Shopify Email (Now Shopify Messaging) vs Klaviyo

What this page helps you decide

Shopify's own email tool is now called Shopify Messaging. It used to be called Shopify Email, and many people still search for it by that name. Whether you think of it as Shopify Email vs Klaviyo or Klaviyo vs Shopify Email, the question is the same: is the tool you already have enough, or is a separate app worth paying for?

From here on we use the new name, so this page reads as Shopify Messaging vs Klaviyo. It sets out who each tool may fit, what each costs at list sizes both companies publish, and the signs that it may be time to switch. We do not rank the two tools, and staying on the tool you already have is a normal answer.

We have not used these tools ourselves for this page. It is built from each company's public pages and help docs. Prices change, so check each company's own pages before you rely on a number here. If you only want to know whether Shopify's tool is enough on its own, our review of Shopify's built-in email tool covers that question.

Short answer

Shopify Messaging is already in your store. Eligible paid plans get 10,000 free emails a month, and after that you pay by the email. Klaviyo is a separate app with a monthly plan price based on how many people it can email.

Shopify Messaging may be enough if you send a few campaigns a month, your list is modest, and its ready-made automatic emails cover what you need.

Klaviyo may fit if you want to build your own automatic email sequences and group customers by what they have done, all in one app, and you have time to set it up and look after it.

Before you decide, remember that Klaviyo counts everyone it can email, not only people who subscribed, so work out your own numbers on both.

The two tools in plain words

Shopify Messaging, formerly Shopify Email, is made by Shopify and comes installed on your store. It sends email and text messages. Shopify's help docs list Shopify Messaging for the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans, and a paid active plan is needed to send to subscribers. Shopify's own pages do not all describe this the same way, so check what your plan includes.

Klaviyo is a separate app that you add to your store. It has a free plan and paid plans. Text messages sit on their own plan, which you can cancel on its own without closing your account.

If you are also weighing Omnisend, our Omnisend vs Klaviyo comparison sets those two side by side.

Who each one may fit

Shopify Messaging may fit you if:

• Your campaigns stay near the free 10,000 emails a month. For example, four campaigns a month to 2,000 subscribers make 8,000 emails, which sits inside the free allowance.
• Its ready-made automatic emails cover what you need. The set includes abandoned checkout, abandoned cart and abandoned product browse reminders, welcome emails, thank you emails after a purchase, upsell, win back, birthday and VIP emails.
• You would like any extra sending to appear on your normal Shopify bill.
• You mostly send each campaign to everyone, or to one segment. A segment is a group of customers picked out by rules you set, such as people who have bought before.

Klaviyo may fit you if:

• You want to build your own automatic sequences inside your email app. Klaviyo calls these sequences flows. It offers ready-made abandoned cart and welcome flows, and a "build your own" option for anything else.
• You want segments based on what someone has done or not done, details about them, where they are, or which lists they are on.
• You want the sending tools Klaviyo documents, such as a branded sending domain, which Klaviyo says gives you more control over your sender reputation, and tools for cleaning your list.

No single tool is right for every store. The one that fits is the one you will actually run every week.

What each one costs at three list sizes

Last verified: October 13, 2026 (Jamaica time). Prices are monthly list prices in US dollars, as each company publishes them.

How Shopify Messaging charges. Each month your store gets 10,000 free emails, and any you do not use do not carry over. After that you pay $1 for every 1,000 extra emails up to 300,000. Past 300,000 the rate is $0.65 per 1,000, and past 750,000 it is $0.55 per 1,000. Extra charges are added to your Shopify bill for the previous month, listed as Marketing emails.

How Klaviyo charges. Klaviyo sets its plan price by active profiles. An active profile is anyone Klaviyo can email, whatever their consent status. Profiles that are suppressed, such as people who have unsubscribed, are not counted.

The list sizes do not mean quite the same thing. Shopify's examples count the subscribers who get your campaigns. Klaviyo counts everyone it can email, including people who never subscribed. The same store may have a bigger number on Klaviyo than on Shopify.

Why these three sizes. Klaviyo publishes no price at 2,000 profiles. Its pricing calculator steps straight from 1,500 to 2,500. So the table uses 2,500, 5,000 and 10,000, where both tools have published or calculable numbers.

The table assumes four campaigns a month to the whole list, with automatic emails on top.

How we worked out the Shopify column. These are our own calculations from Shopify's published rates, not prices Shopify publishes.

• At 2,500 subscribers, four campaigns make 10,000 emails. That uses the whole free allowance, so the cost is $0. Nothing is left over, so every 1,000 automatic emails that count adds $1.
• At 5,000 subscribers, four campaigns make 20,000 emails. The first 10,000 are free, and the other 10,000 cost $1 per 1,000, which is $10.
• At 10,000 subscribers, four campaigns make 40,000 emails. The first 10,000 are free, and the other 30,000 cost $1 per 1,000, which is $30.

All three stay under 300,000 emails, so only the $1 rate applies. Abandoned checkout emails are always free and never count toward the 10,000. Abandoned cart, browse, welcome and other automatic emails do count.

The Klaviyo columns. These are Klaviyo's published plan prices at each size. Four campaigns fit inside each plan's monthly email allowance: 10,000 of 25,000, 20,000 of 50,000, and 40,000 of 100,000. So the plan price does not change at this level of sending, and there is room left for automatic emails.

If your list is about 2,000. On Shopify Messaging, four campaigns to 2,000 subscribers make 8,000 emails. That sits inside the free 10,000, so it costs $0 and leaves room for about 2,000 automatic emails that count before any charge. Klaviyo does not publish a price at 2,000 profiles. Its nearest published steps are 1,500 profiles, where the Email plan is $45 with 15,000 emails a month, and 2,500 profiles, shown in the table. Use Klaviyo's own calculator with your real profile count to see what you would pay.

The free plans. Klaviyo's free plan covers up to 250 active profiles and 500 emails a month. It includes $5 of mobile messages a month and email support for the first 60 days, and emails carry the Klaviyo logo. Four campaigns to 250 people would be 1,000 emails, which is more than the 500 the free plan allows. Shopify Messaging has no free plan based on contacts. Its 10,000 free emails a month come with eligible paid Shopify plans.

What these numbers leave out. They do not include the price of your Shopify plan. Text messages are covered in the next section. They also leave out any first month discount Klaviyo may be offering, since an offer like that does not reflect the regular monthly price.

Klaviyo plans do not move down on their own when your list gets smaller. You choose a lower tier on the Billing page once your profile count has updated, or turn on Klaviyo's optional automatic downgrade setting. Klaviyo also has settings for overages and automatic upgrades, so check how yours are set.

Check each calculator with your own numbers on the same day. Our review of Shopify's built-in email tool has more on how Shopify's email pricing works.

Text messages on each tool

Shopify Messaging. A text to a US number costs $0.012. A text to Canada costs $0.025, and a text to the United Kingdom costs $0.06. Each approved toll-free number used for the United States and Canada adds $2.15 a month. Among the automatic messages, only the three abandonment reminders (checkout, cart and product browse) can send texts. Sending to the United States and Canada needs a toll-free registration first.

Shopify Messaging sends texts to Canada, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, excluding Puerto Rico. Shopify has paused texts to Spain and to Austria, so neither is on that list.

Our calculation, assuming each text is billed as one message: 1,000 US texts at $0.012 come to $12.00, plus $2.15 for the number, which makes $14.15 a month. 10,000 US texts come to $120.00, plus $2.15, which makes $122.15 a month.

Klaviyo. Klaviyo's pricing calculator showed $15.00 a month for 1,000 US toll-free texts and $125.00 a month for 10,000. Klaviyo says its price includes carrier fees where they apply. Unused spend does not roll over to the next month.

These figures are not quoted the same way. Shopify publishes a price per text, and Klaviyo's calculator shows a monthly total. We could not confirm from Shopify's pages whether its rates include carrier fees. Wanting texts is not, on its own, a reason to switch, since both tools send them.

Differences you will notice week to week

Automatic emails. Shopify Messaging gives you its ready-made set. For anything custom, or anything that involves another app, Shopify's help docs point you to Shopify Flow, a separate Shopify app. Shopify's automatic emails go only to subscribers by default, and only the abandoned checkout reminder can be switched to all customers. Klaviyo's ready-made abandoned cart flow waits 4 hours before the first message. Klaviyo also has a ready-made welcome series and a "build your own" option. Our guide to abandoned cart emails covers setting up that first reminder.

Signup forms. On Shopify, signup forms come from the separate Shopify Forms app, which is free to install from the App Store. Klaviyo includes signup forms, including pop ups, in the product.

Reports. For automatic emails, Shopify shows reach, sessions, orders, conversion rate and sales. By default it credits an order to the last click that was not a direct visit, and it says some of its email funnel figures are estimates.

Sending. Shopify uses safe send limits to protect your sender reputation, and it does not publish the numbers. A feature called Smart delivery is on by default when a campaign goes to more than 1,000 subscribers. Klaviyo documents branded sending domains and tools for cleaning your list. We do not compare how often each tool's emails reach the inbox. We have no fair, checkable figures for that.

Signs it is time to switch

From Shopify Messaging to Klaviyo:

• You need sequences beyond the ready-made set, and you would rather build them inside your email app than in Shopify Flow.
• You want to group customers by what they have done and by details about them, inside your email tool.
• Your customers live in countries Shopify's texts do not reach. Check Klaviyo's own country list before you move for this reason.

Going by the figures in the table, sending cost on its own is not what moves a store to Klaviyo at these list sizes. The signs above are about what you need the tool to do.

From Klaviyo back to the built-in tool:

• You pay for a plan, but you send a monthly newsletter and the standard reminders.
• Your Klaviyo count includes many people who never subscribed.
• You would rather have one bill.

Staying put on either tool is a sound choice if it does the jobs you use every week. If you are on Klaviyo and want to look at other separate apps, see our Klaviyo alternatives guide. For more on whether the built-in tool is enough, see our review of Shopify's built-in email tool.

If you move, what comes with you

Leaving Klaviyo. Export everyone by building a segment that includes all your profiles, then exporting it to a CSV file. The export can include email and text consent status and the times consent was given. Klaviyo treats four steps separately: downgrading to the free plan, cancelling one plan such as texts, cancelling your account, and closing your account. Closing your account deletes your data, so export first.

Moving into Shopify. Shopify lets you import customers from a CSV file with an "Accepts Email Marketing" column (yes or no) and an "Accepts SMS Marketing" column. Only email the people who opted in.

Moving into Klaviyo. Klaviyo's Shopify integration can sync your Shopify email subscribers, including past ones. Its manual import also accepts consent columns for email and texts.

Whichever way you move, add up the cost of a normal month and a busy month, list the automatic emails you rely on, and keep the old tool running until the new ones are live.

What store owners say

The Shopify App Store ratings below are a popularity signal only. They are not proof that either tool fits your store. Both figures share one date.

As of October 13, 2026, the Shopify App Store showed Shopify Messaging rated 4.8 from more than 4,500 reviews, and Klaviyo rated 4.7 from more than 3,300 reviews.

How we put this page together

We have not used either tool for this page, and we have not run a hands-on test. Everything here comes from each company's public pages, help docs, pricing calculators and Shopify App Store listings, all checked on October 13, 2026. The Shopify cost examples and text examples are our own arithmetic from published rates. Where official pages disagreed, we used the careful wording, and anything we could not confirm was left out. How MerchantInbox reviews tools is described on how we review.

Where this leaves you

Shopify Messaging is enough for many stores, as long as its ready-made emails and free allowance cover what you send. Klaviyo may suit an owner who will build and use their own flows and segments every week. Whichever way you lean, check your own numbers on both.

Last verified and sources

All sources were checked on October 13, 2026 (Jamaica time).

Sources are named as plain text, with no links.

• Shopify Help Center: Shopify Messaging email pricing, checked October 13, 2026.
• Shopify Help Center: Requirements for using Shopify Messaging, checked October 13, 2026.
• Shopify Help Center: Shopify Messaging SMS pricing, checked October 13, 2026.
• Shopify Help Center: SMS requirements and SMS setup, checked October 13, 2026.
• Shopify Help Center: Create marketing automations in Shopify Messaging, and marketing automation reporting, checked October 13, 2026.
• Shopify Help Center: Create email marketing campaigns using Shopify Messaging, and customer segmentation, checked October 13, 2026.
• Shopify Help Center: Shopify Messaging email analytics, email deliverability and Shopify Messaging delivery, checked October 13, 2026.
• Shopify Help Center: Shopify Forms app and Create forms, checked October 13, 2026.
• Shopify Help Center: Importing and exporting customer lists, and email subscriber list management, checked October 13, 2026.
• Shopify App Store: Shopify Messaging listing, Shopify Forms listing and Klaviyo listing, checked October 13, 2026.

Klaviyo sources:

• Klaviyo pricing page, including the Build a plan calculator.
• Klaviyo Help Center on active profiles and billable profiles (two articles).
• Klaviyo Help Center: How Klaviyo billing works, and Understand Klaviyo's mobile messaging system.
• Klaviyo Help Center on abandoned cart flows and the welcome series.
• Klaviyo Help Center on segments: creating segments and segment conditions.
• Klaviyo Help Center on signup forms.
• Klaviyo Help Center on branded sending domains and list cleaning.
• Klaviyo Help Center on exporting and leaving: export, downgrade and cancel, and closing an account.
• Klaviyo Help Center on moving in: Shopify integration, subscriber sync, and importing contacts.