Two email platforms dominate online stores, and on the surface they look like twins. Klaviyo and Omnisend both give a store email campaigns, automated flows, signup forms and segmentation, and both start with a free plan capped at 250 contacts and 500 emails a month. Under that surface, the bills, the support and the SMS rules are built very differently.
So we rebuilt this Klaviyo vs Omnisend comparison from the two official pricing pages, plan by plan and tier by tier. The question most stores actually ask, Omnisend vs Klaviyo for a growing list, comes down to three things: what a contact costs at each size, what happens when you cross 15,000 contacts, and how much help you get when something breaks at midnight.
If you are comparing the wider field first, start with our email marketing tools comparison, where both of these platforms sit inside the full shortlist.
Quick facts, checked October 2026
- Both free plans cap at 250 contacts and 500 emails a month
- Klaviyo Email starts at $20 a month for 500 profiles
- Omnisend Standard starts at $16 a month for 500 contacts
- Omnisend charges 30% less when you pay three months upfront
- At 15,000 contacts, Klaviyo jumps from $150 to $350 a month
- Omnisend includes 24/7 live support on every plan, free included
Klaviyo vs Omnisend at a glance
| Klaviyo | Omnisend | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 250 profiles, 500 emails a month | 250 contacts, 500 emails a month |
| First paid plan | Email, $20 a month at 500 profiles | Standard, $16 a month at 500 contacts |
| You pay for | Active profiles you can reach | Billable contacts, unsubscribed excluded |
| Email sends | 10 times your profile count | 12 times contacts on Standard, unlimited on Pro |
| SMS | Bundled plans or credit packs from $15 | Pro plan add-on, from $0.007 per SMS |
| Support | Email support on free, first 60 days only | Live chat and email, 24/7, on all plans |
| Best known for | Segments and predictive analytics | Multichannel flows on a smaller bill |
Neither platform meters your sends first. The meter runs on the audience sitting in your account, so a list you barely mail still renews at full price every month. What separates the two bills is how each counts that audience. Klaviyo counts active profiles, anyone reachable, including shoppers who reached checkout without subscribing, until you suppress them. Omnisend counts billable contacts and drops the unsubscribed. Count the same audience both ways and one definition quietly bills more people.
Klaviyo: the data platform stores graduate to
Klaviyo sells itself as a B2C customer platform, and the depth is real. Every contact becomes a profile carrying purchase history, browsing behaviour and predicted values such as lifetime value and churn risk, and segments can be built from almost any combination of that data. Flows, campaigns, A/B testing and reporting all draw on the same profile store, with more than 350 integrations feeding it.
The free plan covers 250 profiles and 500 emails a month, with $5 of mobile message credit included. It is a genuine testing ground, but support on free is email only and it ends after the first 60 days, which matters when a new store hits its first broken flow in month three.
Paid email starts at $20 a month for 500 profiles, with sends set at ten times your profile count. The tiers climb steadily to $150 at 10,000 profiles, then jump: at 15,000 profiles the price more than doubles to $350 a month. Cross a tier mid-month and Klaviyo moves you up automatically on the next cycle, so a good sales month quietly raises the software bill. Adding SMS is straightforward, either through the Email + SMS plan at $35 for 500 profiles or through credit bundles that start at $15.
Pros
- Deepest segmentation and predictive analytics in this pair
- Unified profiles across email, SMS and service data
- 350+ integrations feeding one data store
- SMS slots into the same plan, no separate tool
Cons
- The 15,000 profile tier costs over twice the 10,000 tier
- Free plan email support stops at day 60
- You pay for reachable profiles, subscribers or not
- Reviews and advanced analytics are paid extras
Best for data depth
Klaviyo
Omnisend: email, SMS and push in one workflow
Omnisend starts from a simpler idea: a single automation can send the email, follow it with a text message and add a web push, so one abandoned cart does not need three separate tools. Its ready-made flows cover the welcome series, cart recovery, browse abandonment and post-purchase messages, and unusually, every feature is switched on for every plan, free included. Paying more buys room to send, never extra tools.
The free plan matches Klaviyo on the headline numbers, 250 contacts and 500 emails a month, then adds 500 web push notifications and the thing new stores feel most: 24/7 live chat and email support that never expires. For a first store, that support line is worth more than another report.
Standard starts at $16 a month for 500 contacts with 6,000 emails, twelve times your contact count. Pro opens at $59 for 2,500 contacts and lifts the send ceiling completely: emails become unlimited. Paying three months upfront cuts both prices by 30%, which drops Standard to $11.20 a month and Pro to $41.30 at the entry sizes. One recent change deserves a careful read: SMS now sits on the Pro plan as a separate credits subscription, from $0.007 per SMS, and accounts opened on Standard today cannot buy it at all.
Pros
- Cheaper than Klaviyo at every list size checked
- All features unlocked on the free plan
- 24/7 live support on every plan, free included
- Email, SMS and web push inside one automation
Cons
- SMS now requires the Pro plan for new accounts
- Segmentation and reporting are shallower than Klaviyo
- No mobile push notifications
- Standard caps monthly emails at 12 per contact
The value pick for most stores
Omnisend
What the same list costs on each platform
| Contacts | Klaviyo Email | Omnisend Standard | Omnisend Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | $20 a month | $16 a month | Not offered |
| 2,500 | $60 a month | $44 a month | $59 a month |
| 5,000 | $100 a month | $81 a month | $90 a month |
| 10,000 | $150 a month | $132 a month | $150 a month |
| 15,000 | $350 a month | $207 a month | $348 a month |
At the starter size the yearly maths is close: $240 a year for Klaviyo against $192 for Omnisend on monthly billing, or about $134 if you take Omnisend’s three month upfront discount. The gap that matters sits higher up. Klaviyo’s jump at 15,000 profiles adds $200 a month in a single jump, while Omnisend Standard at the same size costs $207. Pro closes most of the gap because unlimited sends carry their own premium, so high-volume senders should compare Pro against Klaviyo, not Standard.
The two free plans look like twins at first glance: room for 250 contacts, 500 emails a month. The real gap opens in support, in SMS rules, and in what the same list costs at 15,000.
Which one fits your store
Starting out, or under 5,000 contacts
Omnisend, and it is not close. The free plan unlocks everything, support answers at 2am, and the paid step up is cheaper at every size in the table above. A new store rarely needs predictive churn scores before it needs a working welcome flow and a human to ask about it. And if the store has not started selling yet and email is really for a waitlist or a newsletter, start even cheaper with the tools in our free email marketing tools comparison.
Klaviyo vs Omnisend for Shopify stores that live on data
Both integrate deeply with Shopify, and their app ratings sit a whisker apart, 4.7 for Klaviyo and 4.8 for Omnisend. The honest split is depth. When segmentation drives the revenue, when you slice buyers by predicted value, product affinity and churn risk and build different journeys for each slice, Klaviyo’s data engine earns its premium. Stores describe the same pattern in reviews: start lean on Omnisend, graduate to Klaviyo when the data work becomes a job in itself.
If SMS is a main channel
Read the current rules before choosing. Klaviyo bundles SMS into a combined plan or sells credit packs from $15 on any paid tier. Omnisend’s current plans sell SMS only alongside Pro, as a separate credits subscription from $0.007 per message. Stores already on Omnisend’s older setup keep their legacy SMS arrangement, but a new account choosing Omnisend mainly for texting should price Pro plus credits against Klaviyo’s bundle first.
How we checked
Every price and limit in this comparison comes from the two official pricing pages, checked in October 2026, with the tier tables cross-checked against each vendor’s published plan documents. Omnisend prices are shown on standard monthly billing; where the three month upfront discount changes a figure, we say so next to the number. Klaviyo profile counts and Omnisend contact counts are not identical definitions, and we flag that where it changes the bill.
Our verdict
Omnisend takes this one, 8.9 to 8.7, because most online stores get everything they will actually use for less money, with better support from day one. It is the platform we would start a new store on. Klaviyo remains the upgrade path: when your list passes five figures and your segments start earning real money, its data depth justifies the steeper ladder, including that jump at 15,000. The one real mistake is buying Klaviyo’s depth before your store has any use for it.
Still weighing the wider field? Browse the rest of our Email Marketing coverage for the full set of checked comparisons.
Frequently asked questions
Is Klaviyo or Omnisend cheaper?
Omnisend, at every list size we checked. Standard starts at $16 a month against Klaviyo’s $20, and the widest gap opens at 15,000 contacts, where Klaviyo jumps to $350 a month while Omnisend Standard costs $207. Omnisend Pro, with unlimited sends, roughly matches Klaviyo at larger sizes.
Which has the better free plan?
Both stop at the same ceiling: 250 contacts and 500 emails each month. Omnisend adds 500 web push notifications, every feature unlocked and 24/7 live support with no expiry. Klaviyo adds $5 of mobile message credit, but its free plan support is email only and stops after 60 days.
What if I start on Omnisend and later want Klaviyo?
Yes, and it is a well-trodden path. Both platforms help with the move, and your contacts, segments and suppression lists export in standard formats. The usual pattern is to begin on Omnisend while the list is small, then switch once segmentation becomes the main way you grow. Your audience data is never locked inside either tool.
Does Omnisend include SMS?
On current plans, SMS is a separate credits subscription that starts at $0.007 per message, and new accounts need the Pro plan to buy it. Klaviyo sells SMS credit bundles from $15 on any paid plan, or bundles SMS into its combined Email + SMS plan from $35 a month.
Sources: Klaviyo and Omnisend official pricing pages and plan documents, checked October 2026.
