their cart values. Klaviyo also offers the option to divide your customer base using in-depth parameters, like browsing habits. All the customer-related data is extracted from your Shopify and CRM accounts.
Klaviyo also offers detailed guides and expansive walkthroughs for amateur email marketers and first-time users. The onboarding process provides pre-built segmentation lists and recommendations based on your earlier specified goals.
The segmentation process in Klaviyo is global, meaning it filters all your subscribers in your account irrespective of the list they are in. Our Klaviyo email marketing agency can utilize its data science tools to predict which of your customers will convert into high-value shoppers.
4. Personalization and Recommendations
Mailchimp:
As long as your eCommerce platform is supported by Mailchimp, you can use the segmentation information to create personalized recommendations on your product page.
These recommendations can be easily converted into personalized promotional emails with highly relevant product recommendations. Since Mailchimp is an established email marketing platform, it offers more than 300 types of integration options.
The segmentation features segregate your contacts based on their demographics and interests. It enables you to create different personalized email marketing campaigns for them.
Using the merge tags in Mailchimp, you can create dynamic content for your emails. Lastly, their data analytics tools find the perfect time to send your emails and get more open rates.
Klaviyo:
When Klaviyo entered the market, personalized product recommendations and targeted ads were already taking off. Instead of relying on the old systems, Klaviyo came up with ingenious rule-based product recommendations for your website.
The recommendation system comes in handy when you are dealing with new customers. Since on-site and email interaction data about these customers barely exist, the rule-based recommendation system relies on past customers’ behavior to display the most searched and the best-selling products.
While these recommendations are not highly targeted, they do collect important information about the new customer’s preference which is later utilized to fuel your generic personalization email marketing strategies.
Currently, the eCommerce platform integration capabilities of Klaviyo are quite limited compared to Mailchimp. But, they are adding more compatibility patches and integration options with each new update.
5. Automation
Mailchimp:
Automation has become an indispensable tool for most email marketers out there. And, why shouldn’t it be? Automating mundane tasks, repeated actions, and generic follow-up email campaign frees email marketers to focus on other important aspects of the business.
Without digressing further, the Customer Journey Builder empowers eCommerce owners to start and maintain lead-nurturing conversations with their customers without human intervention.
To begin with, you can create welcome automation to follow up with new subscribers and make the onboarding process easier for them.
Then, with behavior-based automation, you can send the right emails to the right customers at the right time. And, there are various other automated campaigns you can set up for your business, like abandoned cart, retargeting, subscription reminder, and order notification emails.
Klaviyo:
Similarly, Klaviyo offers robust A/B testing capabilities to test out every individual element of your email marketing campaigns and customers’ on-site activity.
All these metrics help you craft the perfect trigger for your automated email campaigns. These triggers can be activated throughout the customer’s life cycle to reduce the high volume of abandoned carts and re-engage customers.
Here, the automation tool is referred to as the Flow builder. The flow builder uses drag-and-drop functionality to add filters and actions to your automated Klaviyo flows.
In a sense, it is a low-code automated campaign builder that relies on visual cues to guide email marketers. Klaviyo is constantly adding new updates and tools to this feature to make it even more potent for eCommerce marketers.
6. Customer Support
Mailchimp:
Back in the day, when Mailchimp was starting out, it was quite challenging to find the customer support number on their website. Probably, they did not want to overburden their call centers with unnecessary requests.
However, they have come far from that phase and are currently offering customer support through various communication channels. Mailchimp offers various online guides, onboarding walkthroughs, and webinars to get users up to speed with their platforms.
They have different tiers of customer support for their users. The free plan users get access to the Mailchimp assistant and 30 days of free access to email support. The higher-tier plans also get these accesses along with 24/7 online chat support. In addition to all these communication channels, Marketing Premium Plan users get weekday phone support.
Klaviyo:
Sadly, Klaviyo shows no love for its free users in this area and offers no support. But, all the paid users get incredible multi-channel support for their accounts.
Klaviyo’s customer success managers provide advice and insights to build better marketing strategies. These support managers are well-equipped to strategize a plan for you and optimize them for the best result. They can also identify friction areas in your customer journey and offer innovative solutions.
They can enhance your email engagements and offer advice to improve overall online activity. Since they are a Boston-based company, its customer support is only available during weekday working hours. As mentioned earlier, the bigger accounts get dedicated account managers who offer to counsel you and your email marketing team.
7. Email Designing
Mailchimp:
Mailchimp offers a drag-and-drop template editor for easy designing and deployment of email campaigns. All accounts get access to Mailchimp’s massive free email template library.
These templates are optimized for the best performance and are highly customizable. Of course, you can use some of these templates as inspirations to create your own.
They also have an image library to get free stock photos in case you do not have professional photos of your products. The built-in photo editor also helps you remove any unnecessary details from uploaded photos.
A/B testing features are also available for all users to test their send times, content quality, click rates, and clickability of subject lines.
Klaviyo:
Klaviyo also offers a drag-and-drop email builder for the seamless designing of templates. The editor can also be utilized to create responsive klaviyo templates with dynamic content fields for better product recommendations. Email designers can also add a custom activity for personalization strategies.
Klaviyo also hosts tools to design email newsletters, email popups, smart sends, and welcome emails.
8. Other Features
Mailchimp:
Mailchimp has a list-specific opt-in form. Therefore, you have to create new lists to create new opt-in forms. While it might not seem like much, it can become tiresome quickly.
Mailchimp’s campaign builder is very visual and consists of an action block that can be dragged and dropped. Some other crucial features like landing page creation and postcards are also present in Mailchimp that are hidden behind a paywall in Klaviyo.
Klaviyo:
Klaviyo also sports a similar drag-and-drop opt-in form builder. Compared to Mailchimp forms, these are more global and can be applied to any number of lists within the system. However, as mentioned above, Klaviyo lacks postcard features, and the landing page creation is locked behind a paywall.
9. Dashboard and User Interface.
Mailchimp-
Mailchimp’s dashboard is designed to enable the user to easily navigate through all the tools and features available to them. The main dashboard shows a brief overview of all your ongoing email campaigns. The dashboard also highlights the revenue that is being generated by the campaigns and outward investments in them.
Of course, the dashboard is highly customizable and you can pin any metric to the main view. Clicking on the smaller report window opens a detailed breakdown of that specific metric. The data in the dashboard is updated in real-time.
It might take some time to figure out their UI. You may have to create some very specific workflows to accomplish certain normal tasks.
Grouping data together is one of the most useful features of Mailchimp. Again, the dashboard is very editable. Depending on the use, the dashboard can be customized to focus on retail, human resource, eCommerce, and warehouse data.
Remember, just because you can customize your dashboard, does not mean that you enter unnecessary metrics and clutter the view. Try to stick with the essentials and keep it as simple as you can.
Klaviyo-
Klaviyo’s dashboard pops automatically when you sign in to your account. Just like in Mailchimp, the dashboard shows campaign performance snapshots and other important financial metrics. It is also highly customizable and the modules present on the dashboard are called views.
All the views are interchangeable and editable. Additionally, they are all capable of displaying real-time data. The UI of Klaviyo is far superior to Mailchimp’s UX. It is much more intuitive and the features are easily accessible.
The Klaviyo dashboard is divided into four tabs. The objective tab lists all the tasks that you need to accomplish to get started with Klaviyo. On the other hand, the performance tab highlights your overall, campaign and email workflow performance.
The segments tabs contain all the tools to help you manage existing email lists and segments or create new ones. Lastly, the activity segment tracks all the data that is flowing into your Klaviyo account from other third-party tools and platforms.
10. Unique Features
Klaviyo and Mailchimp offer unique features that will help you sway your decision.
Mailchimp
When it comes to Mailchimp, some unique features are:
- Mailchimp offers a postcard creator to help you print, stamp, and customize mail postcards all over and outside the United States.
- Mailchimp has a landing page builder to help you create product landing pages for free to boost conversion and create customized content for online ads.
Klaviyo
A few things that make Klaviyo stand out are:
- Klaviyo provides SMS marketing features to send your email subscribers customized text messages. It is highly recommended for customers who choose SMS over email.
- Secondly, unlike Mailchimp, Klaviyo provides a direct Shopify integration for third-party app integration. With Klaviyo’s integration feature, you can collect and store customer data from your online store.
11. E-commerce Integration
Easy and seamless integration with an e-commerce platform is a much-needed feature for an automated email marketing platform.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp offers e-commerce integrations with WooCommerce and Shopify that help pull customer data from an existing online store. The platform makes use of this detail to draft completely targeted campaigns. It also advises users to go for an open rate of 21.33%.
Klaviyo
Klaviyo integrates with PrestaShop, BigCommerce, Wix, Shopify, WooCommerce, and more, making email campaigns simple and easy.
It helps run SEO on your store to match the keywords searched by your customers. Klaviyo allows sellers to collect real-time data for advanced customer segmentation and customize emails that your customers would appreciate.
12. Predictive Analysis
Mailchimp
Mailchimp also offers online shop owners advanced predictive analytics. Using Mailchimp’s Standard or Premium plan, you can check your audience dashboard to determine if a customer has low, mid, or high projected lifetime value.
Furthermore, Mailchimp authorizes you to act according to the predictive analytics immediately. It also helps you find the option to target the person with a related marketing campaign. In addition, you can send “thank you” to your elite customers and “miss you” to the ones you think will drop out.
Klaviyo
Klaviyo allows you to run predictive analysis on customers to help you customize your emails depending on insights like average time between orders and churn risk. Using predictive analysis, Klaviyo offers predictable projections of every customer’s estimated lifetime value. Additionally, it helps you gain an insight into what your customers may desire.
13. Opt-in Forms
Mailchimp
Mailchimp forms rely on the list you have created. Hence, you must make a list for every new opt-in form.
Klaviyo
On the contrary, Klaviyo offers opt-in forms depending on your wants. Considering this, you can develop the number of forms according to your desire and point all to one list or one form to one list according to your needs.
Both mail automation tools offer drag-and-drop form building facilities. But Klaviyo has the upper hand, as you can achieve more with Klaviyo opt-in forms without thinking about any third-party apps, unlike Mailchimp.
14. Integrations
Integration is essential when picking email marketing software. Both Mailchimp and Klaviyo work well on this front. Both platforms integrate with Zapiers to help you set your customized connections and webhooks.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp lets you easily add integrations to your dashboard, with a devoted marketplace to browse through built-in connections. You have several options to select from, such as Google Analytics, Shopify, QuickBooks, and Facebook. Similarly, you can also add different integrations available for CMS Solutions, CRM Connections, and more.
Klaviyo
Similarly, Klaviyo has several integrations, though you need to visit its official website to find them instead of directly adding them from the dashboard like Mailchimp. Likewise, you can explore all your options, from analytics to advertisement. Klaviyo also allows you to develop your integrations and license third-party apps.
Klaviyo vs. Mailchimp: Pros and Cons?
Selecting between Mailchimp and Klaviyo take a lot of work. Both tools work for companies investing in the email marketing area. They are rich in features, intuitive, and offer useful analytics and automation.
Pros of Mailchimp
- Add-on options and innumerable integrations
- Simple and easy backend
- Additional features for website building and advertisement
- Comprehensive reporting options
Cons of Mailchimp
- Limited free plan
- No A/B testing on some plans
Mailchimp is recommended for those needing a simple email marketing platform with robust integration options and a good backend.
Pros of Klaviyo
- Innumerable customization options
- Endless integrations with several tools
- Sophisticated automation
- A/B testing on all plans
Cons of Klaviyo
- Little dicey for beginners
- Slightly expensive
Klaviyo is recommended for those needing an advanced email marketing platform with innumerable customization options and robust analytics. It offers higher insight and support for connecting with your targeted audience.
Klaviyo vs Mailchimp : Which is better?
Honestly, there is no way to declare a single winner in this battle between email marketing automation tools. Both serve a similar function yet are worlds apart when it comes to their usability. Mailchimp is an affordable option & perfect for small businesses looking to scale.
Klaviyo offers more advanced tools but is more suited for mid-sized businesses well-versed with email marketing automation tools. We work with both Mailchimp & Klaviyo and are proficient with all the features they have to offer. It is quite difficult to crown a single champion. See our Esp vendor and ESP migration services if you want help in deciding which ESP will be beter suited for your business and email marketing efforts.
Tabular Comparison of Klaviyo vs Mailchimp.
| Factors | Mailchimp | Klaviyo |
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| Industry | Mailchimp is best suited for eCommerce platforms and people sending out personal content through emails. | Klaviyo has more advanced features so it might seem like overkill for personal branding. However, it is perfect for eCommerce brands and SaaS companies. |
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| Email Designs |
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Verdict
There is no one winner in this war between the two email marketing automation tools. Both offer similar services but are quite different when it comes to usability. While Mailchimp gives you the benefit of a website builder, landing page, and other marketing solutions, Klaviyo comes with robust customizations and features. Choosing one largely relies on your business requirements.
While Mailchimp is a more affordable option, Klaviyo caters to bigger ecommerce stores with higher budgets for email marketing. Furthermore, you need experience with Klaviyo, while Mailchimp is highly recommended for novices.
Once you decide if Klaviyo or Mailchimp suits your needs better, you can figure out which powerful tool you want to use for your email marketing. In the end, if you’re looking for an advanced platform with brilliant marketing automation tools and analytics solutions, choose Klaviyo. However, if you need a simple, flexible, and easy-to-use marketing tool, Mailchimp is your ideal option.
FAQs
1. Is Klaviyo more expensive than Mailchimp?
Yes, the premium plans of Klaviyo are comparatively pricier than Mailchimp. It tries to justify these prices by offering highly potent email marketing tools.
2. Klaviyo vs Mailchimp, which is easier to use?
For an email marketing expert, both tools will be fairly easy to use. However, if you are an amateur, you will find Mailchimp’s intuitive and simpler dashboard layout to be more accessible.
3. Is Klaviyo better with email marketing automation than Mailchimp?
Klaviyo and Mailchimp are both powerful email marketing automation tools. But, some of these automation features are only available to paid Mailchimp users, while Klaviyo offers them to its free plan users.
