On this page
Every now and then someone sends us their Klaviyo invoice and asks, "should I move?"
Usually something changed. The bill went up. Email revenue went down. Or the person who built the flows left and nobody wants to touch them.
That is when people search for Klaviyo alternatives. They are not picking their first email tool. They already send every week. Email pays bills. A bad month hurts.
Sometimes they should move. Sometimes Klaviyo is still the right tool.
TL;DR: Stay or switch
- Stay on Klaviyo if product data, browse events, and cart flows make you money every week. If the team uses the depth, keep it.
- Look at Bento if inbox placement is a revenue problem and you want deliverability tools inside the platform.
- Look at Mailchimp if you bought more ecommerce automation than you use and want simpler campaigns, forms, and landing pages.
- Look at ActiveCampaign if the real job is branching nurture and CRM automation.
- Look at Attentive if you want email and SMS in one ecommerce platform.
What to watch out for: the subscriber CSV is easy. Flows, events, suppressions, forms, and reports are the move.
Klaviyo is still right for a lot of stores
Klaviyo is good at ecommerce email. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
It knows what someone viewed. It knows what they added to cart. It knows what they bought. That data can trigger a different email before breakfast.
Stay if you use it.
I would stay when:
- Shopify, BigCommerce, or another supported store is the center of the business.
- Browse abandonment and product recommendations drive real revenue.
- Someone on the team works in the flow builder every week.
- Email and SMS already work together and splitting them would create more work.
Complexity is not automatically bad. Sometimes complexity is the product doing a complicated job.
But if your team sends the same newsletter each week and runs three basic flows, you may be paying for depth you stopped using.
If you are still choosing between Klaviyo and a general email tool, read Klaviyo vs Mailchimp. If you already have a Klaviyo invoice open in another tab, keep reading.
The Klaviyo alternatives I would actually consider
Most comparison pages give you twelve logos.
I would seriously look at four.
Bento
I built Bento, so I'll be direct.
We built Bento for businesses that already depend on email. They send to their own list. They notice when messages get blocked or land in spam. And someone on the team can update DNS without turning it into a three-week project.
Bento Marketing Platform pricing is $29 per month for up to 5,000 Active Users. An Active User is someone who is subscribed or has recorded an event in the last 30 days. Additional Active Users are billed in tiers, starting at $0.01 per user.
Paid plans include unlimited marketing emails, subject to fair-use and anti-abuse review. Deliverability tools are included.
Bento is not the easy answer for everyone. It takes setup. It is a poor fit if you send once every few months, nobody can update DNS, or the workflow must live inside your store admin. It is also the wrong tool if you send on behalf of other businesses.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp makes sense when you bought more Klaviyo than you use.
Maybe nobody touches browse abandonment. Maybe predictive segments sounded useful but never made it into a campaign. Maybe you need newsletters, forms, landing pages, and a few short automations.
Mailchimp can do that job.
Check the billing model before moving. Mailchimp counts subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed contacts on paid plans. The same person in two audiences counts twice. Archived, cleaned, and deleted contacts do not count.
And check the store data. If product feeds, browse events, or catalog recommendations caused you to leave Mailchimp in the first place, moving back may bring the old problem back too.
Our Mailchimp alternatives guide covers that decision in more detail.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign makes sense when the store is not the whole story.
Maybe a lead downloads a guide, visits the pricing page, then gets assigned to sales. ActiveCampaign can score that activity, update the CRM, and change the next email.
Catalog-heavy stores need to test more before committing. Check product feeds. Check browse events. Check recommendations. Rebuild one Shopify flow and make sure the data you need is actually there.
Do that before the annual contract, not after it.
Attentive
Attentive now offers email and SMS. That makes it a real option for ecommerce teams that want both channels in one place.
Look at it when SMS carries enough revenue that separating channels feels wrong. Ask the same migration questions you would ask anyone else. Which journeys will they rebuild? Which historical events come across? Who owns domain warming? How do they stop people entering the old and new journey at once?
If the problem is SMS alone, use an SMS tool. If the problem is receipts and password resets, use a transactional sender. Neither one replaces a marketing platform when email is the store.
The CSV is the easy part
Your subscribers can move.
Your program needs rebuilding.
Start with consent and suppressions. Export both. Check the counts. If 8,000 people unsubscribed in Klaviyo, 8,000 people should be suppressed in the new platform before it sends anything.
Then rebuild one flow.
Pick the flow that matters most. Usually abandoned cart, welcome, or post-purchase. Match the trigger. Match the delay. Match the exit rules. Send every path to internal addresses first.
Do not run the old and new flow against the same customers. Use a controlled group. Make it impossible for one person to enter both.
Next, check the events.
Viewed Product in Klaviyo may have a different name or payload somewhere else. The same goes for checkout, purchase, refund, and fulfillment. Open a real customer profile and follow one order from the store into the new platform.
Segments need the same treatment. A segment based on last week's behavior may need fresh events before it returns the people you expect.
Forms and popups need their own cutover. Export the historical reports you care about before closing the account.
Do not buy a clean reputation with a new logo
If inbox placement is the reason you are leaving, slow down.
A provider switch does not clean a bad list. It does not fix missing authentication. It does not make people want mail they stopped reading.
Authenticate the new sending domain or subdomain before production sends. Check SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. If the domain or subdomain changed, inbox providers need to learn its reputation. A new sending provider can change the IP reputation too.
Start with recent customers and engaged subscribers. Increase volume in steps. Hold the cold list until the healthy traffic is steady.
Watch more than opens. Privacy features make open rates noisy. Check bounces, blocks, spam complaints, clicks, conversions, and domain reputation together.
And keep your senders predictable.
Use orders@example.com for receipts. Use newsletter@example.com for campaigns. Do not send receipts, discounts, and founder notes from one address because the new platform made it easy.
The platform matters. Your list and sending behavior matter more.
Make the call
Open the last three Klaviyo invoices. Then open the last three months of email revenue.
If the program still pays for the platform and your team uses the ecommerce depth, stay.
If cost, inbox placement, or complexity has become a real business problem, test the replacement with one flow. Use real store data. Use a controlled group. Compare revenue and delivery before moving the next flow.
If Bento fits the job, start a 30-day trial and bring one flow. We can look at the current invoice, the list, and the migration plan with you.