Both Klaviyo and MailChimp have long been top contenders when it comes to the best marketing automation tools. However, these two powerful tools also bear several distinctions from each other. Thus, in finding the best tool for your business, it is best to compare Klaviyo vs MailChimp to find the ultimate and right tool to use.
For one, Klaviyo is mainly focused around email marketing, email automation, analytics, and text messaging, MailChimp on the other end is an all-inclusive tool; allowing you to personalize each element for specific business experience.
So whether you are want to build an email marketing campaign for your business or simply want to switch on to a new platform for better results, the Klaviyo and MailChimp software are undoubtedly viable choices to consider – it all boils down to what exact features you are looking for.
Below, we’ve detailed a comparison of Klaviyo vs MailChimp to introduce to these top rated business marketing automation tools to help you discover the ultimate choice for your business – whether it’s pricing, UX design, integrations, or deliverability you are concerned about, we have all these areas thoroughly covered. Enjoy the ride!
Ease Of Use & Editor
When choosing an automation tool, you want it to be easy and comfortable to use, especially if you have a team or are not “tech-savvy”. You can have a tool with the best features, however, if you struggle to use it, you will not take full advantage of all the great elements it has to offer.
Therefore, there has to be a balance between design and features. Klaviyo is considered to be amongst the smartest of these tools. The easy integrations that Klaviyo offers mean that you don’t have to spend too much time clicking and being redirected to multiple pages – which saves time! When it comes to building your emails, the simple drag-and-drop email builder shares every element that the tool offers using content blocks, so you can easily choose the options you want.
MailChimp on the other end employs templates that are adaptable and versatile. It also comes with the option of designing your emails from scratch, if you ever want to personally build them.
If you want to go for the easy route, the available templates can also cater to your needs. Whilst the UI design of the MailChimp editor takes some time to familiarize yourself with, you will be impressed with the simple and quick workflow once you get used to it.
Winner: Whilst Mailchimp takes some time to familiarize yourself with it, it still remains to be the simplest tool when it comes to usability. Not only does it have a very useful editor design, but it also allows you to either build your emails from scratch or opt for templates. This doesn’t mean that Klaviyo is not good at all because it also offers a wide variety of features that are easy to access.
Design and Flexibility
MailChimp offers exceptional uniqueness compared to many automation tools. Its design is ultra minimalistic, almost reminiscent of software such as Microsoft Word. Yet, it opens you up to a wide selection of features and elements to explore. This, however, may not be too appealing to some people.
After all, many of us draw design inspirations based on the tools we use and the environment we are in. Thus, using the MailChimp UI literally means viewing a black and white screen with green buttons and somewhat colorful graphs.
It is easy to use but certainly not the most creative looking option. Launched 10 years after MailChimp, Klaviyo on the other end boasts the modern and attractive looking UI. However, this comes with the consequence of more complex usability – which is typical of today’s many modern tools and software.
This means that learning to fully utilize the software may take some time. However, after mastering the usability, you will enjoy the array of options and have better control over the tool.
Winner: Klaviyo has a more complex UI than MailChimp, however, remember how colorful elements affect our psychology and design thought. With that said Klaviyo takes the win. After all, it offers a wide arrange of design options too.
Email Marketing Features
Typically, email marketing and automation tools offer an endless selection of behavioral-based email features. Each tool bears its individual profile, thus, you have to discover what features they offer to know which one to pick. In the Klaviyo vs MailChimp comparison, Klaviyo appears to offer more native features.
With MailChimp, you can enjoy more features from third party apps via integration. As native features, both MailChimp and Klaviyo allow you to enjoy sign up forms and pop-ups, welcome emails, order notifications, first time buyers, abandoned carts and products, recommendations, and win backs.
Klaviyo on the other end allows you to also enjoy browse abandonment, review requests, cross sell, and replenishment features. With MailChimp, you can enjoy these features via integrations however, it also offers product retargeting which you can enjoy with Klaviyo via integrations.
Typically, this feature design favors Klaviyo more for eCommerce usage. Integrations work but they are not as efficient and don’t easily flow as they would if the features were part of the platform.
Winner: Klaviyo is a clear winner when it comes to email marketing features thanks to its endless options for native features.
Registration Forms
Klaviyo is designed with forms that offer all the elements to easily grow your ebusiness and accentuate your sales. The tool offers more than 300 pre-designed form templates which range from fly outs to pop-ups and embedded forms. Plus, with this platform, you can choose to customize the background, colors, styles, and even fonts.
Additionally, you can add your personalized HTML to landing pages. Thanks to this highly independent design, you can build forms that cater to a specific niche to help improve awareness and sales. you can even create automated landing page A/B testing for better designs and content.
Whilst Klaviyo offers numerous landing page optimization features, it boasts limited feature options to actually create landing pages. You can, however, integrate it with LeadPages to do so. MailChimp allows you the option to create landing pages with less than 9 available basic templates.
So just like Klaviyo, it also offers limited options when it comes to the creation of landing pages. The pre-made templates can easily be accessed through a drag-and-drop editor and you can add text, images, social share buttons, videos, and many other details.
You can even track your landing pages via the MailChimp’s native tracker or Google analytics. Compared to Klaviyo, the MailChimp form builder is quite basic but easy to use.
Winner: Whilst both platforms offer basic form building and landing page creation, they balance each other out thus, creating a tie.
Spam & Design Testing
Klaviyo offers the option to preview all your emails to reduce the likelihood of ending up as spam. You can also send preview emails although this option has a capped limit. Additionally, you can also create a preview list and send a live campaign to that list to test for spam.
To ensure the feature works to its full capacity, use the campaign you actually intend to send out because using filler content will simply result in spam. You can complement this test with third party tools such as Litmus.
You can also use Gmail, although its results are sometimes biased based on how you interact with that particular email address. For MailChimp, the best spam testing option is a third party spam filter tester known as GlockApps. This app is excellent at testing inbox placement and spam scores of email campaigns created from MailChimp.
Winner: For spam & design testing, MailChimp is a better option. MailChimp uses a third party app however; the app is specially designed for the tool and offers a wide selection of testing features.
Reporting
Reporting simply offers you a way to deduce how much impact your email campaigns have on your audience. Klaviyo offers a large chunk of reporting info which includes metrics such as bounced messages, clicked emails, dropped emails, marked as spam, opened emails, received emails, and subscribe/unsubscribe rates.
You can also opt for customizable analytics if you want – by simply creating a card for the data you want. You can also choose to view the data how you want – some people are visual so they go for graphs whilst others enjoy numbers.
Its numerous integrations also allow you to access more rates on different important data. MailChimp is somewhat different; offering all the basic data you need. Yet, it offers more of a bigger picture rather than in-depth and broken down analytics. For in-depth A/B testing with MailChimp, you need to pay for a premium account.
Winner: MailChimp offers basic but useful data for many businesses. However, if you want more advanced and detailed reporting, then, you certainly want to go for Klaviyo which is the winner.
Deliverability
When it comes to email deliverability, Klaviyo bears more advantage in itself because it is generally still a new concept to spammers. Thus, it hasn’t gained the notoriety as a spam source yet. However, because many businesses use Klaviyo for their online stores, it is easy for your email campaigns to be sent to promotions if you don’t put in extra effort in design.
MailChimp on the other end may have your email campaigns spammed due to its lack of email stylization and its doubles opt-in confirmation email design. However, it bears a better chance of ending up in your audience’s inbox compared to Klaviyo.
Winner: Nevertheless, both tools bear excellent deliverability when designed right. Issues that may lead to spams balance each other out to create a tie.
Integrations & Extras (Other Features)
Even the best marketing tool will not offer all the features you need, thus, it comes with great advantage if your automation tools offer more integrations. For serious business, you can find yourself using up to 15 different software pieces in a day – whether it’s content creation, analytics, or spam testing.
Klaviyo boasts a fistful of integrations including social media apps and analytics tools. In fact, it integrates with 2000+ apps to ensure your email marketing and automation process is smooth. You can use Shopify, Zapier, Big commerce, and even Facebook.
MailChimp on the other end integrates with up to 200 apps. However, amongst these apps, Shopify doesn’t make the cut. So if CRM is a priority for you, you may not enjoy this via Shopify when using MailChimp.
Winner: Klaviyo offers a wider range of integrations to use. MailChimp works great if simplicity is what you need.
Support
No matter how great software is if you don’t have access to adequate support, then, it is virtually useless to invest in it. Klaviyo has invested in a state of the art help center. The software doesn’t only offer the regular call in or chat support but also tools such as guides, webinars, training sessions, videos, and step-by-step instructions.
You can get help to navigate any feature that the tool offers, be it its UI design or analytics. Additionally, you can access help via chat from Monday to Friday, from 9 AM to 5 PM Eastern time. You can also send in emails and receive on spot reply from 6 Am to 10 PM on weekdays and 10 AM to 4 PM on weekends.
You can also access live chat on the dashboard. Mailchimp also offers chat, call, and email support, but, it is not as useful to free users. If you pay a minimum of US9.99, you will receive a degree of support but with US$299, you can get better attention. You can also access its free popular guides and tutorials for more help.
Winner: Klaviyo offers exceptional help no matter your user bracket. All its forms of help offer useful info as well.
Price
The pricing is also important when making a comparison of Klaviyo vs MailChimp. You want to invest in a tool that brings value to your business. Thus, the price tag must match what the tool offers. You can enjoy up to 250 contacts and 500 emails for free with Klaviyo.
However, you have to commit to its double opt-in for all your subscribers and have the Klaviyo logo stamped on each of your email campaigns. This option appeals to many small business startups. Furthermore, you can go up to around 140,000 contacts with unlimited emails for around US$1700 with a personalized price quote.
MailChimp offers a free price plan with up to 2000 contacts and basic features but no A/B testing, analytics, or dedicated customer support. You can also enjoy essential, standard, and premium packages with a price range of US$9.99 to $1096.
Within each plan, you can choose several contacts between 500 and 150,000. If you opt for two-factor authentication security to the app, you can enjoy up to 10% discount for three months with MailChimp.
Below is an idea of the price range;
| Klaviyo Per Month | MailChimp Per Month | |
| 250 contacts + 500 emails | Free | Free |
| 1000 contacts + unlimited emails | $30 | $9.99 (essential) |
| 5,000 contacts + unlimited emails | $100 | $74.99 (standard) |
| 10,000 contacts + unlimited emails | $150 | $299 (Premium) |
Winner: Both tools are expensive yet, they offer a free plan. However, on a budget-friendly side, MailChimp is a better option.
Feature Comparison Table – Klaviyo Vs MailChimp
When it comes to the overall functionality, Klaviyo is the winner but not with a huge margin. MailChimp still emerges as a better option when it comes to the ease of use, reporting, and pricing.
Check the Klaviyo vs MailChimp feature comparison table to better understand which area each tool is the strongest in.
| Klaviyo | MailChimp | |
| Ease of use and editor | 4.6 | 4.8 |
| Design and flexibility | 4.8 | 4.4 |
| Email marketing features | 4.8 | 4.6 |
| Registration forms | 4.0 | 4.0 |
| Email and spam testing | 4.5 | 4.4 |
| Reporting | 4.5 | 4.8 |
| Deliverability | 4.5 | 4.5 |
| Integration and other features | 4.8 | 4.4 |
| Support | 5.0 | 4.0 |
| Price | 4.0 | 4.2 |
| Overall Rating | 4.55 | 4.41 |
Klaviyo Vs MailChimp – Which Is Better?
Both MailChimp and Klaviyo are amongst the top rated email marketing and automation tools. However, this is not the point of the Klaviyo vs Mailchimp comparison – because you need to find the winner.
Klaviyo is great at offering an in-depth advantage across most of its features – even its customer support. MailChimp is more on the basic side nevertheless very useful and valuable. Klaviyo takes some getting used to, however, when you get a hang of it, you will enjoy the numerous features it is packed with.
So, if you are on a budget, starting or looking for something basic, then, MailChimp is the way to go. Additionally, opt for MailChimp if advanced analytics and deep integrations are not your priority.
Go for Klaviyo if you need incredible segmentation, advanced automation, reporting, and analytics and if you are willing to spend without feeling the pain. The one thing the Klaviyo vs MailChimp comparison has also shared with us is that they each have free plans that you can test out before making your final decision.