Discover the Best Klaviyo Alternative for Email Marketing Automation
Klaviyo is a popular marketing automation platform aimed at mature e-commerce brands. Its avid fans love the advanced segmentation and automation features, as well as integration with various e-commerce platforms. It’s also known for nailing personalized email campaigns using customer data to grab attention and drive sales.
But Klaviyo isn’t for everyone. It can get pricey as your contact list expands, and its feature-packed setup might be too much if you want something simpler or just the basics of email marketing.
Let’s explore and find the best Klaviyo alternative, considering pricing, ease of use, and specific features.
How to Pick the Best Klaviyo Alternative
Choosing the best alternative to Klaviyo for your email marketing needs involves considering several key factors. You have to make sure the platform meets your business needs and doesn’t lock you in if you ever need to change vendors.
Here’s a checklist of the criteria to analyze:
| Factor to Consider | Description |
|---|---|
| Business Size and industry | Choose a platform that aligns with the scale and sector of your business (e.g., small business, enterprise, or e-commerce). |
| Deliverability | Consider factors like sender reputation management and domain authentication to evaluate the platform’s ability to ensure emails consistently reach recipients’ inboxes, |
| Ease of use and customization | Look for a platform with a user-friendly interface and customizable options to suit your specific needs. |
| Automation and advanced features | Consider the level of automation and advanced features like segmentation and complex workflows. |
| Pricing structure | Ensure the pricing fits your budget and reflects the value, focusing on deliverability and support. |
| Reviews | Read user reviews and test the platform to assess performance and fit for your goals. |
Klaviyo Alternatives in a Glance
Here’s a quick comparison of the top Klaviyo alternatives you should consider.
| * | Campaign Refinery | Mailchimp | ActiveCampaign | Drip | MailerLite | SendGrid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Target Audience | Diverse businesses | Small to medium Businesses | Medium-sized businesses | E-Commerce companies | Creators, bloggers | Large-Scale senders |
| Key Strength | High email deliverability | Flexibility | CRM integration | E-Commerce automation | User-friendly interface | Scalability |
| Value for Money | 10 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 8 | 7 |
| Ease of | 10 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 9 | 6 |
| Advanced Automation | 10 | 7 | 9 | 9 | 7 | 8 |
| Advanced Sender Reputation Practices | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Complex Workflows | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Engagement Gamification | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Automatic List Cleaning | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Price for 50,000 Emails | $99/month | $270/month | $286/month | $369/month | $159/month | $50/month |
Campaign Refinery: Best Klaviyo Alternative
Campaign Refinery is a streamlined email marketing platform designed to get you maximum deliverability and engagement.
We understand the pain points — low open rates, wasted marketing efforts, and the battle to maintain a strong sender reputation. And we’re here to make sure your emails reach inboxes and spark engagement.
High deliverability is essential for achieving high open rates. If your emails end up in the spam folder, even the most carefully crafted subject lines won’t receive attention.
At Campaign Refinery, we ensure high deliverability by rigorously vetting each client, confirming their sending practices benefit our entire community of senders. We also enforce a strict policy against sending cold emails and purchased lists.
Engagement is also key to deliverability. You can easily segment your list based on interests or behavior to send targeted emails that boost engagement.
Our unique gamification system rewards user interaction, and our features for time-limited sales add a genuine sense of urgency. This heightened engagement improves deliverability and fosters continuous improvement in your email campaigns.
Key Features
- Minimalist email editor.
- Transparent credit-based pricing.
- Automatic list maintenance features.
- Flexible automation and drip campaigns.
- Manage as many contacts as you need at no extra cost.
- Easily select audience members and send broadcasts.
- Flawless integration with your current technology stack.
- A rich collection of campaign templates for quick setup and creativity.
- Gamification features that boost engagement more than any other.
Pros
- Transparent pricing system: Unlike our competitors, we don’t punish you for growing your list. Our credit-based pricing links every dollar to your actual email marketing activities. Sending each email costs one credit. It’s that simple!
- Dedicated to deliverability: We focus on building your sender reputation from the moment you join by implementing domain authentication. You can easily clean and segment your list and increase engagement with our proven frameworks.
- Select community of senders: We partner exclusively with top-quality senders. Every new client passes through a comprehensive vetting process, ensuring our community is free from spam and cold emailing. This method elevates the sender reputation across our entire network.
- Automated list maintenance: Our system regularly checks and cleans your contacts, using sophisticated data sources to identify and eliminate potentially damaging contacts.
- Flexible email automation: Use our advanced Branch & Rule builder to create dynamic drip and nurture campaigns. Personalize your emails with custom fields, tags, and engagement data, and use our Goals feature to modify messages based on subscriber actions.
- Easy-to-use interface: Navigating Campaign Refinery is incredibly straightforward. The intuitive layout lets you set up campaigns, analyze data, and explore new strategies efficiently.
Cons
- Narrow focus: We dedicate all our efforts to perfecting email marketing. That means we don’t offer additional features like CRM or social media management tools. If you want an all-encompassing marketing solution, our email-centric approach might seem a bit narrow. But if email marketing is your primary battleground, we’re your strongest ally.
Pricing
Our pricing is all about what you use, not how big your email list is. It’s a credit-based system where you pay for the emails you send and keep your contact list clean. No hidden fees or fine print.
Sending 5,000 emails? Starting at $99/month.
Sending 50,000 emails? Starting at $99/month.
Sending 200,000 emails? Starting at $299/month.
We don’t offer a typical free trial since we prioritize maintaining a community of committed and serious marketers. Instead, we have a detailed vetting process for every potential client to make sure our platform stays optimal for those dedicated to ethical and effective email marketing practices.
Interested in joining the Campaign Refinery community? Apply now, and let’s see if we’re the right fit to help you achieve your email marketing goals!
MailChimp: Comprehensive Email Marketing Solution
Mailchimp is one of the best-known email marketing tools on the market. It’s an all-in-one platform that claims to make email marketing hassle-free.
As a Klaviyo alternative, Mailchimp has broader use cases and isn’t focused on e-commerce. You can use it to send newsletters, promotions, and transactional emails.
Its standout feature is its customer journey builder, which lets you automate your email marketing campaigns according to customer behavior. You can also segment your list, apply personalizations, and track performance using an intuitive interface.
If you’re a beginner, there’s a library of pre-built email designs you can use. And advanced users can design their own templates using an AI assistant.
Pros
- User-friendly interface. The drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to add content to your emails. Plus, the pre-built journeys allow beginners to start their campaigns hassle-free.
- Extensive integrations. Mailchimp lets you pool data from various platforms, including WordPress, Google Analytics, and Shopify.
Cons
- Restrictive pricing. Since the pricing is contact-based and not email-based, it can get expensive for businesses with a large contact list. Despite charging you by the number of contacts, Mailchimp also puts a cap on the number of emails you can send per month.
- Limited features for the free plan. With the free plan, you can only send 1000 emails monthly and get restricted analytics. A/B testing, personalization, and automation are only available with the paid plans.
- Difficult customization. Many customization options, including changing fonts, require coding skills in HTML.
Pricing
Mailchimp’s pricing is tough to figure out. First, you have to decide whether you want marketing features, transactional emails, or landing pages. Each one requires a separate subscription.
The email marketing features come in four tiers: free, essentials, standard, and premium. You’ll have to pay a different amount for each plan, depending on how many contacts you have. And if you hit your limits, Mailchimp automatically charges you overages!
Dizzy yet?
Let’s try to put the costs into context:
Sending 5,000 emails? Starting at $45/month (assuming you have 2,500 contacts).
Sending 50,000 emails? Starting at $270/month (assuming you have 25,000 contacts).
Sending 200,000 emails? Starting at $800/month (assuming you have 100,000 contacts).
ActiveCampaign: Email Marketing for Medium-Sized Businesses
Active Campaign is a marketing automation and sales engagement platform aimed at growing businesses. It offers the standard features you expect from a marketing automation platform: segmentation, customer journey builder, personalization, and analytics. There’s also a list cleaning tool that lets you delete inactive contacts.
But if you want these features, you have to sign up for at least the Plus plan. The Lite plan is only good for basic campaigns or newsletters, and it offers virtually no integration options.
The segmentation tool is a standout feature that lets you send targeted emails to different groups of contacts on your list.
Although the interface is easy to use, the sheer volume of features can make the dashboard look overwhelming. This complexity gives the platform a steep learning curve, which can be intimidating for beginners.
Pros
- Robust customer support. Verified users appreciate the smooth customer support experience.
- Wide range of features. Depending on your purchased plan, you get a full range of features that allow you to control different aspects of your email marketing.
Cons
- High costs. Although ActiveCampaign has a decent price-to-service ratio, it can be unjustifiably expensive for small businesses. Plus, there are no free plans, making it unaffordable for new businesses.
- Limited contact numbers. The basic plans have a small number of contacts. If you want to grow your list, you need to pay higher prices, which might not be worth it.
- Not beginner-friendly. ActiveCampagin has a large set of features, which can be difficult to navigate for beginners. If you’re a novice, you’ll be paying for bells and whistles you won’t use.
- No mobile apps. Many businesses these days need to access their marketing platforms on their mobile devices to track their work and get reports. However, ActiveCampagin doesn’t have Android or iOS versions.
- Short free trial. Most competitors offer 30-day free trials, but ActiveCampagin’s free trial is only 14 days.
Pricing
As a Klaviyo alternative, you’d expect ActiveCampagin’s pricing system to be more straightforward. But it’s a puzzle made of four packages, each with multiple tiers and contact limits. Add-ons will cost you extra, and if you don’t want to pay for the whole year in advance, you’ll have to spend up to 20 percent more each month. Talk about pricing gymnastics!
Sending 5,000 emails? Starting at $61/month (assuming you have 2,500 contacts).
Sending 50,000 emails? Starting at $286/month (assuming you have 25,000 contacts).
Sending 200,000 emails? Starting at $486/month (assuming you have 50,000 contacts).
Note: If you have more than 50,000 contacts, you need to contact ActiveCampaign’s sales department for a customized plan.
Drip: E-Commerce Focused Email Automation Service
Drip is an email marketing tool tailored for growing e-commerce companies. You can expect the standard features of all email marketing platforms: automation, segmentation, personalization, pre-built templates, and integrations.
You can consider Drip a cheap alternative to Klaviyo. While you expect a decent value for money, you’ll quickly realize there’s a reason for the lower price — it lacks many advanced features available on other platforms.
Pros
- Extensive integrations. Drip offers integration with over 100 e-commerce platforms, including Shopify and Woocommerce.
- Behavior-based segmentation and personalization. Drip pools user behavior data and interactions with your website to segment your list and send personalized content.
Cons
- Narrow focus. Drip is mainly focused on small and mid-sized e-commerce businesses. So, it may not serve big enterprises with complicated marketing strategies or companies in other industries.
- Inflexible customization. The limited number of advanced features forces you to resort to third-party tools.
- Fine-print restrictions. Sometimes, you may end up paying more than you expect. For example, if you try to switch to another tool, you can’t access your contacts if your subscription has ended. You have to pay for another monthly subscription to access and export your contacts.
- Not the best integrations. Although Drip integrates with 150+ platforms, the integration features aren’t polished. You may find some lacking features that make you disappointed.
Pricing
Drip’s pricing is refreshingly simple for a Klaviyo marketing automation alternative. You pay based on the number of contacts on your list, and there’s only one tier. The company doesn’t offer a free plan, though. You only get 14 days to test drive their platform for free.
Also, heads up — you’ll probably find that the price starts to feel pretty steep once your list crosses the 10k milestone.
Sending 5,000 emails? Starting at $39/month (assuming you have 2,500 contacts).
Sending 50,000 emails? Starting at $369/month (assuming you have 25,000 contacts).
Sending 200,000 emails? Starting at $1199/month (assuming you have 100,000 contacts).
Keap: TSales and Marketing Automation for Small Businesses
Keap positions itself as an all-in-one CRM tool that helps small businesses scale. It offers marketing and automation features with customizable plans and integration options. But, since it’s a CRM tool, it may not offer the specialized features you want for email marketing.
Keap makes tracking the customer journey easier by automatically issuing invoices and integrating with payment platforms. It also offers segmentation and built-in landing pages, streamlining lead captures and contact management.
Pros
- One-on-one training. Keap tries to make things less overwhelming by helping you navigate through the software.
- Comprehensive. Although bulky and complicated, it does offer a full-fledged solution housing email marketing, contact management, and automation capabilities in one tool.
Cons
- Subpar deliverability. Many users have complained about their marketing emails ending up in spam folders.
- Not easy to use. Although Keap has a neat UI, it’s not straightforward for beginners. You have to be tech-savvy to find your way around the tool.
- Not very customizable. The platform is designed with a certain degree of rigidity, making it less adaptable to unique workflows or niche requirements.
- Too many basic features. Keap may seem like a feature-packed marketing tool offering lots of automation opportunities. However, when it comes to details, it disappoints.
Pricing
Keap’s pricing falls on the pricier side. Plus, it doesn’t have a free plan, only a 14-day trial, which is short compared to other competitors. You can choose between three tiers: Pro, Max, and Ultimate.
But once you choose your tier, things get complicated. You’ll have a cap on the number of contacts and users. That means you’ll have to pay extra if your contact list or team grows in the future. And the costs can be pretty steep.
Sending 5,000 emails? Starting at $183/month (assuming you have 2,500 contacts).
Sending 50,000 emails? Starting at $439/month (assuming you have 25,000 contacts).
Sending 200,000 emails? Starting at $639/month (assuming you have 50,000 contacts).
MailerLite: Affordable Email Solution with Essential Features
MailerLite offers digital marketing tools geared toward bloggers, creators, and small business owners. Besides email marketing automation, you can use Mailerlite to create landing pages, sign-up forms, and websites.
It offers all the basic features you need to grow your business through email marketing. From automation to segmentation and personalization, everything is offered in a clean and easy-to-navigate dashboard.
However, when it comes to scaling, the platform doesn’t shine. For one thing, the prices can get really high after adding to your contacts. Besides, the platform isn’t designed with a B2B strategy in mind.
Pros
- Network of experts: Mailerlite’s “Hire an Expert” service caters to those who may need help with various aspects of email marketing, such as creating custom designs, setting up complex automation workflows, or optimizing campaigns.
- Clean interface: MailerLite’s interface stands out for its clean and uncluttered design, which simplifies email campaign management. It streamlines the process of creating, executing, and analyzing email marketing campaigns.
Cons
- Difficult and glitchy migration. Users have reported multiple issues after migrating from other platforms or even the older MailerLite versions. Their deliverability suffered, and they experienced higher bounce rates.
- No CRM features. If you’re a small business looking for an all-in-one solution, MailerLite may disappoint since it doesn’t offer CRM capabilities.
- Separate transactional tier. MailerLite has a separate transactional service that’s different from their marketing product. If you’re an e-commerce company that needs to send transactional emails to customers, this service isn’t for you.
Pricing
MailerLite has a free plan. It allows you to send 12,000 monthly emails to up to 1,000 contacts. Besides the comparatively generous caps, the features also seem adequate for small businesses. If you want more features, you can upgrade to the paid plans.
The prices aren’t steep, and you get a 90 percent discount for your first month regardless of your list’s size. However, the company doesn’t offer a free trial on their higher-tier plans.
Sending 5,000 emails? Starting at $25/month (assuming you have 2,500 contacts).
Sending 50,000 emails? Starting at $159/month (assuming you have 25,000 contacts).
Sending 200,000 emails? Starting at $289/month (assuming you have 50,000 contacts).
Brevo: CRM with Integrated Efficiency Tools
Formerly known as Sendinblue, Brevo is a CRM and marketing tool that helps small businesses grow. In addition to covering SMS, chat, email, and CRM, it has a built-in Facebook Ads feature that allows businesses to grow their contact list and find more leads.
Brevo has a few work management tools that set it apart from similar platforms, including a universal inbox, a payments gateway, and meeting scheduling. These tools are integrated into Brevo’s ecosystem of tools to increase efficiency.
Pros
- Available in six languages. Brevo allows you to customize your language settings. So, you can reach your subscribers from different countries in their mother tongue.
- Analytics and reporting. Brevo has robust analytics and reporting tools to let you see what’s working and what needs improvement.
Cons
- Limited templates. Although Brevo offers flexible templates, they are less varied than those of competitors. Savvy users can use HTML and CSS to make their desired tweaks, but not everyone has this knowledge.
- Basic email templates for the free plan. Although there are over 60 templates, the free plan offers basic options. Plus, they show Brevo’s branding.
Pricing
Brevo’s pricing is based on the number of emails you send. The free plan allows you to send 300 emails a day with no subscriber limitation. All plans, even the free one, give you unlimited contacts.
Sending 5,000 emails? Starting at $25/month.
Sending 50,000 emails? Starting at $49/month.
Sending 200,000 emails? Contact the sales team.
SendGrid: High-Volume Email Delivery Service for Enterprises
Twilio’s SendGrid is a marketing automation tool aimed at large-scale senders. SendGrid provides a comprehensive set of features, including advanced analytics, email template designs, re-engagement campaigns, and API integration.
But one notable challenge with SendGrid is its complexity. The platform can be overwhelming, especially for beginners or small businesses that don’t need extensive functionality. Plus, its user interface sometimes lacks the intuitive and user-friendly approach of some of its competitors.
Pros
- API integration: The platform offers robust API integration capabilities, which can be particularly useful for businesses looking to customize their email services or integrate with other systems.
- Scalability: SendGrid is well-equipped to handle a high volume of emails, making it suitable for large businesses or enterprises with extensive email requirements.
Cons
- Basic designs and templates. SendGrid focuses on simplicity and ease of use. Its features, templates, and designs aren’t as sophisticated as those of some competitors.
- Deliverability issues. Customers have reported their emails not getting delivered to their subscribers’ inboxes, especially if they have a shared email IP.
- Subpar customer service. One of the biggest customer gripes is the complicated customer service. Some customers complain that the company is slow to respond and makes customers reach out multiple times before they address their issues.
Pricing
Like most Klayvio alternatives, SendGrid’s pricing is a math puzzle. Besides picking a plan, you have to choose how many contacts you have and how many emails you’ll send per month.
And the relationship between the two numbers is confusing. For example, 10k contacts and 5k monthly emails will cost you the same as 5k contacts and 20k emails.
Sending 5,000 emails? Starting at $15/month (assuming you have 2,000 contacts).
Sending 50,000 emails? Starting at $50/month (assuming you have 25,000 contacts).
Sending 200,000 emails? Starting at $200/month (assuming you have 50,000 contacts).
Ready to Join the Best Klaviyo Alternative?
Revamp your email marketing strategy with Campaign Refinery.
Here’s a recap of how we’re different from Klaviyo:
| Features | Campaign Refinery | Klaviyo |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing structure | Per email – optimized for growth | Per contact – hinders growth |
| Campaign optimization | Advanced | Basic |
| Automation flexibility | High | Moderate |
| Reporting and analytics | Advanced | Advanced |
| Integration with other marketing platforms | High | High |
| Ease of Use | 10 | 7 |
| Affordability | 10 | 5 |
| Email list segmentation | ✅ | ✅ |
| Unlimited contacts | ✅ | ❌ |
| Advanced deliverability | ✅ | ❌ |
| Engagement gamification | ✅ | ❌ |
| Automatic list cleaning | ✅ | ❌ |
| Campaign template library | ✅ | ❌ |
As a leading alternative to Klaviyo, we’re inviting you to apply and join a community dedicated to effective and impactful email campaigns. We offer a dynamic approach to email marketing that elevates your campaigns and ensures your messages resonate with your audience.
Apply to Join Campaign Refinery Now and Make Every Email Count!
