Choosing the right email marketing platform is crucial for business owners looking to build customer relationships and promote their brands. Two of the most popular solutions on the market are Klaviyo and Omnisend.
Klaviyo is an advanced email and SMS marketing platform built for e-commerce brands. Omnisend provides similar functionality but is more focused on Shopify stores specifically. With so many features to consider, it can be challenging to select the platform that best aligns with your business goals and budget.
In this in-depth Klaviyo vs Omnisend comparison, we evaluate the two email marketing platforms across several key criteria to help you make the right decision. We will analyze and compare their market position, ease of use, customization, built-in features, performance, customer support, pricing, and reviews so you can confidently choose the best email marketing solution.
1. Understanding the Basics
Klaviyo was founded in 2012 by Andrew Bialecki and Ed Hallen. It has quickly become one of the most widely-used email marketing platforms with over 90,000 customers including brands like MVMT, Brooklinen, and ACTIVE. Klaviyo is noted as a Leader in multiple G2 reports and received $320 million in funding to fuel expansion.
Omnisend was started in 2015 by brothers Anton Fediakov and Mikhail Kostjukov. While younger, it already serves over 10,000 Shopify merchants. Omnisend has established itself as a top-rated app in the Shopify App Store.
Both platforms now have active user communities on Facebook. Klaviyo users frequent the Klaviyo Facebook group which has over 36,000 members. Many Omnisend fans gather in the Omnisend eCommerce Community group. These groups allow email marketers to discuss strategies, troubleshoot issues, and connect with e-commerce experts familiar with the platforms.
With years of rapid growth already behind them, Klaviyo and Omnisend have each carved out a position as email marketing leaders. Yet Klaviyo’s longer history and larger customer base give it the edge for now in overall popularity and market penetration.
2. Features and Functionality
Automation
Klaviyo
Klaviyo enables users to create a wide variety of automated campaigns and workflows. You can set up a welcome series for new contacts, cart abandonment flows, and browse abandonment automation to re-engage visitors.
With a visual drag-and-drop builder, workflows are very easy to set up with just a few clicks. You simply define triggers like someone visiting a certain page or not completing a purchase then build a multi-step sequence sending customized emails or SMS messages.
Advanced features like predictive modeling allow you to automatically send messages that will resonate at just the right time to specific customer segments.
You can also leverage machine learning and AI capabilities recently added to the platform to determine your top-performing automations and then bolster these campaigns automatically while pausing lower-performing ones. Overall Klaviyo aims to minimize the manual work needed to configure effective email and SMS sequences.
Omnisend
Similar to Klaviyo, Omnisend enables drag-and-drop creation of automated campaigns based on triggers you define. Standard automation like browse abandonment emails, cart recovery sequences, and post-purchase follow-ups can be set up in minutes out-of-the-box. You can easily customize the number of emails sent, delays between messages, and text/design of the emails as needed.
While the platform doesn’t currently include AI-driven optimization features, the automation workflows have proven successful for e-commerce merchants with targeted messaging for each stage of the customer journey.
Dynamic product recommendations can also be added to cart abandonment flows automatically showcasing top products a visitor previously viewed or added. This simplifies the creation of relevant, effective automation.
Winner: Klaviyo
With its AI and machine learning capabilities on top of an already user-friendly drag-and-drop automation builder, Klaviyo edges out Omnisend as the winner for the easiest platform to create automated campaigns. Klaviyo essentially minimizes the manual work you need to do to configure high-performing, customizable sequences targeted to different customer segments.
Email Templates
Klaviyo
Klaviyo offers hundreds of professionally designed email templates right out of the box. You can browse by category to find templates for welcome series, promotions, product announcements, shipping updates, and more. All templates are optimized for mobile and easily customizable. The drag-and-drop editor makes updating content, colors, fonts, and images simple with no coding needed.
Dynamic content can also be added to pull in subscriber names, recently viewed products, and other data for personalized messages. For ultimate customization, CSS styling options are provided as you edit templates so you can fine-tune the look and feel.
If you want to start from scratch, building HTML emails from the ground up is also an option. Overall, Klaviyo aims to provide enterprise-level templates and customization in an intuitive interface.
Omnisend
The Omnisend template editor makes updating the 140+ responsive pre-made templates easy with point-and-click changes. While you don’t have full CSS styling control out-of-the-box, the simplicity enables the fast creation of on-brand, polished emails without coding expertise. You can preview your messages across a variety of mobile devices to ensure consistency.
The dynamic content engine allows for further customization to send personalized email campaigns. It lets you insert customer data, social proof elements like reviews and star ratings, and even dynamically populated product recommendations tailored to each subscriber.
Omnisend’s templates cater well to typical e-commerce promotional and transactional messaging needs. Yet more complex pixel-perfect customization does require using a third-party design tool.
Winner: Klaviyo
Klaviyo wins for best email template design and customization capabilities. The expansive template library spanning all standard e-commerce email types paired with easy drag-and-drop editing, dynamic content, and advanced CSS styling options edge out Omnisend. Klaviyo essentially enables both highly customizable templates as well as custom email creation for true design flexibility.
Segmentation
Klaviyo
Klaviyo enables you to segment your audiences into highly targeted groups based on profiles, behaviors, purchases, product interests, and more.
To send targeted and relevant messages, you can automatically group customers like VIPs or loyalty members and then further segment by lifetime value, prior purchase amounts, email engagement metrics, what links they clicked, what products they viewed or added to the cart, and virtually any custom trait imaginable.
Dynamic lists can even group people automatically based on real-time behavior like visiting a certain page or spending a specific amount of time on your site.
With predictive modeling, machine learning models can determine lookalike audiences that resemble your best customers to target new leads for commerce businesses. Advanced segmentation ensures your messages resonate with subscribers who matter most.
Omnisend
Omnisend provides the essential segmentation tools an ecommerce retailer needs including grouping by traffic source, recent purchases, order value tiers, product category interest, repeat buyers vs new customers, and more. You can further segment products bought or browsed as well as filter by email engagement level, inactive subscribers, and customer lifetime value.
While robust, Omnisend’s targeting options aren’t quite as advanced as Klaviyo’s. However, key integrations with e-commerce platforms give visibility into subscriber purchasing behavior and product affinities to still craft relevant messaging. And list management features make organizing and updating segments simple.
Winner: Klaviyo
Klaviyo is the winner of the best email marketing platform segmentation tools. Klaviyo goes far beyond standard customer groupings to enable not only advanced segmentation by predictive models and machine learning but also dynamic grouping updated in real time based on observed behaviors and trends.
This level of granular, automated targeting provides unmatched customization for resonating messaging.
Analytics
Klaviyo
Klaviyo shines when it comes to email and SMS marketing analytics and reporting. Dashboards offer real-time statistics on opens, clicks, bounce rates, click-to-open rates, unsubscribes, revenue-driven, and more. You can dig deeper into performance by campaign, segment, or even individual message. Heatmaps show which parts of your email subscribers engaged with most.
When reviewing reports, custom metrics like conversion value per email sent or revenue from a campaign make it easy to calculate ROI. You can also track SMS and web push notifications metrics like delivered & failed messages, clicks, unsubscribed, etc.
For technical optimization, delivery, and domain performance grades help improve sender reputation and inbox placement over time. This will help improve your email marketing efforts.
Perhaps most powerfully, Klaviyo’s analytics incorporate machine learning to prescribe the optimal next move e.g. which automations to pause or promote based on performance. This simplifies data-backed optimization tremendously.
Omnisend
Similar core email and SMS marketing reporting is available in Omnisend including open, clickthrough, and bounce rates to track important metrics for your ecommerce platforms. Email revenue tracking shows the conversion value from each campaign. A/B testing tools let you experiment with subject lines, content, and designs to improve results.
However, analysis requires more manual work than Klaviyo. The platform does not yet provide predictive recommendations or AI-assisted insights on how to boost campaigns. However, for an agency managing many client accounts, dashboard customization saved reports, and multi-account support assists with reporting efficiency.
Winner: Klaviyo
With its AI and machine learning analytics providing actionable suggestions and surfacing what content resonates in a self-optimizing way, Klaviyo wins for best-in-class analytics. Omnisend still provides solid reporting but lacks automated predictive recommendations that enable Klaviyo users to easily improve the performance of email and SMS initiatives.
Unique Features
Klaviyo
A few of the unique features that set Klaviyo apart include predictive modeling powered by machine learning algorithms to determine your highest-value buyer segments so you can target similar prospects who will likely resonate with your brand. Additionally, Klaviyo offers dynamic abandoned cart recovery functionality. This automatically sends personalized cart recovery emails with dynamic product recommendations tailored to each recipient.
As a hybrid platform, Klaviyo can also unite both your online and physical store data to market to customers holistically across channels.
And with built-in SMS capabilities, you can seamlessly contact customers via text messaging in addition to email without needing any third-party tools. This specialized automation, personalization, and omnichannel capabilities enabled by AI optimization make Klaviyo unique among its competitors.
Omnisend
Though Omnisend doesn’t currently provide predictive modeling or machine learning features, it does have some unique strengths. As a platform built specifically for Shopify, deep integration optimizes Omnisend to cater to stores on this popular e-commerce platform specifically. Shopify merchants can benefit from streamlined customization and centralized data access.
Omnisend also facilitates localization with support for over 25 languages and currency formatting to aid global business expansion, making it one of the best email marketing systems for personalized campaigns.
It offers omnichannel SMS to complement email campaigns with text message functionality to send targeted email campaigns. Additionally, dynamic coupons triggered by automation rules enable the sending of automated and personalized coupon codes to subscribers when they abandon their cart or upon other defined actions. So while focused on Shopify primarily, these areas make Omnisend stand out for this core user base.
Winner: Klaviyo
Klaviyo emerges as the winner for the most unique and advanced features. The predictive modeling and machine learning capabilities paired with automated cross-channel intelligence simply can’t be matched by Omnisend currently. These innovation features demonstrate Klaviyo’s impressive technical capabilities and long-term product roadmap.
3. Ease of Use
Klaviyo
Klaviyo is widely regarded as very easy to use, especially for an advanced email platform with extensive features. The intuitive drag-and-drop interface enables building automation workflows, crafting campaign emails, and customizing subscriber experiences without complexity. User testing confirms beginners find Klaviyo straightforward to navigate.
While feature-rich, common email and SMS tasks are simplified through customizable templates, lots of pre-built integrations with popular software, and automation guided by machine learning optimization. Significant funding has also focused investment on a quality user experience. For more advanced subscribers, deep customization is also available through CSS, HTML, and an API.
Overall, Klaviyo strikes an ideal balance of providing both simplicity and smart acceleration for demanding users. The experience mirrors leading consumer apps that many users already intuitively know how to use.
Omnisend
As a Shopify-focused platform, Omnisend follows conventions common to apps in this ecosystem. The setup process is straightforward with guided tutorials, especially for those already accustomed to Shopify. The Shopify theme editor enables customizing Omnisend tool design and layout to match store branding.
Key tasks like building subscriber lists, creating broadcasts, and reviewing reports are simple, albeit with a bit less acceleration through AI as Klaviyo offers. But with integrations limited mostly to the Shopify platform itself, less configuration with external services is required upfront too.
The UI provides essential email marketing functionality without complexity – ideal for merchants focused solely on growing their Shopify store through the key features they need. However, less hand-holding is available for unfamiliar processes.
Winner: Klaviyo
With its intuitive interface providing both an easy learning curve for beginners plus advanced functionality for experts – all accelerated by machine learning and automation – Klaviyo edges out Omnisend as the winner for the easiest email marketing platform to use with the best overall UX.
4. Email Deliverability
Klaviyo
Klaviyo emphasizes effective email deliverability through compliance with leading ISP standards, authentication methods like SPF/DKIM/DMARC, and easy opt-out functionality. Granular analytics detail potential spam test failures or risky sending infrastructure by the provider. Customizable frequency capping ensures subscribers aren’t overloaded.
Additionally, dynamic content personalization and segmentation by engagement help avoid excessive inactive subscriber build-up that could risk future delivery. Overall Klaviyo aims to optimize and enhance deliverability through infrastructure monitoring and identified best practices.
Omnisend
While official third-party confirmed deliverability rates are not published, Omnisend does state that a dedicated deliverability team manually checks spam complaints and works with major ISPs to improve email delivery and land more messages in the primary inbox.
Their platform also follows recommended preparation steps like link encoding, removal options for every email, and sender authentication. Customers can also enable an option to never email subscribers who haven’t opened for 12+ months to maintain strong engagement levels.
So while transparency into eventual inbox placement rates isn’t provided, common techniques to support deliverability are employed.
Winner: Tie
Based on the background provided, both Klaviyo and Omnisend incorporate standard best practices promoted to optimize email deliverability. Each platform enables sender authentication methods, compliance with ISP guidelines, and subscriber opt-out access across all messages sent. Both also allow customers some configuration options to assist with list maintenance.
Since hard metrics around inbox placement rates over time are not available for either Klaviyo or Omnisend specifically, there is insufficient data to factually determine a clear winner strictly focused on measurable email deliverability performance. With the factual details provided regarding their functional deliverability features being comparable, it’s a tie between the two platforms.
5. Customer Support and Community
Klaviyo
Klaviyo provides email and in-platform live chat support 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Phone support is also offered during standard business hours for accounts spending $1,000+ monthly. Premier enterprise-tier accounts get dedicated account management and onboarding assistance.
An extensive self-serve knowledge base with articles, tutorials, and webinars is available as well. Klaviyo also monitors user feedback in their private Facebook group, Klaviyo Mastermind, which has over 53,000 members actively discussing strategies around email and SMS marketing.
Omnisend
Similarly, Omnisend offers 24/7 live chat and email support with additional phone-based assistance for mid-tier “Growth” plan subscribers spending $333+ monthly. An online knowledge base provides access to troubleshooting guides, platform references, and e-commerce email marketing tips.
The Omnisend Ecommerce Community Facebook group also enables merchants to connect with over 16,000 fellow users to share ideas, ask questions, and learn best practices directly from peers and online store owners with experience using Omnisend.
Winner: Tie
Both Klaviyo and Omnisend offer robust customer support via email, chat, phone (for mid-range plans and up), and comprehensive self-serve online knowledge bases useful for troubleshooting issues independently. Each also fosters active user communities with tens of thousands of members for advice tailored specifically to leveraging email and SMS through their respective platforms.
6. Integrations
Klaviyo
Klaviyo connects with hundreds of popular e-commerce platforms (Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, etc.), CRMs, email design tools, analytics services, and more.
Zapier and PipeDrive integrations further expand options for connecting niche solutions not part of Klaviyo’s out-of-the-box integrations library. There’s API access as well to build custom solutions. Robust integration empowers centralizing data from distributed sources to inform subscriber messaging.
Key platforms like Shopify allow tight linkage – syncing order, product, and customer details to Klaviyo automatically to leverage in segmented campaigns. Payment processors also enable the monitoring of transactional activity.
Omnisend
As a Shopify-focused email and SMS marketing platform, Omnisend unsurprisingly provides the deepest integration specifically for Shopify stores. All customer, order, cart, and product data flows freely from Shopify so merchants can seamlessly track buyer journeys.
Beyond Shopify itself, over 750 app integrations do expand options for connecting accounting, fulfillment, social media, and other solutions – albeit with less two-way synchronization flexibility as core platforms like Klaviyo enable. But for purely Shopify-based retail brands, everything needed is accessible natively.
Winner: Klaviyo
While Omnisend provides robust integration capabilities specifically for the Shopify ecosystem, Klaviyo’s support connecting virtually any e-commerce platform, CRM, custom database, etc. – and the ability to freely exchange data across solutions – provides more flexibility.
The hundreds of platforms natively integrated combined with Zapier and API access for custom connections make Klaviyo the winner for best email service integrations.
7. Pricing
Klaviyo
Klaviyo offers a free plan that covers 500 contacts with basic email and automation-building functionality. Paid plans start at $45 monthly for 5,000 contacts and incrementally increase in price based on the number of contacts, advanced features, and customization needs. Enterprise custom pricing is also available for high-volume accounts requiring tailored solutions.
Klaviyo includes a set number of email and SMS credits matching contact tier thresholds per paid subscription level, starting with 60,000 messages per month for the starter plan.
If usage exceeds allotted credits, extra packages can be purchased a la carte at volume rates to expand available email and SMS capacity as needed. This allows alignment of messaging consumption with real sending volumes.
Omnisend
Omnisend bases pricing on emails sent per month plus add-ons. Plans span from free to enterprise-level volumes. The free plan has a strong feature set and generously supports 15,000 emails monthly including many advanced features.
Paid upgrades bring priority customer service, SMS capabilities, predictive analytics, custom integrations, and more. Add-ons like additional domains, SMS bundles, and dedicated IP addresses cost extra based on usage or flat add-on fees.
Overall Omnisend offers premium capabilities related to advanced automation and deliverability even at low volumes. But costs scale higher at mid-tier and enterprise plans.
Winner: Klaviyo
Because Klaviyo allows granularly aligning additional email and SMS capacity to actual sending volumes through add-on credit packs, they better support advanced messaging growth aligned to business seasonalities or campaign needs. So for maximum pricing flexibility matching email and SMS volumes efficiently, Klaviyo wins over Omnisend’s bundled allotment model.
8. Reviews and Reputation
Klaviyo
Klaviyo earns strong reviews across evaluation platforms like G2, Capterra, and Software Advice highlighted by ease of use, automation features, and integration flexibility. Users praise the intuitive interface, comprehensive analytics, and quality support resources helping onboard and drive value.
Negative feedback centers around some bloat from extensive capabilities that smaller merchants may not fully leverage.
Contact-based pricing doesn’t work for all business models. But overall, most reviews rate Klaviyo as the premier email marketing platform for rapidly growing DTC e-commerce brands aiming to scale.
Omnisend
As a Shopify-tailored solution, Omnisend garners strong feedback for ease of syncing data, building campaigns, and crunching e-commerce analytics specifically from Shopify store owners. Users highlight the platform’s alignment with common Shopify workflows.
However, some merchants feel locked into the Shopify ecosystem and seek more integrations, making standalone tools like Klaviyo potentially more flexible. Contacts-based pricing also receives some pushback. However, most reviews rate Omnisend as a leading email and SMS marketing platform purpose-built to accelerate Shopify store growth.
Winner: Klaviyo
With widespread high marks for usability, customization, and analytics power across customer types and stages, Klaviyo edges out Omnisend as the winner for best overall end-user experiences based on aggregated reviews. More concerns seem to arise on Omnisend around potential platform lock-in and contacts-based billing models.
9. Omnisend vs Klaviyo: FAQ’s
Klaviyo FAQs
- What types of email marketing campaigns can you create in Klaviyo?
Klaviyo supports welcome emails, cart abandonment flows, shipping updates, promotional blasts, every day/repeat campaigns, and automated event-trigger messages. - Does Klaviyo have e-commerce-specific features?
Yes, Klaviyo provides native Shopify and other major e-commerce platform integrations to various marketing channels. It can track online/offline customer activity and sync order data to inform campaigns. - Is there a free trial?
Klaviyo offers a free plan covering 500 contacts to test core functionality, but paid subscriptions unlock additional capabilities.
Omnisend FAQs
- What types of automation are included?
Omnisend enables the creation of browse abandonment flows, win-back messaging, post-purchase follow-ups, new subscriber welcome series, and more. - How does Omnisend connect with Shopify?
As a Shopify-tailored platform, Omnisend seamlessly imports all customer and order data to centralize real-time tracking. - Is Omnisend better suited for service businesses too?
Omnisend focuses almost exclusively on supporting e-commerce merchants rather than service providers.
Final Thoughts
Choose Klaviyo if…
With its wide array of email campaign creation tools, integrations supporting both online and brick-and-mortar activity tracking, and machine learning capabilities unlocking automatic optimization, Klaviyo is likely the best choice for fast-scaling e-commerce brands selling across multiple channels. The extensive features and customization support sophisticated email marketing needs at the enterprise scale.
Take a look at some Klaviyo alternatives if this platform doesn’t seem like a good fit.
Choose Omnisend if…
As a platform specifically built for Shopify, Omnisend simplifies launching advanced email and SMS initiatives seamlessly tied to Shopify store data for merchants leveraging this popular e-commerce platform. The tight unified integration accelerates campaign creation and performance analysis without hassle.
Determining the right email and SMS marketing provider depends heavily on your business model, stage of growth, budget, and platform ecosystem. Both Klaviyo and Omnisend have strengths catering to different needs. We urge readers to consider capabilities against priorities of each email marketing software to determine the best solution aligning with long-term goals, current infrastructure, and resources available.