Last month I sat down with the marketing team of a mid-sized fashion brand based in Amsterdam. Their Shopify store has been running for three years, revenue is solid — but their email marketing felt frozen in 2017. Mailchimp, three newsletters per month, open rates around 14%, almost no automation. „We know we can do more," the marketing lead said. „Should we switch to Klaviyo? Is it worth it?"
I get some version of this question every single week. And the answer — like with most tool decisions — is not nearly as clear-cut as the Klaviyo sales reps make it sound. I've led dozens of these migrations over the past few years. Some brilliant, some unnecessary, some honestly painful to watch. In this article I'm sharing what we've learned from those projects.
Why email still matters (and isn't „dead")
Before we get into the tool debate — a quick reality check. Email is the only marketing channel you actually own. Your Instagram account belongs to Meta. Your Google Ads belong to Google. Your email list belongs to you. If Meta suspends your account tomorrow — which happens more often than people think — you lose reach. If Apple's next iOS update tightens tracking further, your ad ROIs drop. Email is the only channel that largely withstands these external shocks.
For most of our clients, email accounts for between 25% and 40% of total online revenue when set up properly. For a beauty brand we worked with last year, the share was 38%. For a furniture retailer, 41%. For a poorly set-up activewear shop that came to us, 6%. The difference is rarely the tool — it's the strategy.
The three contenders in short
There are obviously more tools out there — Brevo, ActiveCampaign, Drip, Sendinblue, Loyaltylion. But in practice, three dominate the Shopify world: Klaviyo, Mailchimp, and Omnisend. Let's be honest about who is what:
Klaviyo is the premium solution. Built specifically for ecommerce, deeply integrated with Shopify, and expensive. If you're taking email marketing seriously, Klaviyo is usually the right choice — provided you have the budget and the people to run it.
Mailchimp is the all-rounder. Works for ecommerce, but wasn't originally built for it. Cheaper than Klaviyo, easier to use, but hits limits quickly with complex automations. Best choice for beginners or smaller brands.
Omnisend sits in the middle. Built specifically for ecommerce, cheaper than Klaviyo, with SMS integrated. Popular with brands that find Klaviyo too expensive but want more than Mailchimp offers.
Klaviyo in detail — the power solution
Klaviyo has been the gold standard for Shopify ecommerce for years. We deploy it for most of our clients once revenue exceeds $250K annually. Here's what makes it strong:
Data integration
Klaviyo accesses every piece of information Shopify holds. Which products has a customer bought, which categories have they browsed, what's their lifetime value, what channel brought them in. This enables segmentation at a level that other tools simply can't match.
Real example: with one fashion client, we segment customers as „purchased in the last 90 days, favorite category is knitwear, average order value over $80." This segment receives entirely different newsletters than „first-time buyer in the last 30 days, accessories category, AOV under $30." That's the difference between a 14% and a 35% open rate.
Automations
Klaviyo's flow builder is industry-leading. Welcome Series, Browse Abandonment, Cart Abandonment, Post-Purchase, Win-Back, Birthday — all in a visual interface, with branching logic, A/B tests per step, dynamic content based on profile data.
A well-built welcome series — three emails over five days — converts at 4-7% to first purchase for our clients on average. For a premium furniture client, it was 11% — at an average order value of $850. Those are numbers no other tool reliably matches.
SMS
Klaviyo SMS is solid, especially in the US. Less relevant in Germany or the Netherlands, where SMS culture is different and WhatsApp dominates. If you sell internationally — particularly in the US, UK, or France — SMS can be an additional lever.
What makes Klaviyo difficult
First: the price. Klaviyo gets seriously expensive past a certain list size. At 50,000 subscribers we're talking $700-1,000 per month. At 100,000, that climbs to $1,500-2,500. That's a lot of money, and not every brand earns it back.
Second: the complexity. Operating Klaviyo properly takes time and expertise. We often see brands buy Klaviyo but use only 10% of the features — then make the same revenue they would with Mailchimp, only more expensively. If you don't have someone (in-house or external) actively running Klaviyo, you're buying a tool that will gather dust.
Third: the setup. A proper Klaviyo implementation with segments, flows, templates, and tracking takes four to eight weeks. We typically charge $3,500-7,000 for that. It needs to be in your budget.
Mailchimp — the underrated all-rounder
Mailchimp gets dismissed in ecommerce circles. „That's just for newsletters, not real email marketing." This view isn't entirely fair. Mailchimp has caught up a lot in recent years — Customer Journeys, segmentation, Shopify integration. It's not Klaviyo, but for many shops it's plenty.
When Mailchimp is the right call
If your shop does under $250K annually, if email isn't yet a central part of your strategy, if you don't have a dedicated email person — Mailchimp is usually the pragmatic choice. It's cheap (under $100/month at 5,000 contacts), it's easy to use, the templates are solid.
I have clients running Mailchimp for years and pulling 20-25% of revenue from email. Would they make more with Klaviyo? Probably. But the cost and effort of migration would only pay back over years. Sometimes good enough is just good enough.
Where Mailchimp falls short
Deep ecommerce personalization. Klaviyo can say: „Send this email to customers who browsed category X in the last 14 days, purchased at least once in the last 6 months, but haven't bought anything in the last 60 days." Mailchimp can do that too — but more clunkily, with fewer data points and slower performance on large lists.
Also: Mailchimp's pricing structure becomes suddenly expensive and inflexible past 50,000+ contacts. Exactly where Klaviyo plays its value card.
Omnisend — the middle path
Omnisend has established itself as a serious alternative over the past two years. Built specifically for ecommerce, noticeably cheaper than Klaviyo, with SMS and push notifications integrated. We recommend it more and more — particularly for mid-sized shops that find Klaviyo too expensive but need more than Mailchimp offers.
What Omnisend does well
Ecommerce workflows are pre-built and solid — Welcome, Cart Abandonment, Post-Purchase. Shopify integration is good. SMS is cheaper than Klaviyo. Templates are modern. Pricing for 50,000 contacts is around $400-500/month — about half of Klaviyo.
Where Omnisend has limits
For really deep segmentation and complex flows, Klaviyo is still in a class of its own. Reporting is also somewhat shallower in Omnisend. And: the community and ecosystem (consulting, templates, training) are smaller than Klaviyo's. When you need help, you'll find someone faster for Klaviyo.
Direct comparison — the numbers
Here's a comparison for a typical ecommerce list of 25,000 contacts:
- Mailchimp: approx. $290/month (Standard Plan)
- Omnisend: approx. $240/month (Pro Plan)
- Klaviyo: approx. $480/month
At 100,000 contacts:
- Mailchimp: approx. $700/month
- Omnisend: approx. $850/month (with SMS credits)
- Klaviyo: approx. $1,700/month
Klaviyo is substantially more expensive. But: with proper use, the ROI is usually highest. The question isn't „what does the tool cost" — it's „how much more revenue do I make with it, and is that proportional to the extra cost?"
Migration — the real pain point
A migration between these tools isn't rocket science technically, but there are pitfalls that can get expensive.
What works smoothly
Exporting and importing contacts is trivial. CSV out, CSV in, done. Takes half an hour.
Where it hurts
Engagement history is lost. If a customer has been opening and clicking every email in Mailchimp for three years, Klaviyo doesn't know that initially. That means: in the first three to six months after migration, you'll see worse engagement metrics because the system needs to relearn.
Automations need to be rebuilt. You can't import a Mailchimp flow 1:1 into Klaviyo. Every welcome series, every cart abandonment flow, every win-back sequence has to be rebuilt by hand. With one client running 23 active flows, that took us three weeks.
Templates aren't compatible. Mailchimp templates don't work in Klaviyo. You have to rebuild the design. If you have a strong brand system, that's done in a week. If not, longer.
Domain reputation needs rebuilding. If you change the sender setup (from Mailchimp domains to Klaviyo), it takes weeks before your deliverability is optimal again. We recommend a warm-up process: send to small segments first, then larger ones.
Realistic migration time
A complete migration with setup, flows, templates, and warm-up typically takes six to ten weeks. If you just switch the tool license and continue with a workaround, it's done in a week — but then you'll regret it for months.
When should you switch?
Here's my decision framework that I walk through with clients:
Stay with Mailchimp if:
- Your shop does under $250K annually
- Email accounts for less than 15% of your revenue
- You have no one actively managing email
- You're satisfied with your current setup
Switch to Omnisend if:
- Your shop does $250K to $1M annually
- You want to add SMS to the mix
- You don't fully need Klaviyo's features but want more than Mailchimp offers
- Budget is a factor
Switch to Klaviyo if:
- Your shop does over $500K annually (ideally over $1M)
- You want to build email as a central channel
- You have a person (in-house or external) actively running it
- Complex personalization and segmentation actually adds value
Common questions I hear
Is Klaviyo worth it at $100K revenue?
Rarely. At $100K annually you might make $20K through email — with good performance. Klaviyo costs you $5,000-7,000 a year plus setup. That's a high share. At $500K revenue and 40% email contribution, the picture looks completely different.
How long until the switch pays off?
Realistically six to twelve months. In the first three months you'll lose performance because the new system is learning. Then comes the upswing. With one fashion client, after eight months we lifted email revenue from 18% to 32% of total revenue — that makes the investment easily worthwhile.
Can I run both tools in parallel?
Please don't. You're shooting yourself in the foot — subscribers get duplicate emails, tracking gets messy, reporting is a mess. Migrate cleanly from one to the other.
What about ActiveCampaign, Brevo, Drip?
ActiveCampaign is great for B2B and complex automation. Rarely the best choice for pure ecommerce brands. Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) is cheap but lags behind Omnisend in ecommerce features. Drip used to be good but has stagnated in recent years.
What about Shopify Email?
Shopify's own email tool is fine for absolute beginners and shops with under 5,000 contacts. But the moment you want to do serious email marketing, you need something specialized. Shopify Email doesn't replace Klaviyo.
What we do during migrations
When a client comes to us saying „we want to switch from Mailchimp to Klaviyo," our process is always similar:
- Audit of current performance. What's working in Mailchimp, what isn't? Which flows generate revenue, which are paper tigers?
- Strategy workshop. What should email marketing look like in 12 months? What segments do we need? What flows?
- Klaviyo setup with proper tracking. Tags, events, properties — the data foundation needs to be clean.
- Flow migration with improvements. We don't replicate old flows 1:1, we improve them along the way.
- Warm-up phase. Three to four weeks of controlled sending.
- Optimization. After three months we go through all flows again and A/B test.
These six steps are the difference between a migration that costs money and one that brings money in.
My advice
If you're unsure which tool is right for you — look at your strategy first, not the tool. A well-run Mailchimp beats a poorly-run Klaviyo. Tools are amplifiers, not solutions.
If you'd like an email audit of your current setup — regardless of which tool — get in touch. We'll go through your list, your flows, and your performance and tell you honestly whether a tool switch is worth it or whether you should pull other levers first. Sometimes the best answer isn't „new tool" but „better strategy with the current tool."
