Klaviyo vs Mailchimp for Shopify.

The short version

If your Shopify store makes most of its money from repeat customers, or intends to, Klaviyo. If email is a newsletter you send when you remember and the store is early, Mailchimp is cheaper and simpler and you can move later. The switch point is usually somewhere between $30,000 and $60,000 a month in revenue, or the moment you want a second automated flow beyond the abandoned cart.

Data model: the real difference

Klaviyo was built on the Shopify data model. Every order, product viewed, cart started and refund lands as an event against the customer profile, in near real time, with the product details attached. Segments can be built on any combination of those events: bought category X, has not bought in 90 days, average order over $150, viewed a product twice without buying.

Mailchimp's Shopify integration has improved since it returned in 2022, and it now syncs orders and products. But the depth is shallower, event history is thinner, and the segmentation logic was built for lists, not for behavioural profiles. For a store that segments by what people bought, that gap is the whole decision.

Flows and automation

Both do abandoned cart, welcome and post-purchase. Klaviyo's flow builder supports branching on any profile property or event, conditional splits, A/B tests inside flows, and pre-built flows for browse abandonment, back in stock, replenishment and winback that work from Shopify data without custom code. Mailchimp's customer journeys cover the basics and are fine for a welcome series and a cart reminder; they get awkward as soon as the logic branches.

SMS

Klaviyo runs SMS in the same profile, same flows and same consent record as email, with Australian numbers and compliance handled. Mailchimp added SMS but it is a separate product with separate pricing and it is less mature in Australia. If SMS is in your plan, this is decisive.

Pricing logic

Both charge by contact count, and both get expensive as the list grows. We deliberately do not quote prices here because both change them often; check the current tiers on each site. What matters is the shape: Klaviyo costs more per contact and the price only makes sense if the flows are producing revenue, which for a store with repeat purchase they do. Mailchimp is cheaper at every tier and is the right answer if email is not yet a revenue channel.

Deliverability and reporting

Roughly equal on deliverability if you set both up correctly: authenticated sending domain, warmed volume, list hygiene. Klaviyo's reporting is revenue-native, showing attributed revenue per flow and per campaign against Shopify orders; Mailchimp's revenue reporting exists but is less trusted by the finance people we work with.

When Mailchimp is the right choice

• The store is under roughly $30,000 a month and email is a newsletter, not a revenue channel yet.
• You have no one to build flows and no budget for an agency to do it.
• Your business also runs a non-ecommerce list, such as events or a membership, and you want one tool for both.

When to switch, and how

The trigger is usually wanting the second flow: a browse abandonment, a replenishment reminder, a winback. At that point you are fighting Mailchimp's model. The migration is a two to three week job: export and clean the list, rebuild the flows in Klaviyo with Shopify data, warm the new sending domain, run both for a fortnight, then cut over. Done well, the abandoned cart flow alone usually pays for the first year.

Our Klaviyo agency page covers how we run programmes, and the Klaviyo audit is the place to start if you already have an account and suspect it is under-built.