What is the best email marketing for Shopify: Shopify Email or Klaviyo?

What are the main options for Shopify email marketing?

There are two kinds of tools. The built-in one is Shopify Messaging, which Shopify renamed from Shopify Email. It sends email, SMS and WhatsApp campaigns and automations from your admin, and it is available on Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus. It has 4.8 stars from 4,609 reviews on the Shopify App Store.

The other kind is a dedicated email marketing Shopify app that connects to your store. Klaviyo is the most common for DTC brands: 4.7 stars from 3,361 reviews on the Shopify App Store, with email, SMS, segmentation and flows built on your Shopify order data. Others exist; the comparison below is the one most stores face.

Shopify Email vs Klaviyo: which is better?

Our rule: start on Shopify Messaging while the list is small. Once you are sending several campaigns a week to a five-figure list and want segments by product, order count or margin, Klaviyo pays for itself.

How much does Shopify email marketing cost?

Shopify Messaging pricing, per Shopify's Help Center:

• 10,000 emails included at the start of every month, shared across campaigns and automations.
• $1 per 1,000 additional emails up to 300,000; $0.65 per 1,000 after 300,000; $0.55 per 1,000 after 750,000.
• Abandoned checkout automations are always free and do not count toward the limit. Other automations do.
• Unused emails do not roll over. Extra sends are added to your Shopify bill as Marketing emails.

Klaviyo bills on two things: active profiles and emails sent. Klaviyo counts any profile that can be emailed as active, whatever its consent status, and moves you to a higher tier at your next billing cycle if you go over. Clean your list, or you pay to store contacts who will never buy.

Example: a store emailing 20,000 subscribers four times a month sends 80,000 emails. On Shopify Messaging that is 70,000 over the allowance, or about $70. Klaviyo would price on those 20,000 profiles; get the exact figure from its pricing calculator.

Which email flows should every Shopify store run?

Campaigns are what you send; flows are what earn while you sleep. Build these five before you scale ad spend:

1. Welcome series. Fires when someone joins your list. Brand story, best sellers and, if you use one, the sign-up offer. Exclude people who buy straight away.
2. Abandoned checkout. Fires when someone starts checkout and leaves. On Shopify Messaging these sends are always free.
3. Browse and cart abandonment. Fires when a known subscriber views products or adds to cart without buying. Show the exact product.
4. Post-purchase. Order thanks, how to use the product, a review request and a cross-sell timed to when the product runs out.
5. Win-back. Fires when a past buyer has not ordered in a set number of days. Reason to return first, discount last.

How do you set up Klaviyo email marketing for Shopify?

1. Install the Klaviyo app. From the Shopify App Store, then connect your store so customers, orders and products sync.
2. Turn on onsite tracking. Browse and cart abandonment flows need Klaviyo's tracking on your theme to see product views and add-to-carts.
3. Move your subscribers with their consent status. Never email people who did not opt in; it hurts deliverability for everyone else.
4. Set up sending. Authenticate a sending domain so your emails come from your brand, not a shared address.
5. Launch the five core flows, then campaigns. Flows first, so every new subscriber is captured from day one.

What results should email deliver for a Shopify brand?

Measure email by the revenue it drives as a share of store revenue, not by open rates. Our beauty client launched its Klaviyo flows on the same day as its Shopify store; by month three, email and SMS drove 31% of DTC revenue (case study).

Shaazford runs Email & SMS management for $1,200 a month (Klaviyo flows and campaigns), and builds or migrates Klaviyo from $1,500 as a one-off project, for brands doing $100K+ a month.