When it comes to email marketing software, Klaviyo, and MailerLite are two of the most popular choices on the market. As an online business owner, choosing the right email marketing platform is critical for connecting with customers, driving sales, and growing your company.
In this comprehensive Klaviyo vs MailerLite comparison, we will evaluate the two email marketing platforms across several important criteria to help you determine which solution may be best suited for your business needs and budget.
Specifically, we will compare market position, ease of use, features and functionality, performance, customer support, pricing, and reviews and reputation. By the end of this side-by-side comparison, you should have a clearer picture of the pros and cons of Klaviyo and MailerLite to inform your email marketing software decision.
1. Understanding the Basics
Klaviyo was founded in 2012 by Andrew Bialecki and Ed Hallen. It quickly became one of the most popular email marketing platforms on the market. Klaviyo now powers over 100,000 online businesses with its innovative approach to data-driven email and SMS marketing.
MailerLite launched in 2010 by Gediminas Andrijaitis. While younger than some platforms, MailerLite has rapidly grown in popularity due to its ease of use. It now serves over 80,000 users worldwide.
Both Klaviyo and MailerLite have leading positions in the email marketing software space. They offer both free and paid plans to accommodate businesses at every stage.
Klaviyo and MailerLite also both have engaged online communities where users can access inspiration and best practices. See the Klaviyo Community Facebook group and MailerLite Users Facebook group to connect with over 50,000 fellow users.
2. Features and Functionality
Automation
Klaviyo
Klaviyo offers powerful automation features to help businesses customize communications for each subscriber. You can create multi-step workflows with conditional logic to automate welcome sequences, abandoned cart recovery, completed order follow-ups, and more.
With Klaviyo, users can build segments to target different groups of contacts for tailored email or SMS campaigns. Integrate your product catalog, track on-site behaviors, and connect cloud storage – all accessible in one unified platform to enhance workflows. You also get unlimited contacts and the ability to handle large amounts of data.
Overall, the flexibility of Klaviyo’s automation makes it easy to create personalized journeys adapted to each business’ needs. The visual editor simplifies building even complex conditional workflows without coding. Dynamic content options help customize messaging down to the subscriber level.
MailerLite
MailerLite offers email automation with drag-and-drop simplicity. It includes pre-designed templates to automate onboarding new subscribers, reengage inactive users, promote top content, and more.
While MailerLite has the basics covered for essential workflows, advanced users may find it lacking in complexity compared to Klaviyo. You don’t get quite as much flexibility to build custom multi-branch conditional logic or integrate on-site behaviors. But for simple user journeys, MailerLite automation delivers.
With both free and paid MailerLite plans, you can automate campaigns based on subscriber actions and activity. Options like group segmentation and tags allow a level of personalization. But dynamic content based on individual subscriber profiles isn’t possible.
Winner: Klaviyo
With its robust offering and deeper segmentation/personalization capabilities, Klaviyo takes the prize for the best email automation features. The ability of this email marketing automation platform to track website analytics and build multi-level conditional flows for custom journeys gives advanced users more to work with. Unless you just need basic email sequences, Klaviyo provides superior automation flexibility.
Email Templates
Klaviyo
Klaviyo offers hundreds of professionally designed email templates to choose from, spanning categories like welcome series, promotions, announcements, newsletters, and more. Users can fully customize templates with their copy, images, and branding.
Klaviyo’s template editor makes it simple to swap template sections, colors, and fonts as needed. You also get access to thousands of free stock photos to spice up your emails. Additionally, Klaviyo provides A/B testing capabilities on email campaigns, so you can try out different templates and content to optimize performance.
While Klaviyo templates look great on desktop and mobile right out of the gate, users have the flexibility to further optimize or create custom mobile-responsive designs. With customizable templates optimized for a range of uses, Klaviyo has all email creative needs covered.
MailerLite
MailerLite also provides professionally designed email templates for essential campaigns like welcome emails, newsletters, holiday promos, etc. Their template library is easy to browse and allows filtering by category or occasion.
Within MailerLite’s email builder, you can quickly customize any template by adding/removing sections, changing colors and fonts, and inserting your images. All MailerLite templates are mobile-friendly. However, compared to Klaviyo, there are fewer options for creating fully custom mobile designs.
On the positive side, MailerLite lets you create reusable blocks and save customized templates for future use. But overall template personalization and flexibility are more limited compared to Klaviyo.
Winner: Klaviyo
This MailerLite Klaviyo comparison shows that Klaviyo is the clear winner. With its abundance of customizable, mobile-optimized templates and built-in A/B testing, Klaviyo wins for best email template features. The template editor provides superior flexibility – from swapping layouts to granular styling preferences. Unless you just need basics, Klaviyo’s expansive template library and options set it apart.
Segmentation
Klaviyo
Klaviyo stands out for its powerful email analytics that connects online and offline data in one unified dashboard. Get a holistic view of email performance with real-time metrics on opens, clicks, conversions, revenue, and more.
Drill into multi-channel reports to understand subscriber engagement across email, web, SMS, social, and custom platforms. Access individual customer profiles to see lifetime value. Turn on A/B testing for email subject lines, content, templates, and sending times to continually optimize campaigns.
Klaviyo also makes the data actionable. Build automated workflows triggered by subscriber behaviors revealed in analytics. Dynamic segments incorporate metric-based criteria for targeted messaging. For comprehensive analytics accessible across touchpoints, Klaviyo is a leader.
MailerLite
MailerLite provides basic email analytics like open, clickthrough, and unsubscribe rates. Reporting offers top-line performance summaries and campaign-specific metrics compared to your account average.
View subscriber engagement graphs over the last 30 days. Access location-based reports. While these core analytics deliver helpful benchmarks, MailerLite notably lacks e-commerce data, cross-channel visibility, subscriber profiles, A/B testing capabilities, and integration with automation seen in Klaviyo.
For users just needing campaign response dashboards, MailerLite reports do the trick. But Klaviyo far surpasses analytics depth and customization for strategic use.
Winner: Klaviyo
With its unified cross-channel data, granular segmentation insights, A/B testing, and dynamic integrations, Klaviyo wins for its best-in-class email analytics. Klaviyo gives the full picture to maximize results.
Unique Features
Klaviyo
What makes Klaviyo stand out from other email platforms is its Recover Lost Sales tool. This uses real-time analytics tracking to instantly identify users who recently abandoned carts or didn’t complete desired actions on your website.
Automated workflows will then target these users with personalized emails including tailored product recommendations or discount promotions. The goal is to prompt them to complete the purchase and revive those lost sales opportunities, which has delivered game-changing revenue recovery results for many e-commerce merchants.
Additionally, Klaviyo offers fully integrated surveys you can seamlessly drop into emails or web pages. This provides an easy way to gather direct customer feedback through their Profile API, enabling an ongoing two-way conversation that gives insights to continuously refine messaging and campaigns.
Klaviyo also provides SMS marketing capabilities unified alongside email in one platform. No other provider matches Klaviyo’s combination of deep behavioral data analytics and powerful custom automation applied to turbocharge open and engagement rates on text messaging campaigns as well as email.
MailerLite
MailerLite has a couple of unique features in its landing page builder and rating reminders. The landing page creator allows easy drag-and-drop landing pages that connect to email lists and workflows, providing basic templates to showcase content, promote products, run contests, and more – no coding needed.
The rating reminders allow users to schedule automated emails requesting customer ratings and review post-purchase. This helps proactively generate more positive reviews to improve brand reputation.
However, MailerLite lacks the extremely sophisticated behavioral automation and complete cross-channel unification seen in Klaviyo’s offerings like Recover Lost Sales and integrated SMS alongside email.
Winner: Klaviyo
Klaviyo’s automated Recover Lost Sales workflows enable targeted reengagement and sales recovery at scale – capabilities MailerLite simply does not match. Combined with unified SMS and integrated surveys, Klaviyo wins on the most innovative features overall.
3. Ease of Use
Klaviyo
Klaviyo provides a straightforward and intuitive interface. The dashboard gives an overview of all key email metrics and activity. A left sidebar menu covers all main features including segment and email creation.
The visual drag-and-drop workflow builder makes it simple to map subscriber journeys. Apply triggers, filters, and actions to automate multi-step campaigns. For less experienced users, Klaviyo also offers 500+ pre-built templates covering essential workflows. While there may be a short learning curve, Klaviyo offers ample educational resources.
Overall, Klaviyo’s design allows both email beginners and experienced marketers to quickly navigate options. Flexibility empowers users at any skill level. However, those lacking technical know-how may still need to climb the initial learning curve.
MailerLite
MailerLite is praised for its ease of use, especially for beginners. The dashboard summarizes activity and performance metrics using simple graphs and visual data points. Core features can be accessed from the clean left nav menu.
Building emails, creating segments, and setting up automation use a straightforward drag-and-drop workflow interface. Options are cleanly presented without complex menus hindering beginners. MailerLite also provides hundreds of professionally designed templates for essential email types to expedite creation.
For those needing basic email and simple sequences, MailerLite delivers excellent usability. However, more advanced capabilities do get more complex compared to options optimized for beginners. But overall, MailerLite minimizes the learning curve.
Winner: MailerLite
MailerLite takes the prize for the best ease of use, especially for beginners needing core email features. Its intuitive interface and drag-and-drop workflow simplify options to minimize the learning curve. Pre-designed templates accelerate campaign creation so even new users can quickly activate essential email functionality.
4. Email Deliverability
Klaviyo
Klaviyo makes email deliverability a top priority to get your messages to the inbox. They maintain high sender reputations across ISPs. Automatic list cleaning removes risky email addresses.
Klaviyo also offers deliverability assistance. Consult docs on authentication methods, spam filter avoidance, inbox placement tips, and more. For Klaviyo Pro users, one-on-one deliverability experts provide customized suggestions to improve email security and performance.
Granular analytics measure bounce rates, spam reports, and blocked emails. Klaviyo aggregates data to provide an overall deliverability score and benchmarks to assess performance. Users can dig into metrics to diagnose issues for optimization. Solid assistance to troubleshoot problems.
MailerLite
MailerLite likewise invests heavily in sender reputation and inbox placement for trusted deliverability. They authenticate all users to confirm valid senders. Automatic list cleanings prune risky addresses.
Extensive deliverability documentation covers critical pointing including authentication, security protocols, inbox testing tools, the latest policy developments, and more. An online Deliverability Assistant provides tips based on your account statistics and sending history to support optimization.
Core analytics track key inbox placement metrics like bounce, open, and spam rates. Benchmarks help gauge deliverability scores. Users also get access to more advanced link analytics for deeper performance diagnostics. Overall helpful resources and directions for new senders.
Winner: Tie
With both Klaviyo and MailerLite demonstrating excellent deliverability rates powered by proactive sender authentication, list management, and tools to improve, this one is too close to call. Unless needing specialized consulting, both platforms deliver trusted inbox placement.
5. Customer Support and Community
Klaviyo
Klaviyo provides 24/7 email support and live chat for all paid users. They also offer phone support during extended business hours for premium accounts. Self-serve options include extensive help documentation, indexed support portal articles, and onboarding checklists for common questions.
Users can also leverage Klaviyo community forums and the Klaviyo Community Facebook group of over 50,000 members for advice. Direct access to peer experiences and best practice sharing.
For larger accounts, dedicated Customer Success Managers provide white-glove onboarding, strategic guidance, and ongoing optimization assistance tailored to your account’s needs. Helpful resources support users at any level.
MailerLite
MailerLite offers email support and live chat options during extended business hours. Self-serve help resources include searchable documentation, onboarding guides, and webinars covering platform questions, deliverability, automation strategies, and more.
The MailerLite User Group on Facebook also allows users to discuss best practices and get advice from over 30,000 peers in an engaged community forum.
While MailerLite doesn’t offer phone or dedicated account management services, their overall customer support provides helpful guidance allowing most customers to find answers without too much friction.
Winner: Klaviyo
Klaviyo wins for best overall customer support and community resources by providing robust self-serve content supplemented by 24/7 live chat assistance and premium phone/account management services. Dedicated CSMs deliver elite assistance, however, for most needs MailerLite still provides adequate help documentation and peer forums.
6. Integrations
Klaviyo
Klaviyo integrates with hundreds of tools across ecommerce platforms, CRM, email, analytics, social and more. Connect to popular tools like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Hubspot, Google Analytics, and countless others.
Zapier and API integrations further support connecting additional apps as needed. Klaviyo also offers built-in integrations for SMS, surveys, and Flow automation partners like Zendesk and Intercom.
This provides exceptional flexibility in syncing data flows between Klaviyo and other systems you rely on. Unify data for deeper insights while eliminating tedious cross-platform manual tasks. Seamless connections.
MailerLite
MailerLite also provides integrations with many common platforms like Shopify, Wix, and WordPress out of the box. Support common e-commerce platforms, landing pages, forms, surveys, and webinar software.
Using Zapier also enables numerous other connections across CRM, analytics, cloud storage, e-commerce, and beyond. While the core integrated offerings may be less robust upfront, the ability to integrate various apps via API and especially Zaps helps fill gaps for more complex needs.
So while Klaviyo certainly offers a wider range of plug-and-play native integrations, MailerLite presents decent options for linking platforms when required.
Winner: Klaviyo
With its wider range of hundreds of native app integrations spanning e-commerce, CRM, analytics and more – plus built-in connections for unique tools like SMS, surveys, and service partners – Klaviyo wins for best integrations. While Zaps help MailerLite users bridge gaps, Klaviyo’s unified experience drives efficiency.
7. Pricing
Klaviyo
Klaviyo offers a free plan covering up to 1,000 contacts. Paid plans scale from $45/month up to custom enterprise pricing. Plans are priced based on number of contacts, allowing unlimited emails. Features like automation workflows, metrics, and premium support get added as tiers increase.
Klaviyo also provides incremental costs based on usage pricing factors like email and text message volume as customer counts grow into larger tiers. For most small to medium businesses, expect total costs to land in the few hundred per month. Enterprise packages require custom quoting.
Overall, Klaviyo delivers strong value, especially for mid-market customers needing advanced features. Competitive capabilities compared to pricing models.
MailerLite
MailerLite has three pricing plans for users of different levels. The pricing structure is as follows:
- Free Account – MailerLite’s free plan allows 1 user and up to 12,000 emails sent per month.
- Growing Business – $9/month for 3 users, unlimited subscribers, and advanced automation tools.
- Advanced – $18/month for unlimited users and monthly emails.
The features are relatively consistent across paid plans. Core capabilities like email design, automation, and basic analytics are included.
For the features provided, MailerLite offers more competitive pricing than Mailchimp at lower email volumes. But React’s capabilities become limited for larger lists, while Mailchimp’s grow more robust, making it ideal for scaling your email marketing campaigns.
Winner: Tie
Klaviyo and MailerLite both offer free tiers to start. From there, Klaviyo’s volume-based pricing can make more financial sense at an enterprise scale handling very large contact volumes with advanced needs. But MailerLite delivers exceptional affordability for early-stage and growing SMBs with smaller audiences below 10-15k contacts. Mostly a tie based on the use case.
8. Reviews and Reputation
Klaviyo
Klaviyo earns strong reviews from users and industry experts alike. Common pros highlighted praise the platform’s powerful analytics, multi-channel attribution, and flexible automation fueled by comprehensive data tracking. Many also applaud Klaviyo’s ability to scale to handle complex workflows and audiences.
Potential downsides noted for small businesses include Klaviyo having a steeper learning curve versus competitors. Some balk at higher pricing at enterprise scale volumes too. But overall most Klaviyo reviews rate the platform very highly for driving performance when users can leverage its robust capabilities.
See trusted review hubs like G2 (4.7/5 rating) and Capterra (4.8/5) capturing predominantly glowing Klaviyo user feedback.
MailerLite
Users and experts give MailerLite very positive reviews as well. Widespread praise goes to simplicity and ease of use enabling beginners to quickly get effective campaigns running. Many appreciate the affordable pricing and free tier flexibility too.
Commonly highlighted drawbacks cover feature limitations that power users may outgrow over time. Some reviews also warn about inconsistencies in deliverability rates for larger senders – a major downside compared to other platforms like Constant Contact. However, the vast majority of MailerLite users celebrate friendly customer support and adequate functionality meeting early-stage needs.
Key sources like GetApp (4.7/5) and Software Advice (4.5/5) ratings echo high user satisfaction – especially among entry-level email marketers valuing usability.
Winner: Klaviyo
Based on consistently stellar feedback praising its advanced capabilities and performance outcomes, Klaviyo edges out MailerLite for best platform reviews and reputation overall. Unless needing sheer simplicity upfront, most expert recommendations lean toward Klaviyo long-term.
9. FAQ’s
Klaviyo FAQs
- What types of email campaigns can you create with Klaviyo?
Klaviyo supports all standard campaign types like welcome flows, newsletters, promotions, announcements, reengagement campaigns, and more. Robust automation with custom criteria empowers highly personalized multi-channel journeys. - Does Klaviyo offer email templates?
Yes, Klaviyo provides hundreds of professionally designed and mobile-optimized email templates across multiple categories that you can fully customize. No coding or design experience is required. - How does Klaviyo pricing work?
Klaviyo offers a free plan of up to 500 contacts. Paid plans start at $45/month and scale based on the number of contacts and features. Enterprise pricing requires custom quotes. - Is Klaviyo easy to use?
Klaviyo does have a steeper learning curve compared to some other platforms. But the interface is very intuitive once you get familiar, with ample educational resources provided. - How are Klaviyo’s deliverability rates?
Klaviyo invests heavily in deliverability and most users see excellent inbox placement rates. You get deliverability tools and consulting based on plan level to optimize further.
MailerLite FAQs
- What types of email campaigns can you create with MailerLite?
MailerLite supports basic campaign types like sign-up flows, newsletters, promotions, etc. More advanced personalized journeys may require a more capable platform. - Does MailerLite offer email templates?
Yes, MailerLite provides professionally designed, mobile-optimized templates for most standard email campaign types that you can customize. - How does MailerLite pricing work?
Pricing starts with a free 1,000-subscriber plan. Paid plans start from $9/month based on the number of subscribers, features, and volume usage pricing. - Is MailerLite easy to use?
Ease of use for beginners is one of MailerLite’s biggest strengths. The interface simplifies options for those new to email marketing to activate basic features quickly. - How are MailerLite’s deliverability rates?
MailerLite delivers excellent inbox placement and sender reputation for most use cases. Very high rates for lower volume senders but inconsistencies may occur at higher monthly volumes.
Final Thoughts
Choose Klaviyo if…
With its powerful customer behavior automation, unified cross-channel data, and robust functionality, Klaviyo is best suited for e-commerce brands and high-volume senders who need to scale sophisticated messaging aligned to business growth.
The exceptional analytics also make workflows highly customizable based on measured performance. If you require advanced features and want room to expand, choose Klaviyo.
Otherwise, you may be interested in an alternative to Klaviyo that may do the job you require better.
Choose MailerLite if…
If you’re an entrepreneur or small business just getting started with email, prioritizing simplicity and ease of use to activate basic capabilities, MailerLite is likely the best fit. Affordable pricing plus straightforward tools for core email campaigns, landing pages, and basic automation make it friendly for early-stage needs.
When weighing Klaviyo vs MailerLite, take time to consider your budget, technical capabilities, and functionality requirements both now and in the future. The right email marketing platform is imperative to executing successful subscriber communications aligned with your goals.