Mailchimp is the better choice for email marketing when the list is the business: a newsletter, a membership, a club, or a services firm that sends a monthly update and the occasional promotion. Klaviyo is the better choice for ecommerce, because it is built around store data: what someone browsed, what they bought and what they are predicted to spend next. Klaviyo includes advanced automation on every paid plan and Mailchimp reserves it for a higher tier, so the two entry plans are not the same product and should not be compared as if they were.
Plans and pricing checked October 2026. Every figure in this article is read from our pricing database when the page loads, and the table and calculator above run on the same data.
Mailchimp vs Klaviyo for email marketing
For a business that sends campaigns to a list and does not sell from a store, Mailchimp does the job with less friction than Klaviyo. It has 100+ templates, signup forms of the type Yes (embedded, pop-ups, hosted), and its landing page support is Yes. Its editor is the one most marketing hires already know, and there is a decade of how-to material for every question. Integrations run to 300+, so it connects to the booking, CRM and accounting tools a services business already runs.
Klaviyo can send the same newsletter. It also has 100+ templates and its own signup forms (Yes (embedded, pop-ups, fly-outs)), with landing page support listed as Yes (limited), and its integration count is 350+. What it cannot do is earn its price without a store behind it. Klaviyo's segmentation, its flows and its reporting all assume a purchase event to work from. A consultancy or a charity that connects Klaviyo to nothing but a signup form is paying for machinery it will never switch on.
Mailchimp vs Klaviyo for ecommerce
For a store, Klaviyo is built around purchase and browsing data, where Mailchimp treats store data as one source among several. Both connect to the same store platforms. Mailchimp's ecommerce integrations are Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento. Klaviyo's are Shopify (deep native), WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento. The difference is what each does with the data once the store is connected.
Klaviyo treats the store as the centre of the account. Its segmentation is Very advanced (predictive, purchase behaviour, CLV), so a segment such as "bought twice, nothing in ninety days, predicted to spend above average" is built inside the tool without exporting anything. Its reporting is Yes (revenue), which means each flow and campaign shows the revenue it produced, not only its open rate. Mailchimp's segmentation is Moderate (tags, predicted demographics) and its reporting is Yes. It syncs orders and can send an abandoned cart email, but it treats the store as one data source among several, and the purchase-driven segments that make ecommerce email pay are thinner.
The AI plumbing follows the same split. Mailchimp's AI features are Native (Intuit Assist, 20+ AI) and Klaviyo's are Native (Klaviyo AI agents). For connecting an AI assistant or agent directly to the account:
- Klaviyo: Native MCP (official)
- Mailchimp: Via 3rd-party (Zapier)
For a store that wants an agent reading its own customer data, that is a practical difference today, not a roadmap item.
Mailchimp vs Klaviyo pricing: why the entry plans are not like-for-like
Mailchimp's entry plan is $18/mo (Essentials). Klaviyo's is $28/mo (Email). Those two numbers describe two different plans, and that is where the comparison starts rather than ends.
Automation on Mailchimp is Basic (Essentials), Advanced (Standard+). Automation on Klaviyo is Advanced (flows, triggers, predictive on every paid plan). A/B testing follows the same pattern: Mailchimp lists it as Yes (Standard+) and Klaviyo as Yes (all paid plans). So the Mailchimp plan that matches Klaviyo's entry plan on capability is not Mailchimp's entry plan; it is the tier above it. Whatever the gap between the two is at your list size, it is not the gap between the two entry prices, because those are two different classes of plan.
The calculator above is built to make this comparison honestly. Set Subscribers to your real list, set Emails /mo to what you actually send, and switch on "Need automation?" if you will run a welcome series, an abandoned cart flow or anything else that fires on its own. With the toggle on, Mailchimp is costed on the plan that includes the automation, and Klaviyo on its entry plan, which already does. Compare those two figures, not the entry prices.
Both platforms set their list prices in US dollars, and the Australian dollar figures on this page are converted from those at a recent rate, so treat them as close rather than exact.
How Mailchimp and Klaviyo count a contact
The second thing the entry price hides is what gets counted. Mailchimp's pricing model is Per contact and it bills All contacts including unsubscribed. Klaviyo's pricing model is Per active profile and it bills Active profiles only (excludes suppressed).
On a list that is a year old and regularly cleaned, the two counts are close. On a list that has run for four or five years with normal churn, they are not: Mailchimp is still counting everyone who unsubscribed in that time until you archive or delete them, and Klaviyo has already stopped. That difference decides which tier you land on. If you are moving from Mailchimp, take your active audience rather than your audience total into the calculator, because the active number is the one Klaviyo will bill.
Free plans on Mailchimp and Klaviyo
Most comparisons present the free plan as a Mailchimp advantage. Check the two limits before treating it as one.
- Mailchimp free plan: Yes (250 contacts, 500 sends /mo)
- Klaviyo free plan: Yes (250 profiles, 500 emails /mo)
Both are capped on contacts and on monthly sends at once, and the list above carries the current limit for each. The send cap is the one that bites: a few hundred subscribers emailed twice a month runs into it. Both are trial tiers, useful for learning the tool and for little else, so a free plan is not a reason to pick one over the other. If a working free tier is what you need, this is the wrong matchup, and the Australian email marketing comparison shows every platform we track with its free tier limit.
Deliverability, support and contracts on Mailchimp and Klaviyo
Neither platform locks you in. Contract required on Mailchimp: No. On Klaviyo: No. Both bill month to month, so a wrong choice costs a month, not a year.
Deliverability reputation is High (89% in independent tests) for Mailchimp and Very high (e-commerce specialist) for Klaviyo. Both land mail reliably when the list is consented and the sending domain is authenticated; neither will rescue a bought list. Support hours are Business hours on Mailchimp and Business hours on Klaviyo.
Mailchimp vs Klaviyo for Australian businesses
The Spam Act 2003 asks three things of a commercial email: consent to send it, identification of who sent it, and a working unsubscribe. Mailchimp's Spam Act tooling is listed as Yes (consent tools, unsubscribe) and Klaviyo's as Yes. Both give you consented signup forms and an unsubscribe link in every send. The duty to hold real consent stays with you on either platform, and neither will stop you importing a list you should not have.
SMS is not a point of difference on availability: both send to Australian numbers. Mailchimp's Australian SMS support is Yes (AU SMS, paid add-on) and Klaviyo's is Yes (AU supported). Where they differ is how the text sits in the account. Klaviyo runs SMS inside the same flows and segments as its email and triggers it off store events, so a text can be step three of a sequence. Mailchimp sells SMS as a credit-based add-on to its paid plans, with credits priced by the sending country, and requires an approved SMS application for each sending number before the first message goes out.
Which to choose: Mailchimp or Klaviyo
If you run an online store, choose Klaviyo. What you pay for is automation on every plan, segmentation that follows a customer through a purchase, reporting that shows what each email earned, and a bill that ignores the dead weight in your list. For a Shopify store in particular, the native integration is where that depth starts.
Without a store, Mailchimp is the sensible choice. Klaviyo's advantages are all ecommerce advantages, and paying for them to send a monthly newsletter is money wasted, while Mailchimp brings a free plan for a small list, the editor your next hire already knows and enough automation for a welcome series and a re-engagement send.
Neither the free plans nor the entry prices should decide it. Put your subscriber count into the calculator above with "Need automation?" switched on, and compare the two figures it returns. For the wider field, see the Australian email marketing comparison, and for Klaviyo on its own, our Klaviyo pricing guide and Klaviyo alternatives.