Klaviyo vs ActiveCampaign: which one is right for your business?
If you sell products online, Klaviyo. If you sell services or walk people through a sales process, ActiveCampaign. Both are good tools built for different jobs, and the email tool you already pay for might be doing enough.
Here's how I'd think about it before you move your whole list. Hope this helps.
Founder, Handled. Greenville, SC. Updated October 2026, 7 min read.
The short version
Klaviyo knows what your customers bought. ActiveCampaign knows where your leads are in the sales process.
| Category | Klaviyo | ActiveCampaign |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Online stores, product sellers | Service businesses, coaches, B2B, anyone with a pipeline |
| Free plan | Yes: 250 active profiles, 500 sends a month | No, free trial only |
| Starting price | Email from $20 a month, Email plus SMS from $35 (251 to 500 profiles) | Starter from $15, Plus from $49 a month (smallest list size, billed yearly) |
| How the price grows | With active profiles | With contacts. Plus at 10,000 contacts is around $239 |
| Sales pipeline | No, customer profiles only | Yes, on Plus and up |
| My pick | You sell products from a store | You sell services or close deals |
Prices checked October 2026. Both price by list size and both change their plans, so plug your real numbers into their calculators before you sign anything.
Klaviyo: built for online stores
Email and texting that know what your customers browsed and bought.
Klaviyo plugs into your store and pulls in what people look at, add to cart and buy. That's what powers the emails stores actually make money from: the "you left something in your cart" email, the thank-you after an order, the "haven't seen you in a while" email.
Free: up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month.
Email, from $20 a month: for 251 to 500 active profiles. The price goes up as your list grows.
Email plus SMS, from $35 a month: same profile range, with texting credits included.
"Active profiles" means the people you can actually email. Keep your list clean and the bill stays sane.
- Store data out of the box. Connect your store and the cart, order and browsing info just shows up.
- Email and texting in one place. Same customer record, same flow, no second tool.
- Segments by what people buy. How much they've spent, what they bought, how long since their last order.
- No sales pipeline. If someone has to get on a call before they buy, Klaviyo can't track that.
- Not much use without products. No catalog, no purchase data, and most of the value goes away.
- The bill grows with your list. Fine while it's small. Check the calculator at the list size you expect next year.
ActiveCampaign: built for businesses that sell services
Email automation with a sales pipeline attached.
ActiveCampaign's big strength is its automation builder. Emails that branch based on what someone did, wait for something to happen, update their record and ping your team. On the higher plans you also get a pipeline, so you can see where every lead is.
Starter, from $15 a month: email marketing and basic automation.
Plus, from $49 a month: where most service businesses end up, because the sales pipeline lives here.
Pro, from $79, Enterprise from $145: more advanced reporting and features.
All of those are at the smallest list size and billed yearly. Monthly billing is $19, $59, $99 and $179. The price climbs with contacts, and fast: Plus at 10,000 contacts is around $239 a month.
- Automations that branch. If they clicked, do this. If they didn't, do that. It handles a lot of logic.
- Email and pipeline together. On Plus and up, you don't need a separate CRM for a simple sales process.
- Flexible. It bends to almost any business, products included.
- No free plan. You pay from day one after the trial.
- Lots of knobs. The flexibility is also the learning curve. Count that as part of the cost.
- Store stuff takes setup. It can do cart and order emails, it just isn't as plug-and-play as Klaviyo.
Which one should you pick?
Before you pay for Klaviyo or ActiveCampaign, run through these in order.
A lot of store platforms and email tools already do cart reminders and simple automations. Open yours and check before you move a list. Switching email tools means rebuilding templates and flows, and that's real time.
Your store platform may already send some customer emails on its own. Open its marketing or email settings and see what's there but switched off.
- Klaviyo if your money comes from an online store and you want emails driven by what people buy.
- ActiveCampaign if you sell services, have a sales step, or mix products with services.
- Neither if you're mostly a local service business that lives on texting and booking. That's a different kind of tool.
If your email tool, store and spreadsheets don't talk to each other, a new subscription won't fix that. Sometimes the answer is one small connector or one custom piece on top of what you have.
That's what Saddle & Sage got: Square stayed, the storefront got built.
The fine print that changes your bill
Stuff that's easy to miss on the pricing page.
Both get more expensive as your list grows. The starting prices are for tiny lists. Price it at the size you'll be in a year, not today.
ActiveCampaign's pipeline isn't on Starter. If tracking deals is the reason you're looking, compare Plus, not Starter.
Old contacts cost money. People who never open your emails still sit on your list. Clean it up every so often and both bills behave better.
Order confirmations usually come from your store. Receipts and password resets are a different kind of email. Your store platform typically handles those, so don't pay a marketing tool to do it.
Moving takes real time. Templates, flows and your domain setup all get redone when you switch. Plan for a few weeks and don't switch in the middle of your busy season.
Questions people ask me
Got one that isn't here? Ask me on a free call →
Is Klaviyo only for ecommerce?
Mostly, yes. Klaviyo is built around store data: what people browsed, bought and left in their cart. It works best plugged into a store like Shopify. A service business can use it, but most of what you'd be paying for goes unused without a product catalog.
Is ActiveCampaign good for ecommerce?
It can do it. ActiveCampaign connects to Shopify and WooCommerce and can run abandoned cart and post-purchase emails. It just takes more setup than Klaviyo, where that stuff is the whole point. If you mix products with services, ActiveCampaign is the more flexible pick.
How does Klaviyo pricing work?
Klaviyo bills on active profiles, meaning the people you can actually email. The free plan covers up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month. The Email plan starts at $20 a month for 251 to 500 active profiles, and Email plus SMS starts at $35 a month for the same range. The price climbs as your list grows, so check their calculator with your real numbers.
How much does ActiveCampaign cost?
ActiveCampaign is priced by contact count. Starter begins at $15 a month, Plus at $49, Pro at $79 and Enterprise at $145, all at the smallest list size and billed yearly. Billed monthly, those are $19, $59, $99 and $179. Those numbers climb fast with contacts: Plus at 10,000 contacts is around $239 a month.
Can I run both Klaviyo and ActiveCampaign at the same time?
You can, but I wouldn't. Two tools holding the same customers means two bills, two places to update, and sync problems. Pick the one that fits how you make money, learn it properly, and only add a second tool if there's a real gap.
Does Klaviyo have a CRM?
Not really. Klaviyo has detailed customer profiles with purchase history, but no sales pipeline or deal stages. If you need to walk a prospect through a sales process, ActiveCampaign's Plus plan or a separate CRM fits that better.
When you don't need me
If your email already brings in sales, you probably don't. Skip the call if one of these fits.
You run a store and just need the basic flows. Sign up for Klaviyo's free plan, connect your store, and turn on a cart reminder and a welcome email. That's a weekend.
Your current email tool is doing the job. If emails go out and people buy, stay put. Switching costs more than it looks.
You haven't sent much yet. The tool isn't the bottleneck if the emails aren't getting written. Send for a month, then decide.
What changed
- October 2026: ActiveCampaign's $15, $49, $79 and $145 starting prices are yearly-billing rates, so the page now says so and gives the monthly rates ($19, $59, $99, $179).
- October 2026: rewritten top to bottom. Klaviyo pricing corrected (free plan is 250 active profiles, Email starts at $20 and Email plus SMS at $35). ActiveCampaign prices checked. Removed the made-up example businesses and their results, unsourced integration counts and deliverability rankings, and the per-message SMS estimate.
- April 2026: first published.
Sources
Every price and outside fact on this page comes from the sources below, checked October 12, 2026. Prices change often, so check before you buy.
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Start with what you have. Build what's missing.
If you're not sure whether you need a new email tool, a better setup on the one you have, or one missing piece built for you, tell me how orders come in and what you send people after. I'll tell you which of the three I'd do first.
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