Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: Which Email Marketing App is the Best?

The ‘Mailchimp vs. Klaviyo’ debate is a timeless one. It’s been ongoing for ages and has sparked many discussions among marketers and sales personnel. Unsurprisingly, there are an equal number of loyal fans on either side. So, the million-dollar question is—is there a winner in 2025?

Let’s find out as we deep dive into this ongoing rivalry and help you choose the tool that best aligns with your email marketing strategy.

Overview of Klaviyo and Mailchimp

What are Klaviyo and Mailchimp?

Klaviyo and Mailchimp are two of the most popular email marketing apps. They come with their strengths and have a rich feature set catering to wide business needs. 

Klaviyo is tailored primarily for eCommerce, particularly for brands using platforms like Shopify, Wix, and WooCommerce. It is mainly known for its advanced segmentation and powerful automation capabilities, helping eCommerce businesses personalize customer communication. Its rich customer insights make it ideal for eCommerce merchants looking to create targeted campaigns based on user behavior.

Mailchimp, on the other hand, is designed with small businesses and startups in mind. It has carved a name for itself due to its intuitive interface and an extensive template library. Mailchimp’s built-in AI tools, like content recommendations and predictive analytics, help businesses get started with email marketing in no time. Even with a small team, you can run data-driven campaigns without advanced marketing skills.

Here’s a quick comparison of their core features:

Feature	Klaviyo	Mailchimp
Ease of Use	Has a learning curve due to the presence of certain advanced features.	Completely focused on beginners.
Pricing	Offers a free plan for up to 250 profiles. Paid plans start at $20 per month.	Offers a free plan for up to 500 contacts and basic features. The paid plans start at $20 per month.
Automation	Comes with advanced automation capabilities, including a powerful and fully customizable flow builder.	Despite not being as advanced as Klaviyo automation, Mailchimp offers several pre-built automation templates.
AI Features	Segmentation, Omnichannel Campaigns, and Predictive Analysis.	Campaign Manager, Predictive Demographics, and Customer Journey Builder.
Analytics	Comes with advanced analytics capabilities, including customizable performance metrics, benchmarks, and personalized dashboards.	Offers basic analytics capabilities, including customer dashboards, visualizations, and trend monitoring.
Integrations	Integrated with 350+ applications.	Integrated with 300+ applications.

Mailchimp: Simple, Powerful, and Multi-Channel Ready

Mailchimp is an email & SMS marketing platform from Intuit. It’s super easy to use, making it a popular choice for small businesses and startups. You can launch campaigns on day one—no training or technical expertise is required.

Beyond email, Mailchimp excels at multi-channel marketing. It gives you tools to create and manage social media posts, digital ads, and landing pages to reach your audience. You can have a cohesive marketing strategy on an all-in-one platform, ensuring brand consistency across all channels.

Another shining feature of Mailchimp is Customer Journey Builder – a powerful tool that lets you create personalized, automated pathways for your customers. It’s like a roadmap that guides your customers through relevant and timely touchpoints based on their behavior.

For instance, you can set up a series of emails for new subscribers or loyal customers who haven’t engaged in a while. The best part is each will have a unique message and timing. The feature is flexible, so you can adjust these journeys at any time using conditioners like “wait” or “delay.” You can even control the timing and cadence of emails so subscribers won’t get fatigued by too much communication.

Klaviyo: Advanced Marketing Automation for eCommerce Growth

Klaviyo is an SMS marketing and email marketing solution platform built to drive eCommerce growth. With robust data-driven tools, it helps brands connect with customers on a deeper level. Its segmentation and automation capabilities enable highly personalized email marketing campaigns based on various parameters, like customer behavior, preferences, and purchase history. Klaviyo allows brands to target shoppers with accurate product recommendations, abandoned cart reminders, tailored promotions, and more.

One of Klaviyo’s key advantages is its seamless integration with Shopify. This makes it an excellent choice for eCommerce merchants already in the Shopify ecosystem. It syncs real-time customer data to automate workflows based on actions like purchases or product browsing. The deep Shopify-Klaviyo connection also supports performance tracking, giving brands the insights needed to adjust campaigns and improve results.

Another standout feature is Klaviyo’s AI-driven predictive analytics, which helps its clients optimize their marketing efforts. For instance, it can effectively forecast customer behavior, such as expected purchase date, lifetime value, and churn risk. Such futuristic insights allow you to consistently refine targeting strategies and create effective campaigns that keep pulling customers. 

Both Offer Powerful AI Tools for Smarter Marketing

The competition between Klaviyo vs Mailchimp is quite fierce when evaluating their AI tools for marketing. Both Mailchimp and Klaviyo offer an equal number of advanced AI functionalities to enhance campaign effectiveness.

For instance, both platforms offer AI-driven segmentation that allows for targeted outreach based on customer behaviors and preferences. Similarly, their predictive analytics capabilities enable accurate forecasts of campaign performance and can recommend optimizations for better conversion rates. Additionally, Klaviyo and Mailchimp provide automated, AI-powered, and real-time insights that help marketers make data-driven decisions. 

By leveraging these AI tools, businesses can execute smarter email marketing strategies that deliver measurable results.

Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: Email Editor and Templates

When it comes to templates and editing, Klaviyo checks every box. 160+ customizable email templates can be used to create brand-aligned, mobile-responsive emails. The drag-and-drop email editor simplifies the whole customization process. You can even use reusable elements called blocks with saved content to speed up the email design process. To be personalized, Klaviyo allows you to show or hide blocks based on profile conditions. This helps avoid duplicate email templates and send tailored messages like segment-specific product promotions.

Mailchimp also comes with a convenient drag-and-drop editor, offering ready-made gifts embedded into emails. The editor certainly feels more user-friendly and intuitive than Klaviyo’s editor. However, there are certain disadvantages. For starters, you cannot save particular blocks and reuse them later. Its customization options are limited. One example would be the limited number of decorative fonts available. Most importantly, Mailchimp’s editor demands deep HTML expertise to build adaptive content. 

Personalized Email Campaigns

As far as creating and managing personalized email campaigns are concerned, both Klaviyo and Mailchimp excel.

Klaviyo empowers users to create personalized email campaigns and tailor messages based on customer behaviors, preferences, and demographics. Mailchimp also lets you run personalized email campaigns through its Customer Journey Builder.

Similarly, Klaviyo and Mailchimp support A/B testing, helping users optimize their campaigns by testing variations and refining their email marketing efforts for better results.

While Mailchimp has the more user-friendly editor out of the two, Klaviyo takes the front seat in the customization arena. The sheer number of editing features available in Klaviyo editor gives it an edge over Mailchimp. 

Klaviyo 1 – Mailchimp 0

Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: Contact Management and Segmentation

The most striking aspect of Klaviyo’s contact management system is its segmentation capabilities. For instance, the platform can automatically build segments using predictive analytics on data like churn risk, CLV, next order, etc.

And, of course, you can always segment based on basic parameters like demographic data, browsing behavior, purchase history, channel preferences, metadata, and custom properties. There is also the option to leverage RFM groupings in the segments. This makes executing advanced strategies a breeze. 

While Mailchimp may lack the highly advanced segmentation capabilities of Klaviyo, it still offers features like predictive segmentation and behavioral segmentation, which are quite helpful for running personalized email campaigns.

However, unlike Klaviyo, most of the advanced features of Mailchimp are available only in the higher-tiered plans. You need to subscribe to the highest plan for creating unlimited audiences, which is nothing but the subset of people you wish to communicate with. 

Klaviyo is better than Mailchimp in contacting management and segmentation because of its full segmentation feature set to all users, even those in the free plan.

Klaviyo 2 – Mailchimp 0

Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: Marketing Automation

Klaviyo offers a robust automation function known as Flows. The platform offers over 70 pre-built Flow templates that can be customized completely. You can even create different Flow paths called conditional splits with the help of an intuitive drag-and-drop editor. A conditional split adjusts the user flow based on behaviors like product view, form completion, order placement, etc., which helps create highly relevant interactions. 

Klaviyo’s webhooks are worth mentioning when we talk about its marketing automation. By integrating with other apps in real-time, Klaviyo’s webhooks can trigger external flows like awarding loyalty points after a survey or sending a coupon code for social media shoutouts. This is good for those with a complex tech stack or who need real-time data flow between systems.

Mailchimp has a feature similar to Flows called Customer Journey Builder. You can use it to personalize customer journeys and send behavioral trigger emails, including the usual ones like welcome series, abandoned cart emails, and product recommendations. Like Klaviyo, Mailchimp also has enough pre-built journeys that can be customized and used to send messages.

Mailchimp’s focus on ease of use means automation setup is more user-friendly but lacks advanced conditional logic and webhooks. So Mailchimp’s marketing automation benefits businesses that prioritize simplicity over functionality and customization.

In the end, setting up an automation flow in Mailchimp is easier than in Klaviyo. Despite the lack of features, Mailchimp wins in marketing automation.

Klaviyo 2 – Mailchimp 1

Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: Customer Data Platform

Klaviyo and Mailchimp both have Customer Data Platforms (CDP) for more targeted marketing. If you’re already a Klaviyo user, you can implement Klaviyo’s CDP with minimal setup and configuration. It can do RFM analysis, funnel analysis, and audience performance to help you reach customers at key points in their journey. Klaviyo’s CDP is fully customizable. You can configure the platform to suit your purchase cycle, from custom metrics to personal alerts.

Mailchimp’s CDP is basic and only good for storing, organizing, and managing customer data. It doesn’t have most of the advanced features of Klaviyo and has limited itself to simple import and export of customer data. It’s not as flexible as Klaviyo’s CDP.

Klaviyo 3 – Mailchimp 1

Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: Integrations with Third-Party Tools

Both Klaviyo and Mailchimp have third-party integrations with many other platforms, including eCommerce tools, CRM systems, and social media platforms. Klaviyo has a slight edge in terms of integrations with over 350 tools compared to Mailchimp’s 300. Both have APIs and webhooks, so you can customize them further.

Klaviyo 4 – Mailchimp 1

Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: Reporting and Analytics

Klaviyo gives you a clear, detailed look at your campaign performance. You can create custom reports to track the metrics that matter to your goals, and its predictive analytics help you stay ahead by forecasting customer lifetime value and churn risk.

Mailchimp keeps things simple and intuitive. It tracks all the key metrics, like open and click-through rates, and even benchmarks your performance against millions of campaigns. Plus, its AI suggestions make it easy to optimize your content and improve results.

Both tools give you the insights you need to make smarter decisions and get better results, whether you’re looking for deep analytics or straightforward guidance.

Klaviyo 5 – Mailchimp 2

Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: Pricing and Plans

Klaviyo’s pricing mechanism is transparent. Its free plan lets you try out the full feature set with no limits. Paid plans start at $20/month and scale based on the number of contacts you need to target. This makes it easy for businesses to know exactly what they’re getting without worrying about feature limitations as they grow.

Mailchimp has a more complicated pricing model. Their free plan has restrictions on the number of emails you can send per month and certain features. Their paid plans start at $20/month but vary depending on the features included. So new subscribers need to check out the details of each plan level to make sure they get the features they need.

Klaviyo 6 – Mailchimp 2

Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: Customer Support

Klaviyo is known for its responsive and knowledgeable support. All users, including those on the free plan, get 24/7 email support (up to 60 days). Higher-tier plans also offer chat support for faster issue resolution. Klaviyo’s team is particularly skilled in addressing eCommerce-specific challenges.

Mailchimp has tiered support depending on the plan. Free plan users can get basic email support for 30 days; paid plans get live chat and expanded email support; premium users gain phone and priority support. Support is available, but Mailchimp’s email responses can lack depth for free plan users. Paid plans see improved responses and more detailed solutions.

They both have extensive self-service options. The platforms’ knowledge bases are full of tutorials and active community forums where users achieve peer-driven advice and solutions to deal with common problems efficiently.

Klaviyo 7 – Mailchimp 2

Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: Mobile App

Mailchimp has a mobile app for Android and iOS where users can manage campaigns, track performance, and view reports anywhere. Klaviyo doesn’t have an advanced mobile app yet, but both have mobile-responsive email designs, making emails look great on any device.

Klaviyo 7 – Mailchimp 3

Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: User Reviews & Satisfaction

On review platforms like G2 and Capterra, you will find Klaviyo praised for its amazing features. Shopify merchants love the integration, segmentation, and automation capabilities. Here’s one such review:

But many users say Klaviyo has a steeper learning curve. This is true for those new to email marketing or not familiar with technical configurations. This can be tough for smaller businesses or beginners, which is highlighted in the below review:

Mailchimp is praised for its ease of use. Many users find Mailchimp’s interface intuitive and beginner-friendly. Users like the below are impressed with the ability to set up campaigns without much technical expertise.

However, it has the essential features in its basic plan but misses many advanced features that are only available in higher-tiered plans. This can be frustrating for users who want to scale their campaigns. See reviews on G2 and Capterra like this:

Klaviyo 8 – Mailchimp 4

Mailchimp vs. Klaviyo: Which One is Best for You?

While our above comparison shows Klaviyo is better than Mailchimp in many ways, we won’t discount Mailchimp altogether. Ultimately, the choice is up to your business needs.

Klaviyo has all the features, so it’s perfect for businesses that need scalable solutions. If you’re an eCommerce store looking for advanced segmentation features, predictive analytics, and deep integration with Shopify, then it should be your choice.

Mailchimp is a simpler, more beginner-friendly platform. It’s perfect for those who want to get into email marketing quickly; it has easy-to-use templates and simple segmentation features. For smaller businesses or beginners, Mailchimp’s interface and pricing are practical.

Klaviyo + Channelwill’s Loyalty & Rewards App

The utility of Klaviyo can be further expanded when you integrate it with Loloyal, Channelwill’s loyalty and rewards app. It is a powerful Shopify tool for customer retention and engagement. Here’s how this powerful integration works: 

With Klaviyo’s segmentation features, you can personalize campaigns based on a customer’s loyalty status. This makes it easy to target high-value segments with tailored promotions. Then, through automated loyalty communications, Klaviyo can send targeted offers or reminders to program members. These communications are triggered based on a customer’s activity within the loyalty programs created using Loloyal. 

Klaviyo’s automation flows can also help boost retention by consistently promoting loyalty benefits. By setting up flows that highlight rewards or exclusive offers, you can encourage more repeat purchases from existing customers.

Klaviyo + Channelwill’s Order Tracking App

Klaviyo can also be integrated with ParcelPanel, Channelwill’s order-tracking app. This union lets you communicate and engage customers throughout the order fulfillment process. Klaviyo’s automation features allow you to send personalized updates to customers based on real-time tracking data from ParcelPanel. This information keeps them informed at every stage of their order’s journey. Such proactive communication also reduces customer support inquiries.

Klaviyo also enables targeted engagement through email flows customized by order status. For example, you can automatically send apologies and alternative solutions if there’s a delay in delivery. This enhances the customer experience, ultimately boosting loyalty and satisfaction.

Klaviyo vs Mailchimp: Final Thoughts

If you are a Shopify eCommerce merchant, then the choice between Klaviyo and Mailchimp is a relatively easy one to make. Klaviyo is the better choice owing to its deep integration with the Shopify ecosystem and its eCommerce-specific personalization features. Its integration with Shopify apps like Loloyal and ParcelPanel further adds to its abilities.

You can always consider Mailchimp if you are from any other industry or have a non-Shopify background. It is also suitable if you are just starting with email marketing. So go ahead and select the platform that best aligns with your growth and engagement goals.