Klaviyo vs Omnisend
Klaviyo and Omnisend both start free with 250 contacts and 500 emails a month. Klaviyo is the deeper platform, priced on your number of profiles, and is the default for stores that treat email and SMS as a revenue channel rather than a newsletter. Omnisend charges less for the same list size, advertises up to 35% savings against Klaviyo, and starts SMS at $0.007 a message. For most small stores Omnisend is enough; for data-heavy segmentation, Klaviyo earns its price.
Both pricing pages were checked on 20 August 2026, at klaviyo.com/pricing and omnisend.com/pricing.
Head to head
| Klaviyo | Omnisend | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Klaviyo prices by the number of active profiles and does not publish a fixed table. Free plan: up to 250 profiles, 500 email sends, $5 of mobile messages and $5 of Composer usage a month. | From $16/mo |
| Free plan contacts | 250 active profiles | 250 contacts |
| Free plan emails | 500 sends per month | 500 emails per month |
| Free plan SMS | $5 of mobile messages a month | Included by allowance |
| Pricing basis | Number of active profiles | Contacts and email volume by tier |
| Entry paid tier | Scales with profile count | Standard, 500 contacts and 6,000 emails a month |
| SMS rate | Included as a dollar allowance on free | From $0.007 per SMS |
| Free account manager | Not advertised | Yes, for accounts paying $400+ a month |
The free plans are the same, so ignore them
Klaviyo's free plan allows up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, plus $5 of mobile messages and 10,000 Composer credits, with basic templates, the drag-and-drop editor, built-in reporting and email support.
Omnisend's free plan allows 250 contacts and 500 emails a month.
Identical headline limits. This matters because most comparison content treats the free tier as a differentiator, and it simply is not one. Both will run a store's first few hundred subscribers at no cost, and both will stop at the same point. Choose on what happens next.
What happens when the list grows
Both price on list size, which is standard for email marketing and means your bill grows with your success rather than with your usage.
Omnisend publishes a tiered table you can read directly. Its Standard plan for 500 contacts and 6,000 emails a month was shown at $11.20 a month, described as a 30% introductory discount for the first three months, which puts the list price at $16 a month. The tier selector runs upward from 250 contacts through 500, 1,000, 1,500 and beyond.
Klaviyo prices through a calculator based on your profile count rather than a fixed published table, which makes it harder to compare on a page like this one and easy to underestimate before you sign up. Put your actual list size into both calculators before deciding, because the ratio between them changes as the list grows.
Omnisend claims savings of up to 35% against Klaviyo. Treat that as a vendor claim to verify at your own list size, not as a fact.
SMS is where the models separate
Omnisend prices SMS from $0.007 per message and treats it as a first-class channel alongside email in the same plan.
Klaviyo includes $5 of mobile messages a month on the free plan, which is an allowance in dollars rather than a per-message rate, and depends on region and provider. It is enough to test with, not to run a campaign on.
If SMS is part of your plan rather than an experiment, price it properly on both. A campaign to 5,000 subscribers is a real cost on either platform, and the per-message rate compounds far faster than the subscription difference does.
Depth against simplicity
Klaviyo's reputation rests on segmentation and data. It ingests store behaviour, purchase history and browsing, then lets you build audiences precisely enough that the revenue attributed back to email justifies a larger bill. For a store doing serious volume, that is the entire argument, and it is a good one.
Omnisend covers the same core jobs, welcome flows, abandoned cart, post-purchase, campaigns and segmentation, with fewer sharp edges and less setup. It also throws in support at scale: account experts are provided free to anyone paying at least $400 a month.
The uncomfortable truth is that most small stores use perhaps a fifth of what Klaviyo can do while paying for all of it. If you can name three segments you would build and you are not currently building them, the platform is not your constraint.
Which should you choose?
Choose Klaviyo if…
- Email and SMS are a serious revenue channel, not a nice-to-have
- You want deep segmentation on store behaviour and purchase data
- You need the reporting and attribution to justify the spend
- Your agency or developer already builds on Klaviyo
Choose Omnisend if…
- You want the same core flows for less as your list grows
- SMS is part of the plan and you want the per-message cost low
- You are a small or mid-sized store focused on email
- You would rather spend the difference on ads than on tooling
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Start on whichever free plan you like, because they are the same size, and pick your paid platform on the list you expect to have in a year rather than the one you have today.
If your store is small or mid-sized and email is a channel rather than the engine, take Omnisend, keep the difference, and revisit when the list passes a few thousand. If email and SMS are how you actually make money and you have someone who will use segmentation properly, take Klaviyo and treat the higher bill as a cost of revenue. Just do not pay for depth you have no plan to use, which is the most common expensive mistake in this category.
Frequently asked
Which has the better free plan?
Neither. Both allow 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, so the free tier is not a reason to pick one over the other. Klaviyo adds $5 of mobile messages and 10,000 Composer credits on top.
Is Omnisend cheaper than Klaviyo?
Omnisend advertises savings of up to 35% against Klaviyo and publishes a readable tiered table, where Standard for 500 contacts and 6,000 emails was shown at $11.20 a month as a 30% introductory discount, implying $16 at list price. Klaviyo prices through a calculator, so check your own list size in both before deciding.
How much does SMS cost?
Omnisend starts at $0.007 per SMS. Klaviyo's free plan includes $5 of mobile messages a month, which is an allowance rather than a rate and varies by region and provider.
How many emails can I send on the free plans?
500 a month on both, to a maximum of 250 contacts on both.
Is Klaviyo worth the higher price?
For stores where email and SMS drive real revenue and someone actually builds segments, yes. For a small store sending a monthly campaign and an abandoned cart flow, you would be paying for depth you never use.
Do either include a dedicated account manager?
Omnisend provides account experts free to anyone paying at least $400 a month. Klaviyo does not advertise an equivalent on its public pricing page.