Mailchimp vs Klaviyo: Level at 5,000 Contacts, Apart Above

The short answer: for an online store with up to 5,000 people on its list, Mailchimp Standard and Klaviyo's Email plan cost the same, $100 a month at 5,000, so choose on data and tools, not price (Mailchimp pricing, Klaviyo pricing, checked on 26 October 2026). Above that, Mailchimp is cheaper on paper, $310 against $400 a month at 25,000, unless a large part of your list has unsubscribed: Klaviyo bills only the profiles you can reach, while Mailchimp's count includes unsubscribes until they are archived.

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Klaviyo is a B2C CRM built on store data, with email, text messages, WhatsApp, reviews and an AI marketing agent called Composer sold as modules on one profile count. Mailchimp is Intuit's email and SMS platform for small businesses, with free store connections and three tiers that add seats, flows and AI as you climb. Both want your Shopify data. What you are choosing is how much of the marketing should sit on top of that store data.

Before you move the store's email:

1. Count who each would bill. For example, a list of 12,000 contacts with 3,000 unsubscribes sits in Mailchimp's 10,001 to 15,000 band, $230 a month on Standard, and counts as 9,000 active profiles on Klaviyo, the $150 tier for 10,000 (Mailchimp pricing, Klaviyo pricing, how Klaviyo pricing works). Archive those 3,000 in Mailchimp first and the comparison changes again.
2. Check your store platform. On BigCommerce, Mailchimp's integration leaves out abandoned cart and product retargeting emails, per its own guide (store guide); Klaviyo lists BigCommerce among its main integrations next to Shopify, WooCommerce and Adobe Commerce (Klaviyo).
3. Start both free plans on the same footing. Each allows 250 contacts or active profiles and 500 emails a month (Mailchimp plans article, Klaviyo pricing).
4. Decide how you will check the revenue each reports. Both dashboards attribute orders to their own emails. For example, hold back one in ten new subscribers from the welcome flow for a month and compare their order rate with everyone else's in your store data.

Where the two documents point

Sources: Klaviyo pricing, how Klaviyo pricing works, Klaviyo MCP docs, Mailchimp pricing, Mailchimp plans article, Intuit AI article.

What decides it

Reachable people, or every stored record

Klaviyo's billing explainer says it prices on profiles you can reach by email, text or other channels, and that a list cleanup can drop you into a lower tier, automatically if you turn on auto downgrade (how Klaviyo pricing works). Mailchimp's contact total includes unsubscribed and non-subscribed contacts, and only archived, cleaned or deleted ones leave it (plans article). The same store list can sit two tiers apart.

What happens above 5,000

The two price ladders run together to 5,000 and then split. At 10,000 Klaviyo charges $150 and Mailchimp Standard $135; at 25,000, $400 against $310; at 100,000, $1,380 against $800, all monthly (Klaviyo pricing, Mailchimp pricing). A growing store that keeps its list clean pays noticeably more on Klaviyo at scale.

The agent, and where it can work

Klaviyo includes $5 of Composer use a month on its free plan and sells Composer as a $20 monthly add-on, describing it as able to create campaigns and flows, analyse performance and answer questions from your data (Klaviyo pricing). Mailchimp's flow-email generator is limited to Standard and above, with a store connected, for accounts registered at a United States address (Intuit AI article). For a store registered in the EU, Mailchimp's generator is not an option; check Composer's terms for your country before you count on it.

Monthly prices, list by list

Checked on 26 October 2026: Klaviyo's Email plan by active profiles on its pricing page, and Mailchimp's monthly prices after the trial on its pricing page, in USD.

Klaviyo showed $19 off the first month at 500 profiles as a limited-time offer; text messages are billed per send on top of the plan.

The free test, and the pages to read with care

Both free plans hold 250 people and 500 emails a month, which is enough to connect your store, rebuild the abandoned cart flow and watch it trigger on a test order. Do it in both before any migration, using a copy of your product catalogue rather than the live list.

Mailchimp's homepage says you can save up to 42% by switching from Klaviyo (Mailchimp), and Klaviyo's site footer links to its own Klaviyo versus Mailchimp page (Klaviyo). Each vendor's comparison grades its own homework. Price your own list on both pricing pages instead.

An agent drafts the sale campaign, a person launches it

Klaviyo's MCP server connects Claude, Cursor or another MCP client to your account, remote-hosted or local, with each tool marked read-only or not; its docs give a request to create an email campaign for a Memorial Day sale as an example (Klaviyo MCP docs). One step of a sale: the agent reads the last 30 days of campaign performance, picks the segment that bought in the last sale and creates the campaign for it. My recommendation: connect the agent with the narrowest permissions you can, and keep scheduling with a person who checks the discount code, the segment size and the send time first.

Choose Mailchimp if

• Your list is above 5,000, kept clean, and the monthly bill is the deciding line.
• More than one person needs to send, and Standard's 5 seats cover the team.
• You want the cheapest paid start: Essentials at $13 for 500 contacts.

Choose Klaviyo if

• Your list carries many unsubscribes, or you want the bill to follow cleanups down.
• Your store runs on BigCommerce, or you want reviews and WhatsApp on the same profiles.
• You want an AI agent, Composer or the MCP server, working directly in the account.

If the doubt is whether email is the problem at all, or whether it is the data feeding it, that is a stack question rather than a tool question; the Startup Fixer, my one-week review of a marketing stack, is built for that question, and I sell it; it is cheaper than a migration that solves the wrong thing.

FAQ

Do unsubscribed contacts count on Klaviyo?

No. Its billing explainer says unsubscribed and suppressed contacts do not count toward the active profiles you pay for.

Do the free plans differ?

Yes: 250 contacts or active profiles and 500 emails a month on both, per the Mailchimp plans article and the Klaviyo pricing page. Klaviyo adds $5 of text messages and $5 of Composer use, and email support for the first 60 days.

Which is cheaper at 25,000 contacts?

Mailchimp, if those contacts are all reachable: Standard costs $310 a month against $400 for Klaviyo's Email plan, on the two pricing pages.