Klaviyo vs Omnisend

Klaviyo

The default marketing stack for Shopify-scale e-commerce because its data model is built around customer events rather than lists, so predictive fields and AI-built segments actually have something to work with. The free tier is a sandbox, the real cost climbs with active profiles, and once SMS, Composer usage and service modules are switched on the invoice has several meters, not one.

Pros

• +Pricing by active profiles with a real free tier (250 profiles, 500 sends) and no card
• +Predictive churn, lifetime value and next-order date per profile built in
• +Composer builds and audits flows and campaigns from natural-language prompts
• +Public REST API with maintained SDKs in Python, PHP, Ruby and more
• +Email, SMS/MMS, push and a helpdesk module share one customer profile

Cons

• −Costs step up with every active-profile band; the $20 entry price covers only 251–500 profiles
• −SMS, Composer usage and support packages are separate meters on top of the plan
• −The pricing page shows the entry bands and leaves larger bands to a calculator
• −The platform has widened into service and analytics, adding modules a small brand will not use

Omnisend

This is a mature e-commerce marketing platform that added AI to jobs it already did, which is why the AI features are useful rather than decorative — segments, subject lines and forms are the parts of the workflow that are genuinely tedious. The MCP server is an unusual addition: you can query campaign performance from Claude or ChatGPT and act on it. The pricing headline is misleading in the normal email-marketing way, since the bill tracks your contact count.

Pros

• +AI copy, subject lines, product recommendations and segmentation inside the existing builder
• +MCP server exposes account insights and actions to ChatGPT and Claude
• +Genuine free plan including the AI features, not a trial
• +Native integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Wix and Ecwid plus an open API
• +Named EU company operating since 2014 with published legal entities and a GDPR privacy policy

Cons

• −Price rises with contact count — $11.20 covers only 500 contacts
• −SMS is metered separately on top of the plan
• −Free plan is capped at 500 emails a month, which most active stores exhaust quickly

Is Klaviyo cheaper than Omnisend?

On published entry prices, Omnisend starts lower — $11.20/mo against $20/mo for Klaviyo. Entry price is the lowest paid plan as we last verified it; what each plan includes differs.

Does Klaviyo or Omnisend have a free tier?

Both: Klaviyo has a free tier, and Omnisend has a free tier.

Which has a public API, Klaviyo or Omnisend?

Both ship a public API, so either can be built on; the fact table above shows the platforms each one runs on.