Klaviyo or Shopify Email: which to choose for your store (and when to switch)

Nico Bértolo · 2026-08-07

In short

• Shopify Email is simple and enough to start with basic campaigns.
• Klaviyo wins when you want advanced automated flows and fine segmentation.
• The question isn’t which is better, but how much of your sales you want email to drive.

Both tools send emails, but they don’t play in the same league. Choosing well depends on where your store is and how much you want to get out of the channel.

How they differ

• Shopify Email: Built into Shopify, easy to use and designed for basic campaigns and automations.
• Klaviyo: Advanced flows, behaviour-based segmentation and personalisation using purchase data.
• Cost: Shopify Email is cheaper to start with; Klaviyo’s pricing scales with the number of contacts.

When it pays to move to Klaviyo

• You want multi-step flows: welcome, cart, post-purchase, replenishment and win-back.
• You need to segment by what each customer has bought or viewed.
• Email is already an important revenue channel, or you want it to be.
• You sell replenishable products and want to remind customers at the right moment.

If your list is small and you only send the odd newsletter, Shopify Email is enough. Moving to Klaviyo makes sense when you’ll treat email as a sales channel, not a noticeboard.

At 5AM Labs, Klaviyo replenishment flows increased email revenue by 64%.

A real 224 case

Frequently asked questions

Can you migrate from Shopify Email to Klaviyo?

Yes. Contacts and order history sync with Klaviyo when you connect it to Shopify.

Does Klaviyo have a free plan?

It has a limited free plan to start. Check its current pricing, as it depends on the number of contacts.

Can you use both at once?

You can, but it rarely pays off: it duplicates tools and makes it harder to measure what works.