When it comes to email marketing and automation software, Klaviyo and Listrak are two of the most popular choices on the market.
Selecting the right platform is critical for e-commerce businesses looking to maximize sales, optimize workflows, and provide the best customer experiences. However, with so many features and options to weigh, determining the best solution can be a complex decision.
In this comprehensive Klaviyo vs Listrak comparison guide, we evaluate the two platforms to provide the customer insights you require to confidently move forward with the email marketing platform that aligns with your business goals now and in the future.
1. Understanding the Basics
Founded in 2012 by Andrew Bialecki and Ed Hallen, Klaviyo is a rapidly growing email marketing and automation platform. With over $615 million in total funding, Klaviyo powers over 100,000 online brands including custom t-shirt site Represent, tea startup Art of Tea, and popular sock merchant Stance.
The company has established itself as an email and SMS marketing leader, evidenced by its active Facebook community of over 20,000 members.
Listrak was founded in 2006 by company CEO Russ Somers. As an email marketing pioneer in the retail industry for over 15 years, Listrak currently drives results for customers like Cole Haan, Vince Camuto, Lacoste, and Timex. Though smaller than Klaviyo with around $52 million in funding, Listrak possesses valuable retail expertise. Those interested can join the Listrak Facebook group of 500+ subscribers.
With strong funding and robust customer bases, both Klaviyo and Listrak have solidified themselves as major email marketing automation players. However, Klaviyo’s meteoric growth shows no signs of slowing down.
2. Features and Functionality
Automation
Klaviyo
Klaviyo lets you create customizable multi-step workflows to automate your email and SMS marketing. Drag-and-drop flow builders make it easy to set up “if this, then that” triggers based on user behavior like abandoning the cart, making a purchase, browsing products, and more. For example, you can send cart abandonment emails, personalized product recommendations, welcome series for new contacts, and automatic post-purchase follow-ups.
Advanced segmentation options give deep flexibility. You can target groups by location, purchase history, page views, custom properties, metrics, and much more. Dynamic content customization allows you to insert subscriber names, past purchases, recent cart items, and other data into your automation for a fully personalized experience.
With Klaviyo, contacts flow seamlessly between automation flows. You avoid frustrating duplication issues common with more basic platforms. As an added benefit for developers, Klaviyo offers a REST API and webhooks to connect your workflows with external programs.
Overall, Klaviyo shines with sophisticated automation that adapts as customers take different actions over time.
Listrak
Listrak automation focuses mainly on the primary retail use case – sending abandoned carts, browsing abandon, replenishment, and win-back emails. For these core functions, Listrak delivers well-timed, adaptive flows to nudge customers and improve campaign performance.
The visual Campaign Builder interface allows you to define triggers, apply filters, set delays, limit contacts, select products, customize the content, and insert merge tags without coding. For example, send cart abandonment emails only to contacts who left over $50 of products in their cart. Or set up a 30-day cycle for win-back automation to re-engage.
While Listrak automation covers retail essentials capably, options remain relatively basic compared to Klaviyo. More advanced multistep workflows, segmentation flexibility, and dynamic content personalization are lacking. Still, for primarily store-based marketing, Listrak automates the sequences you need.
Winner: Klaviyo
With its sophisticated triggers, customization, and real-time adaptation to customer behavior, Klaviyo is the best marketing automation solution. The platform makes it easy to create personalized, effective workflows no matter your industry or use case.
Email Templates
Klaviyo
Klaviyo offers hundreds of professionally designed, mobile-responsive email templates to choose from. Browse by category like “Abandoned Cart” and “Welcome Series”, or search for layouts tailored to your industry. Templates are formatted for both Klaviyo and standard ESPs like MailChimp.
Flexible customization options let you tweak templates to match your brand. Change colors, fonts, content layouts, add images, videos, buttons, and more using the user-friendly template editor. Dynamic content tags let you easily personalize with subscriber details.
Creating new custom templates from scratch is simple as well, allowing total creative control. Just select blank templates for standard ESPs or Klaviyo, then design using drag-and-drop modules for images, text, divider buttons, and more.
For further personalization, Klaviyo offers A/B testing to find your best-performing templates. You can test subject lines, content variations, designs, send times, and other factors.
Listrak
Listrak provides a gallery of over 100 responsive pre-made email templates for common retail scenarios. Filter by category like “Abandoned Cart” or “Post Purchase Follow-Up” to find relevant options. While decent, template selection is smaller compared to Klaviyo.
Customizing templates to match branding is easy with point-and-click editors for color, font, content, and more. Add images, videos, coupons, and product recommendations with merge tags and placeholders. Creating new custom templates is also uncomplicated for basic needs.
However, Listrak lags behind Klaviyo in creative capabilities. Animation, interactive elements, and advanced dynamic content based on customer data are lacking without designer help. A/B testing features are also absent.
Winner: Klaviyo
With abundant templates for every use case, deep customization tools, and built-in A/B testing, Klaviyo offers superior options for impactful, personalized email design. The platform makes it simple for anyone to create on-brand, beautiful emails that drive results.
Segmentation
Klaviyo
Klaviyo enables advanced behavioral segmentation to target customers with precisely timed, tailored messaging. Dynamic groups automatically update based on real-time metrics like email engagement, products viewed, cart activity, order history, website interactions, custom events, and much more. You can also create custom properties to track subscriber attributes and then segment accordingly.
For example, send abandoned cart recovery emails only to people who left specific items over $50 in their cart within the last 2 days. Or target high lifetime value customers who have made 2+ purchases to offer VIP promotions. Klaviyo makes this type of granular personalization easy.
Boolean logic allows combining multiple filters to narrow segments by location, device, order total, purchase frequency, products in the cart, custom metrics like size or color preferences, and virtually any data imaginable. Saved segments dynamically update as customers take new actions over time.
In addition to automatic groups, one-time static segments are also available based on import lists, forms, past email metrics, and other historical data. Robust segmentation is a major Klaviyo strength.
Listrak
Listrak caps basic behavioral segmentation focused mainly on retail metrics like cart abandonment, product views, order history, purchase frequency, and customer lifetime value tier. For example, target high lifetime value customers who viewed but didn’t purchase a certain product category in the past 30 days.
You can also build segments based on location, order metrics like average order value, and import list attributes. However, more advanced real-time segmentation by page views, on-site behaviors, granular recent cart activity, custom contact properties, boolean logic combinations, and predictive modeling is lacking compared to Klaviyo.
Still, for store-based email strategies, Listrak provides the essential segmentation tools needed for common retail scenarios like win-back email marketing campaigns, replenishment emails, and promotions based on past purchase data. But those requiring sophisticated, multidimensional segmentation should look to Klaviyo.
Winner: Klaviyo
With its unrivaled behavioral segmentation flexibility, custom contact profiling, and real-time dynamic group updates, Klaviyo earns the win for the best segmentation tools. The platform makes dividing contacts into ultra-targeted micro-segments easy for personalized marketing campaigns and cross-channel marketing.
Analytics
Klaviyo
Klaviyo stands out for its powerful yet intuitive analytics dashboards and custom reporting tools. Drag-and-drop Report Builder lets you easily visualize campaign metrics like emails sent, open rates, clickthrough rates, revenue driven, and more filtered across date ranges, campaigns, customer segments, and other factors. E-commerce reports detail performance by product, category, SKUs, and attributes.
The flexible Metrics tool captures important business metrics from on-site behaviors like sign-ups, checkouts, custom goal completions, landing page views, and more. This data flows into custom reports for a holistic view tying online and email initiatives to real revenue and ROI.
Klaviyo also provides insight into customer-level intent signals based on their site activity. Segment by indicators like will abandon cart will purchase this month, recently purchased, and more to target high-intent audiences likely to convert.
For technical users, a public API allows the exporting of Klaviyo data to external databases and business intelligence tools like Looker or Tableau for further analysis. Custom analytics integrations are also possible via webhooks.
Listrak
Listrak offers standard email reporting detailing opens, clicks, unsubscribe rates, conversions, revenue, and related KPIs. Filter reports by date, campaign, products, order metrics, and customer attributes to analyze performance. The Visual Campaign Builder provides an overview of automation metrics as well such as email send volume, and open and click rates.
For technical users, Listrak integrates with Google Analytics for expanded insights by tagging links to track on-site behaviors. However, out-of-the-box integration with broader business intelligence tools, in-depth product and order analysis, custom goal and metric tracking, advanced revenue and ROI modeling, and customer predictive intent signals falls short compared to Klaviyo.
Still, for straightforward email and basic automation reporting, Listrak provides the key metrics most retail marketers need. Those requiring more sophisticated analytics and custom reporting should explore other platforms though.
Winner: Klaviyo
With its powerful visual reporting tools, e-commerce analytics, custom data integrations, customer predictive modeling, and intuitive metric dashboards, Klaviyo earns the win for best analytics. The platform makes understanding the true impact of every campaign on revenue and customer engagement easy.
Unique Features
Klaviyo
Klaviyo goes beyond powerful email marketing to provide integrated SMS messaging, website personalization, referral marketing programs, hosted landing pages, and other differentiating capabilities not offered by many platforms.
A robust SMS toolkit lets you seamlessly collect customer phone numbers and send timely text messages like appointment reminders, cart recovery prompts, exclusive SMS promos, and more. Two-way conversational flows make it easy to build interactive SMS campaigns that re-engage customers. No need to integrate an external vendor.
Advanced website personalization allows displaying tailored messaging to site visitors based on their actions and predictive models. For example, you can show targeted popup forms, exit intent offers, site alerts, and other dynamic content to capture more leads or drive higher on-site conversions.
Klaviyo also empowers brands to motivate customer referrals rather than relying on paid advertising alone. Referral marketing programs are simple to create with shareable landing pages, promotional materials, and built-in tracking of referral performance and rewards fulfillment. This lucrative acquisition channel integrates seamlessly with your centralized email and SMS initiatives.
Furthermore, an intuitive drag-and-drop Form and landing Page Builder make it fast and easy to deploy customized lead capture, contest entry, and other hosted forms across your digital presence.
Listrak
While focused on core email marketing functionality, Listrak provides a few proprietary capabilities tailored to the needs of retail merchants including on-site personalization tools, subscription order management, and international compliance support.
Listrak’s merchandising personalization lets brands showcase dynamic product recommendations, highlight top-viewed items, display special promotions, showcase customer ratings and reviews, and more across their ecommerce platform. This aims to boost on-site conversions.
For retention-focused retailers offering continuity programs, built-in subscription management tools support automated recurring billing, real-time shipment notifications, subscriber self-service portals, and more to reduce churn.
Listrak also maintains localized servers and privacy compliance across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. This allows international merchants to adhere to regional data consent regulations.
Winner: Klaviyo
With its integrated SMS marketing, website personalization, referral programs, and hosted form builder, Klaviyo edges out Listrak as the winner for the best collection of unique features beyond email. No need for complex integrations – robust cross-channel marketing capabilities live in one place.
3. Ease of Use
Klaviyo
Klaviyo is widely praised for its intuitive, easy-to-navigate interface. Clean, modern design provides clarity across key workflows like email campaign building, automation creation, and data analytics. Though feature-packed, smart menus and layouts prevent information overload.
The platform is beginner-friendly as well. In-app tips, contextual help bubbles, and step-by-step walkthroughs guide new users. Drag-and-drop builders allow the visual construction of emails, landing pages, flows, and metrics reports without technical skills. And Klaviyo Academy offers free courses for continued learning.
While offering advanced functionality for sophisticated users, Klaviyo maintains a shallow learning curve for launching targeted campaigns swiftly. Flexible export and integration options also help connect Klaviyo to other business systems down the road.
Listrak
Listrak provides a straightforward user interface focused primarily on core email campaign creation and retail-centric automation workflows. For these core functions, the platform is reasonably intuitive with in-line coaching and tips available.
However, those requiring more advanced capabilities around segmentation, custom reporting, or cross-channel features may find the platform less user-friendly. Listrak lags behind Klaviyo significantly in the breadth of educational resources as well.
Because Listrak concentrates mainly on serving email marketing needs for retail merchants, the interface offers a bit less complexity for the target audience. However, fewer guidance resources and advanced tools lead to a steeper learning curve for tackling sophisticated workflows compared to Klaviyo.
Winner: Klaviyo
With its clean and intuitive interface, excellent educational content, and flexibility to start simple while still supporting advanced tactics down the road, Klaviyo wins for the overall easiest marketing automation platform to use for any skill level.
4. Email Deliverability
Klaviyo
As an ESP founded in the modern email era with deliverability built into its DNA, Klaviyo shines when it comes to email inbox placement and performance. The platform provides dedicated IP addresses to every customer for a reliable sender reputation vital to keeping emails out of spam folders.
Robust functionality automatically warms up new IP addresses by gradually increasing sending volume. In addition, superior analytics detail crucial mailbox provider metrics like Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and more across opens, clicks, and spam complaints – not just rollout averages. This allows for optimizing deliverability by inbox provider.
Furthermore, Klaviyo’s real-time monitoring proactively surfaces potential sending issues like unusual spikes in bounces or spam complaints before major problems occur. Helpful tools provide customized feedback for improving deliverability based on your account’s metrics and trends.
For users, in-depth sending guides, playbooks, and quality coaching help inform effective sender best practices as well. Overall, Klaviyo rates among the industry’s top platforms for inbox placement and email deliverability.
Listrak
As a long-time email platform, Listrak offers reliable deliverability rooted in years of sending high volumes to established retail clients. Each account receives dedicated IP addresses with inbox placement benchmarks comparing favorably to industry averages.
For advanced users, Listrak provides IP warm-up capabilities, basic mailbox provider analytics, and some account-specific deliverability feedback based on volumes and metrics. Users also gain access to a selection of email deliverability guides and best practices.
However, Klaviyo still leads in some aspects of email deliverability tracking given its modern infrastructure built to address evolving inbox placement challenges. Listrak edges past basic industry averages but lacks next-level optimization for challenging inbox providers.
Winner: Klaviyo
With real-time monitoring, advanced mailbox analytics, granular sending tools, and superior coaching, Klaviyo wins for superior email deliverability and inbox placement capabilities tailored to contemporary email landscapes.
5. Customer Support and Community
Klaviyo
Klaviyo offers email-based customer support as well as phone and chat options for timely assistance. Support channels are available 24/7 to help new users get started and troubleshoot issues. The company also provides a searchable knowledge base with setup guides, FAQs, and platform documentation.
For those seeking insights from peers, Klaviyo hosts a thriving online community forum and active Facebook group with over 20,000 members.
Listrak
Listrak provides email and phone/chat support during normal business hours to assist customers. Self-help resources include documentation, email deliverability guides, and some onboarding materials for core platform education. Listrak also maintains a user community group on Facebook, but with only 500+ members it lags behind Klaviyo’s much larger and more vibrant user community ecosystem.
Winner: Klaviyo
With 24/7 support availability and a significantly larger peer user community of over 20,000 members, Klaviyo edges out Listrak to offer superior educational resources and connections for customers beyond one-to-one assistance.
6. Integrations
Klaviyo
Klaviyo connects seamlessly with all major e-commerce platforms including Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and more via plug-and-play apps. The platform also integrates smoothly with key tech stacks supporting startups and enterprises like Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, and Segment.
For analytics, Klaviyo partners with Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Adobe Analytics, and Heap allowing users to import crucial data for their ecommerce businesses. Zapier and PieSync enable connecting 300+ other business apps through Klaviyo as well.
Specific use case integrations are robust too. For example, Klaviyo flows customer interactions with live chat software like Drift or Intercom directly into your centralized data for unified messaging. POP and IMAP integrations also automatically capture subscriber activities from external email providers as well.
Finally, Klaviyo offers an open API and webhooks to build custom connections from IT systems, databases, and internal tools on an as-needed basis.
Listrak
As a platform focused heavily on established retail and commerce brands, Listrak specializes in deep integrations with major e-commerce platforms like Magento, Shopify, and BigCommerce. CRM tools like Salesforce are also supported.
For multichannel messaging capabilities, Listrak partners with key SMS providers including Twilio, MessageMedia, and SignalWire. Best-of-breed personalization engines like Reflektion can also link up. Finally, basic analytics integrations with platforms like Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics are available as well.
However, Klaviyo remains ahead for no-code integrations with other martech tools, niche use case systems focused on chat or email syncing, as well as flexibility enabling IT teams to build custom connections on their own.
Winner: Klaviyo
With turnkey apps bridging all major e-commerce, SMB tech stack, and analytics vendors – plus additional niche tool partnerships and developer-focused API access – Klaviyo wins for the breadth of integrations. The platform interconnects critical systems for unified data-driven marketing.
7. Pricing
Klaviyo
Klaviyo offers a free forever plan covering up to 500 contacts – a rarity for advanced email platforms today. Paid plans scale from $49/month up to $999/month supporting sending volumes from 25,000 to 5 million emails monthly. Overage charges apply beyond allotments.
The company takes a transparent approach with no long-term contracts, hidden fees, or add-ons required. All features are included like email and SMS marketing, automation workflows, website personalization tools, and analytics dashboards. dedicated IP addresses, and more based on selected volume tiers.
Klaviyo also provides discounted annual billing for cost savings as high as two months free. For fast-growing brands sending less than 250,000 emails monthly, few platforms can compete with the value. Enterprise sub-accounts allow managing segmented email programs under one umbrella as well.
Listrak
Listrak begins with a starter plan at $750/month for up to 150,000 emails monthly and 3 sub-accounts. Unlike Klaviyo there is no free tier – reflecting Listrak’s retail focus (less small ecommerce sites). Plans then scale up to $5000+/month as volumes increase.
The company offers month-to-month and annual billing terms to provide some cost savings, with dedicated IPs, sub-accounts, transactional capabilities, and other common features charged additionally a la carte. However, discounts for annual commitments are less generous compared to Klaviyo.
For major enterprise retailers sending multi-million email volumes each month, Listrak provides competitive pricing bundling high-level support services as well. But for everyone else, Klaviyo likely offers better overall value.
Winner: Klaviyo
With its free 500 contact plan and lower-cost transparent pricing through 250K emails per month, Klaviyo beats Listrak for best affordability – especially among small e-commerce sites. Unlimited features provide superior value as volumes grow too.
8. Reviews and Reputation
Klaviyo
Klaviyo earns outstanding reviews across leading software review platforms like G2 and Capterra. On G2, they rate 4.5/5 stars overall based on 930+ verified user reviews. The platform is widely praised for having excellent email deliverability and inbox placement, sophisticated automation features that adapt to customer behaviors, powerful analytics and reporting, and an exceptionally easy-to-use interface.
Common downsides mentioned focus on some limitations handling enormously high email volumes above 10 million sends per month at enterprise scale – but most reviews suggest Klaviyo provides unmatched value for growing small and mid-sized businesses before more advanced needs emerge.
Over on Capterra, Klaviyo rates 4.5/5 among 500+ independent ratings as well. Similar positive feedback can be seen in offering a robust email marketing and analytics solution that smaller businesses can leverage before requiring proprietary enterprise systems.
Most Capterra reviews advise that Klaviyo is easy to recommend for new-to-intermediate email marketers up until companies approach sending tens of millions of emails monthly at a substantial scale.
Listrak
With a more retail-focused mid-market customer base, Listrak earns excellent reviews on G2 with 4.4./5 overall stars across 70+ verified ratings. Users widely praise the platform’s retail-focused email deliverability, automation features, and seamless e-commerce integrations purpose-built for catalog marketers.
However, some limitations appear around advanced analytics functionality as well as restrictions for technical users who may want deeper database customizations or API flexibility beyond what Listrak offers out-of-the-box.
Capterra reviewers rate Listrak 4/5 stars over 175+ ratings, with similar feedback on the platform’s positives around core email marketing abilities for retail scenarios balanced against a less beginner-friendly interface and platform lacking broader integrated marketing features substantially beyond email.
Most Capterra reviews advise Listrak aligns well for mid-large size retail email programs but has some limitations scaling up or downmarket outside that niche.
Winner: Klaviyo
With outstanding ratings across nearly 2,000 independent user reviews, Klaviyo pulls ahead of Listrak for the best overall reputation based on exceptional platform satisfaction across segments.
9. FAQ’s
Klaviyo FAQs
- What kinds of businesses use Klaviyo?
Klaviyo works great for all types of e-commerce brands, subscription services, content publishers, and other online businesses looking to drive growth through email, SMS, and automation. - How much does Klaviyo cost?
Klaviyo offers a free plan for up to 500 contacts. Paid plans start at $49/month for 25,000 emails up to $999/month for 5 million emails per month. Volume discounts are available. - Is Klaviyo easy to use?
Yes, Klaviyo is widely praised for its intuitive drag-and-drop editor interfaces, customizable templates, and comprehensive educational resources that allow both beginners and experts to create targeted, high-converting email campaigns with ease. - What integrations and apps does Klaviyo offer?
Klaviyo seamlessly connects with all major e-commerce platforms, CRMs, analytics tools, and 100+ other apps via its integration marketplace. Zapier extends options further. - How is Klaviyo’s deliverability and inbox placement?
As an ESP built for modern email deliverability challenges, Klaviyo offers industry-leading inbox placement and sender reputation with granular analytics to optimize for major mailbox providers.
Listrak FAQs
- What types of businesses use Listrak?
Listrak focuses almost exclusively on mid-market to enterprise retailers and catalog marketers looking to scale email marketing and automation. - How much does Listrak cost?
Listrak starts at $750/month for up to 150,000 emails. Enterprise pricing is negotiable for higher volumes. Additional fees may apply for extras like SMS, IPs, and contacts. - Is Listrak easy to use?
Listrak caters well to retail email marketers but offers fewer educational resources than competitors. The platform suits mid-market+ brands rather than entrepreneurs and absolute beginners. - What integrations does Listrak offer?
As a retail-centric platform, Listrak specializes in deep integrations for major e-commerce platforms, CRMs, SMS vendors, and analytics tools, but has fewer marketing app partnerships beyond its core competency. - How reliable is Listrak’s deliverability?
With over 15 years of specialized retail email delivery at scale, Listrak inbox placement remains above industry averages but trails leaders in granular analytics and optimization.
Final Thoughts
Choose Klaviyo If…
Klaviyo is an excellent choice for new e-commerce brands, online businesses, content publishers, and services looking to set up advanced email marketing, SMS messaging, and integrated automation powered by customer data insights.
Growth-focused organizations that sell across multiple online channels will appreciate platform scalability from 500 contacts up to tens of millions in revenue. Klaviyo also suits technology-savvy teams keen to interconnect data and workflows across critical business systems using the company’s open API.
If you’d like to look at some other options other than Klaviyo and Listrak, take a look at my Klaviyo alternatives article for more info.
Choose Listrak If…
Listrak offers a highly tailored solution for established retail and multi-channel catalog brands focused specifically on scaling email marketing and automation. The platform caters especially well to conventional marketers at midsized to large organizations sending upwards of 150,000 emails daily leveraging the provider’s retail domain expertise.
Listrak suits merchants selling mainly through online stores and requiring tight e-commerce platform integration.
Ultimately choosing the right email and marketing automation platform for your marketing efforts depends entirely on your business goals, volumes, resources, data infrastructure, and level of technical expertise. We urge readers to thoroughly assess their needs against solution capabilities before investing. Please ask any questions in the comments section below or reach out for 1-on-1 platform guidance.