Klaviyo vs Omnisend: Which Email Marketing Platform Wins for Ecommerce?

Last Updated: February 2026

If you're deciding between Klaviyo vs Omnisend for your email marketing needs, this article will help you understand which platform fits your business better. While Klaviyo is known for its advanced features and customization for larger businesses, Omnisend offers simplicity and affordability for small-to-medium enterprises. Read on to compare their features, pricing, and usability in the context of Klaviyo vs Omnisend.

Key Takeaways

• Klaviyo's ecommerce integration depth — trigger automations, segmentation, and reporting — is significantly more advanced than Omnisend's. That translates directly to more revenue.
• Omnisend is cheaper, but the savings are misleading. You lose more in unrealized revenue from limited automation and weaker Shopify/WooCommerce integration than you save on the bill.
• If you're in ecommerce and plan to grow, start on Klaviyo. Switching platforms later creates real migration pain — it's tech debt you don't need.

Overview of Klaviyo and Omnisend

Full disclosure: we're a Klaviyo-focused agency. We've evaluated Omnisend — talked to their team, looked at the platform, fielded questions from clients considering it — and our honest take is that it works fine at a basic level. But when you need to build real ecommerce automations, dig into performance data, or push beyond the basics, Klaviyo's depth is in a different league.

Klaviyo's strength is its ecommerce integration. The trigger automations, behavioral segmentation, and Shopify/WooCommerce data sync let you see exactly what's driving revenue and build programs around it. Its personalization capabilities and API depth let agencies like ours do things that simply aren't possible on other platforms.

Omnisend is a viable option for small businesses that need email and SMS basics without a steep learning curve. But most growing ecommerce brands will outgrow it — and migrating later costs time and money you could have avoided.

Key Features Comparison

Both Klaviyo and Omnisend offer an impressive array of features tailored to ecommerce businesses. However, their key features cater to different user needs. Omnisend is known for its user-friendly interface and excellent support for beginners, making it an ideal choice for those just starting with email marketing. Klaviyo, in contrast, provides powerful customization options and advanced automation features, making it more suitable for experienced marketers looking for robust features. When comparing Omnisend vs Klaviyo, it’s clear that each platform has its strengths.

The specifics of their email builders, automation workflows, and segmentation options are discussed in the following subsections. These aspects are crucial for executing successful email marketing campaigns and achieving higher customer engagement and conversion rates using email marketing tools.

Email Builders

Creating compelling email campaigns is a breeze with both Klaviyo and Omnisend, thanks to their intuitive drag-and-drop email builders. No coding experience is required, allowing users to focus on crafting engaging content. Klaviyo’s interface is praised for its user-friendliness, aiding in effective email creation.

Klaviyo’s email builder stands out with its ability to add customizable text, CTAs, images, and products directly from the store. This integration of products into emails, along with discount codes and gamification features, makes it a powerful tool for ecommerce store owners. Klaviyo’s approximately 100 pre-built templates provide plenty of options for personalized email campaigns.

Omnisend, while providing fewer newsletter templates, offers more flexible and customizable templates compared to Klaviyo. This flexibility is particularly beneficial for Omnisend users who want to tailor their emails to match their brand’s unique style. Despite having fewer templates, Omnisend ensures that even beginners can create unique and engaging email campaigns with ease.

Automation Workflows

Automation workflows are the backbone of any effective email marketing strategy, and both Klaviyo and Omnisend deliver in this area. Klaviyo excels with its advanced automation workflows, offering options such as cart recovery, welcome series, and post-purchase follow-ups. These built-in workflows emphasize personalization and segmentation, which are key to enhancing customer engagement.

Omnisend provides access to pre-built automation workflows that include various triggers like clicks and opens, making it easy for beginners to set up effective automated emails. Recent updates have introduced new automation triggers, further enhancing Omnisend’s capabilities in customer engagement and retention.

Klaviyo allows extensive A/B testing of various elements beyond just subject lines and sender names, offering deeper insights into campaign performance. This makes Klaviyo a more robust choice for experienced marketers looking to optimize their automation workflows. Plan your Klaviyo automations with our free Klaviyo Flow Builder.

Segmentation Options

Segmentation is crucial for targeting the right audience with the right message. Klaviyo provides advanced audience segmentation, allowing for detailed targeting based on behavior and purchase history. This level of segmentation helps in creating highly personalized and targeted email campaigns, enhancing overall customer engagement.

Omnisend’s segmentation capabilities, while impressive, are limited by the subscription plan, which restricts the level of experimentation available to users. However, Omnisend’s segmentation tool can leverage over 500 data points for creating customer-specific segments, providing a decent level of customization.

Klaviyo offers unlimited segments and advanced features, making it a more powerful tool for experienced marketers. On the other hand, Omnisend's user segmentation approach is easier to manage, making it less intimidating for beginners. This balance of complexity and usability makes both platforms suitable for different types of users. If you choose Klaviyo, our Klaviyo Audience Builder can help you create segments quickly.

Pricing Plans

Pricing is a critical factor when choosing an email marketing platform. Klaviyo starts at $20/month for email only (251–500 active profiles) or $35/month for Email + SMS. All features are included in every paid plan — pricing scales based on your active profile count, not feature tiers. It's not cheap, and costs grow as your list grows.

Omnisend, on the other hand, limits features by subscription type, with its Standard plan starting at $16 per month and the Pro plan beginning at $59 per month. This tiered pricing makes Omnisend a more affordable option for small eCommerce stores.

Both Klaviyo and Omnisend offer generous free plans that can accommodate up to 250 subscribers, making it easier for businesses to start without a significant upfront investment. However, Omnisend's free plan shows only one month of web tracking data and includes landing pages, while Klaviyo's free plan provides a more comprehensive set of features. For Klaviyo users looking to manage costs as they grow, our Klaviyo Bill Reducer can help optimize your spending.

SMS Marketing Capabilities

SMS is actually one of the strongest reasons to keep everything in Klaviyo. We have clients running SMS on separate platforms — SMSBump, Slick Text, Attentive — and honestly, we hate all of them. Not because they're bad products, but because running SMS on a separate platform from your email is a nightmare.

The core problem is data silos. When your SMS and email live on different platforms, the data doesn't fully sync. You're making decisions based on incomplete information. Worse, both platforms claim credit for the same sales — Klaviyo attributes a conversion to an email flow, Attentive attributes the same conversion to an SMS. Your attribution is double-counted, and you genuinely have no idea what's actually driving revenue.

When everything lives in Klaviyo — email and SMS on the same platform, same data, same attribution — you at least have one source of truth. You can coordinate your messaging, see what's actually working, and stop the operational chaos of managing multiple platforms. Klaviyo's SMS is available in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Omnisend supports global SMS, which sounds like an advantage but is irrelevant for the vast majority of ecommerce brands we work with.

Both platforms charge for SMS on a per-send basis, separate from email costs.

Analytics and Reporting

Analytics and reporting are essential for measuring the success of email campaigns. Klaviyo provides highly detailed reporting tools that offer insights into campaign performance and customer behavior. Its advanced reporting features, such as real-time tracking and predictive analytics, justify its higher pricing for businesses needing detailed google analytics.

On the other hand, Omnisend’s reporting capabilities are more basic, with high-level metrics available in the standard plans and more advanced features like dashboards and visual reports available only in the Pro plan. This makes Omnisend suitable for users looking for straightforward insights without complex data analysis.

Overall, Klaviyo’s analytics capabilities are more useful for ecommerce businesses, providing extensive customer data analysis and segment-specific reports that can drive strategic decision-making.

Integrations with Ecommerce Platforms

Integrations with ecommerce platforms are crucial for seamless marketing operations. Klaviyo boasts over 350 predefined integrations with various ecommerce platforms, including Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce. This extensive integration allows for real-time synchronization of data across multiple applications, enhancing customer engagement.

Omnisend also integrates with major platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Prestashop, and includes unique features like the Product Picker, allowing users to integrate products directly into their campaigns. Additionally, Omnisend provides integrations with various tools such as shipping providers, CRMs, and online form builders, making it a versatile choice for diverse third-party integrations.

While Klaviyo offers more and deeper integrations, Omnisend’s flexibility and unique features make it a strong contender for ecommerce businesses looking for robust third-party integrations.

Customer Support and Resources

Omnisend offers 24/7 email and live chat support even on the free plan, which is genuinely good for beginners. Klaviyo's free plan limits support to 60 days of email, though paid plans include responsive live chat.

Here's the honest reality though: Klaviyo is a more complex platform, and as your brand grows, the real challenge isn't getting help from support — it's knowing what to build. Understanding how to set up advanced flows, build effective segments, and actually use the data Klaviyo gives you is where the learning curve lives. That's one reason agencies like ours exist: the platform expertise matters as much as the platform itself.

Summary

If you're in ecommerce and serious about growth, Klaviyo is the better platform. Its automation depth, Shopify/WooCommerce integration, and reporting give you the tools to actually understand what's working and scale it. Yes, it costs more. Yes, it's more complex. But you save a little on your Omnisend bill and lose more in the revenue you never realize because the platform can't support what you need.

Omnisend is a reasonable choice if you're just getting started and genuinely need the simplest possible setup. But if you're planning to grow, you'll likely outgrow Omnisend and face a migration anyway — and that's time, money, and disruption you could have avoided by starting on Klaviyo. For more platform comparisons, read our article on Klaviyo vs Mailchimp or our full Klaviyo alternatives comparison.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which platform is better for beginners?

Omnisend is the better platform for beginners because it offers a user-friendly interface and extensive support for free plan users. This makes it easier for newcomers to effectively navigate and utilize its features.

Does Klaviyo support global SMS marketing?

Klaviyo supports SMS marketing only in the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. Therefore, it does not offer global SMS marketing capabilities.

Which platform offers better segmentation options?

Klaviyo provides superior segmentation options, enabling detailed targeting based on customer behavior and purchase history. This makes it a strong choice for businesses seeking precision in their marketing efforts.

How do the pricing plans compare between Klaviyo and Omnisend?

Klaviyo has higher pricing that scales with your list size and offers all features in a single plan, whereas Omnisend provides more affordable tiered pricing with certain feature limitations.

Which platform has better analytics and reporting capabilities?

Klaviyo offers superior analytics and reporting capabilities, making it ideal for businesses that require comprehensive data insights.