Mailchimp vs Klaviyo: Which Email Platform to Choose in 2026

Email marketing platforms are often compared as if one were universally better than the other. In reality, the right choice depends on how your business operates, engages with customers, and drives conversions.

In this in-depth comparison, SendPulse examines Mailchimp and Klaviyo in an email marketing face-off. Mailchimp is known as an easy-to-use, all-in-one solution for various businesses. Set against it, Klaviyo focuses on eCommerce brands that depend on customer data, behavioral automation, and revenue-driven lifecycle marketing.

By breaking down features, pricing, and real-world performance, this Mailchimp vs Klaviyo comparison will help you determine which platform fits your business needs best.

TL;DR Mailchimp vs Klaviyo at a glance

Here’s how Mailchimp and Klaviyo compare across the categories that matter most. For the full breakdown of any category, jump to the detailed overview below.

If this quick comparison doesn’t clarify your choice, you’re likely in a gray area where simple recommendations fall short. The detailed breakdown below shows where each platform excels, how well it scales with your business, and where it might feel limiting for your specific needs.

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Side-by-side comparison between Mailchimp vs Klaviyo

We’ve scored each platform across key categories, with brief explanations of how features perform in practice. Let’s go over each area one by one and see what each platform has to offer.

Pricing and value for money

⭐ Mailchimp: 9/10 | Klaviyo: 7/10

Disclaimer: Pricing changes frequently. These figures are accurate as of January 2026. Always verify final costs on official pricing pages.

Mailchimp is more affordable compared to Klaviyo across all list sizes, especially for small and mid-level senders, during the first year. Its free plan is generous enough, and paid tiers scale more gradually. Klaviyo offers some advanced functionality even on its free plan, but pricing rises steeply as your list grows because costs are tied to both profile count and message volume.

Here’s how monthly costs during the first 12 months of using each platform compare at common business sizes:

If budget is a primary concern, SendPulse offers a compelling alternative. Full disclosure: this is our platform, but the numbers speak for themselves.

Here’s how email marketing costs scale as your business grows:

However, cost alone doesn’t tell the whole story.

Ease of use and interface

⭐ Mailchimp: 9.5/10 | Klaviyo: 6.5/10

This category shows one of the widest gaps in our comparison: Mailchimp scores 9.5/10 while Klaviyo scores 6.5/10. The difference is fundamental. Mailchimp prioritizes confidence and speed, allowing most users to send their first email within hours. Klaviyo optimizes for accuracy and data access, requiring teams to first understand profiles, events, and flow logic. Neither approach is wrong; they just serve different user types.

Overall, Mailchimp is well-suited to beginners and small teams that prioritize clarity and quick execution. At the same time, Klaviyo is a better fit for experienced marketers willing to trade ease of use for greater precision and deeper access to data.

To understand how these differences play out over time, here’s what the first three months typically look like:

Mailchimp gets you productive in days, but may limit you in months. Klaviyo costs you weeks upfront, but continues delivering more power as you master it.

Email builder and templates

⭐ Mailchimp: 9.4/10 | ⭐ Klaviyo: 9.4/10

Both platforms tie in an overall score, but they approach email design differently. Mailchimp feels easier to work with right away, especially for building clean layouts and standard campaigns. By contrast, Klaviyo takes more time to learn but gives precise control over eCommerce emails through dynamic content and behavioral personalization.

If email design is one of your top priorities, both platforms are great options. Mailchimp is a user-friendly solution with diverse templates. It’s perfect for small teams creating quick, polished emails without advanced design skills. Klaviyo may be better if you represent an eCommerce business that needs data-driven emails with dynamic content and doesn’t mind a steeper learning curve.

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Marketing automation

Mailchimp: 7.8/10 | ⭐ Klaviyo: 10/10

Automation is where Klaviyo clearly leads: 10/10 versus Mailchimp’s 7.8/10. This significant gap stems from a fundamental architectural difference. Mailchimp treats automation as a premium add-on that unlocks gradually as you upgrade, with only 35 automation templates on lower-tier plans. Klaviyo treats automation as its foundation, offering over 60 pre-built flows and more than 40 triggering events, even on the free plan. If behavioral lifecycle marketing is central to your strategy, this 2.2-point gap matters enormously.

Let’s check out what the automation builders actually look like.

Mailchimp’s free plan limits you to fewer-step automations with no advanced branching logic. While it works perfectly fine for basic “someone joins a mailing list → send a welcome email” sequences, it breaks down for any behavioral complexity. To unlock multi-step flows, conditional branching, and eCommerce triggers, you need a higher-tier plan.

Klaviyo’s flow builder gives you triggers, actions, conditional splits, and time delays within automation, even with the free plan.

The key question is, “Does your business model need advanced automation?” We mean browse abandonment, predictive replenishment, and segment-specific flows. If your answer is yes, Klaviyo’s 2.2-point advantage can translate to real revenue. If not, Mailchimp’s simpler approach might work just fine.

Contact management

Mailchimp: 7.5/10 | ⭐ Klaviyo: 9.5/10

Both platforms handle list management well, but the two-point score gap reflects how differently they approach segmentation, which is where the real distinction lies. Mailchimp’s segmentation tools let you target users by demographics, engagement, and purchase history with reasonable depth on mid-tier plans and above. Klaviyo’s segmentation is built for behavioral lifecycle marketing, with real-time updates, unlimited conditions, and predictive data.

On paper, the contrast is already clear, but it becomes even more obvious when you look at how segmentation is presented in each tool. Mailchimp focuses on clean lists and practical labels.

Klaviyo takes segmentation further by combining multiple event-based conditions, including positive and negative purchase behavior at the product-variant level. To give you an idea, the segment below targets customers who bought one product but have never purchased a related item, enabling dynamic cross-sell or replenishment flows that update automatically as behavior changes.

The deciding factor: if your campaigns are primarily meant for “everyone who purchased” or “subscribers interested in a specific topic,” Mailchimp will work well for you. If you need to target “customers who bought Product A but not Product B, have CLV greater than $200, and browsed Category C in the past week,” then Klaviyo is the better choice.

Deliverability

⭐ Mailchimp: 10/10 | ⭐ Klaviyo: 10/10

Email deliverability depends primarily on factors you control: mailing list quality, content value, sending patterns, and proper authentication setup. The platform itself accounts for roughly 20% of deliverability, preventing infrastructure-related risks and supporting best practices. Both Mailchimp and Klaviyo handle that 20% excellently.

The 10/10 tie means deliverability won’t be your deciding factor. If you follow the basics, both Mailchimp and Klaviyo will get your emails to the inbox.

Forms and landing pages

⭐ Mailchimp: 8.2/10 | Klaviyo: 7.4/10

Mailchimp has a clear advantage in this category: 8.2/10 versus Klaviyo’s 7.4/10. It provides core lead generation tools, including a landing page and a form builder with templates and analytics. In contrast, Klaviyo focuses exclusively on eCommerce data-capturing forms but offers no native landing page builder at all.

Mailchimp includes landing pages but basic pop-up targeting. Klaviyo offers sophisticated behavioral pop-ups but no landing pages. Each platform excels in one area while compromising the other.

Integrations

⭐ Mailchimp: 7.7/10 | ⭐ Klaviyo: 7.7/10

Most businesses actively use five to ten integrations at most, regardless of what’s available. These typically include eCommerce solutions, CRM systems, payment gateways, and analytics tools. Both Mailchimp and Klaviyo cover these core needs well, making it easy to connect with almost any tool. The key is to ensure that your critical integrations operate the way you need them to.

The tie between platforms reflects that both approaches serve their target audiences well: Mailchimp for general marketing stacks, Klaviyo for eCommerce data ecosystems.

AI features

Mailchimp: 7.2/10 | ⭐ Klaviyo: 8.7/10

Klaviyo has a strong advantage over Mailchimp in AI features. The 1.5-point gap comes from different focus areas. Mailchimp uses AI primarily for email content creation; it’s helpful for teams that need writing assistance, brand voice consistency, and faster email production. In addition to AI-powered email generation, Klaviyo offers AI features for building automation flows. More importantly, it focuses on predictive analytics and revenue optimization: identifying which customers will buy next, when they’ll churn, and what their lifetime value will be.

AI sounds impressive, but if you’re choosing between Mailchimp and Klaviyo, decide based on automation depth, segmentation power, and pricing first. AI features are a secondary consideration that may tip the scales slightly, but shouldn’t override fundamentals.

Reporting and analytics

Mailchimp: 5.8/10 | ⭐ Klaviyo: 10/10

Reporting and analytics show the second-largest gap in our comparison, though both platforms offer extensive data. The gap reflects different priorities: in-depth revenue attribution and customer lifecycle data from Klaviyo vs Mailchimp’s broader view of marketing performance data.

Analytics matter most when they help you make decisions that improve results over time. Mailchimp offers comprehensive campaign reporting for everyday marketing needs, while Klaviyo builds analytics around customer behavior, revenue, and long-term value. If you run an eCommerce business where revenue attribution, repeat purchases, and customer lifetime value drive decisions, Klaviyo’s 10/10 score is hard to ignore.

Customer support

⭐ Mailchimp: 7/10 | Klaviyo: 5.4/10

Both Mailchimp and Klaviyo offer solid support through different channels depending on your plan tier. Mailchimp provides broader coverage and more predictable access across plans, supported by extensive self-service resources. Klaviyo’s support team excels at eCommerce-specific issues, but access and response times vary significantly by plan level, which affects its overall reliability score.

While customer support plays a role, it is rarely the deciding factor when choosing an email marketing platform. For most teams, long-term success depends far more on automation, data, integrations, and reporting. Support becomes most critical for beginners or small teams during initial setup, but its impact decreases once core workflows are established.

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Your decision checklist

Both email marketing platforms are strong, but they’re built for different types of businesses. Use the checklist below to see which one aligns with how you grow and monetize.

Rule of thumb: If you consistently agree with more statements in different decision areas under one platform, that’s likely your best fit.

Final verdict and recommendations

⚖️ Final scores: Mailchimp – 8.5/10 | Klaviyo – 8.6/10

Looking at the Mailchimp vs Klaviyo features, these two platforms serve pretty different target users.

Mailchimp is designed for broad marketing needs. It offers a gentle learning curve and a unified toolkit that includes email, forms, landing pages, and basic CRM features. It works best when the goal is clear communication, ongoing engagement, and steady audience growth. For service businesses, nonprofits, SaaS startups, and content-driven brands, this simplicity is a practical advantage.

Klaviyo is created for eCommerce growth. It uses customer behavior, event data, and predictive analytics to power highly targeted automation. It takes more effort to learn and costs more as your profile count increases, but online stores often see strong revenue results when they build optimized flows.

The best way to decide is to test both email platforms using their free plans and see which one aligns better with your business goals and workflow.