Klaviyo and Omnisend occupy a similar niche in the email marketing landscape — both are designed specifically for ecommerce businesses and both have deep Shopify integrations. This makes the comparison more nuanced than Klaviyo vs Mailchimp, where the platforms serve fundamentally different audiences. With Klaviyo and Omnisend, you are choosing between two ecommerce-focused tools that differ in depth, complexity, and pricing.
Having worked with both platforms across UK ecommerce brands, I can say that neither is categorically better. Klaviyo offers more depth and power for data-driven marketing. Omnisend offers more accessibility and better value for brands that want strong ecommerce email without the learning curve. The right choice depends on your team's capabilities, budget, and marketing ambitions.
The ecommerce email landscape
Email marketing for ecommerce has evolved significantly. It is no longer about blast newsletters to your entire list. Modern ecommerce email is about automated flows triggered by customer behaviour, segments based on purchase patterns, and personalised content that feels relevant rather than intrusive.
Both Klaviyo and Omnisend understand this evolution and have built their platforms around these principles. The difference lies in how deep each platform goes. Klaviyo was built as a customer data platform that happens to send emails. Omnisend was built as an email marketing platform optimised for ecommerce. Both approaches work — the data-first approach gives Klaviyo an edge in sophistication, while the email-first approach makes Omnisend more intuitive to use.
For UK brands, email marketing contributes a significant percentage of total ecommerce revenue. Getting this channel right matters enormously for profitability, and the platform choice has a real impact on outcomes. See our guide to essential Klaviyo flows for an understanding of what a well-structured email programme looks like.
Platform overview
Klaviyo: data-first marketing platform
Klaviyo has positioned itself as more than an email platform — it is a customer data platform built for ecommerce. The platform ingests customer data from your Shopify store, website analytics, and third-party integrations to build comprehensive customer profiles. These profiles power segmentation, automation, predictive analytics, and personalisation across email, SMS, and push notifications.
Klaviyo's depth is its primary selling point. The platform supports complex multi-step flows with conditional branching based on virtually any customer attribute or behaviour. Predictive analytics calculate expected lifetime value, predicted next purchase date, and churn risk. Advanced reporting ties revenue attribution to individual emails and flows. For marketing teams with the skills and time to leverage this depth, Klaviyo delivers impressive results.
Omnisend: accessible ecommerce email
Omnisend was founded in 2014 and has grown rapidly among small to mid-sized ecommerce brands. The platform combines email, SMS, push notifications, and social media retargeting into a single omnichannel marketing tool. Omnisend's emphasis is on making ecommerce-specific marketing accessible without requiring deep technical expertise.
Omnisend's pre-built automation workflows are a standout feature. The platform includes ready-made workflows for welcome series, abandoned cart, order confirmation, shipping confirmation, browse abandonment, cross-sell, and win-back sequences. These workflows can be activated with minimal configuration, which means brands can start generating automated revenue quickly.
Pricing comparison
Omnisend pricing: The free plan supports up to 250 contacts with 500 emails per month and includes basic automation and reporting. The Standard plan starts at $16/month for up to 500 contacts with unlimited emails. The Pro plan starts at $59/month and adds SMS credits, advanced reporting, and web push notifications. Pricing scales with list size — a 10,000-contact list costs approximately $105/month on Standard.
Klaviyo pricing: The free plan supports up to 250 contacts with 500 emails per month. Paid plans start at $20/month for 251-500 contacts. A 10,000-contact list costs approximately $150/month. Klaviyo's pricing includes full feature access at every tier — there are no feature-gated plans, only volume-based pricing.
Omnisend is consistently 20-40% cheaper than Klaviyo at equivalent list sizes. For budget-conscious brands, this difference is meaningful, especially when compounded over a year. However, the pricing comparison should be weighed against the revenue each platform generates. Our guide to Klaviyo management costs provides context on expected ROI.
Shopify integration
Both platforms integrate well with Shopify, but the depth differs.
Klaviyo offers the deepest Shopify integration of any email platform. Real-time syncing of orders, products, customer data, and on-site events (page views, product views, cart additions) powers sophisticated segmentation and automation. Klaviyo also supports Shopify's customer consent model and integrates with Shopify Flow for cross-platform automation.
Omnisend provides a solid Shopify integration that covers the essential data points: customer information, purchase history, product catalogue, and standard ecommerce events. The integration supports abandoned cart tracking, browse abandonment, and product recommendation blocks. While not quite as granular as Klaviyo's real-time event tracking, it covers the needs of most ecommerce email programmes.
Automation and workflows
Both platforms offer ecommerce-specific automation, but they approach it differently.
Omnisend's pre-built workflows are arguably the fastest way to set up ecommerce email automation. The platform includes over 20 ready-made workflows that can be activated with a few clicks. These workflows include well-designed email templates, sensible timing, and appropriate triggers. For brands that want working automation quickly, Omnisend delivers.
Klaviyo's flow builder offers more flexibility and depth. Conditional splits based on any customer property, purchase history, or predicted metric enable highly targeted automation. A/B testing within flows, time-delay optimisation, and dynamic content personalisation provide tools for continuous improvement. For marketing teams that want to build and iterate on complex automations, Klaviyo is more powerful.
The practical difference: Omnisend gets you 80% of the way with minimal effort. Klaviyo gets you to 95% but requires more configuration and expertise. For many brands, the difference between 80% and 95% is not worth the additional complexity. For larger brands with dedicated email marketing resources, that extra 15% can represent significant additional revenue.
Segmentation capabilities
Klaviyo's segmentation is its strongest feature. Segments can be built from virtually any data point, including purchase behaviour, email engagement, website activity, predicted metrics, and custom properties. Segments update dynamically in real time, and the depth of available conditions is unmatched among ecommerce email platforms.
Omnisend's segmentation covers ecommerce essentials well: purchase history, email engagement, shopping behaviour, and demographic data. The segment builder is intuitive and handles common segmentation scenarios effectively. Advanced use cases like predictive lifetime value segmentation or complex multi-condition segments with nested logic are where Omnisend shows its limitations compared to Klaviyo.
For brands that want to send targeted campaigns to segments like "customers who purchased from the skincare category in the last 90 days, have a predicted lifetime value above £200, and have not opened an email in the last 30 days," Klaviyo is the better tool. For brands that segment by purchase recency, product category, and engagement level, Omnisend handles these scenarios well. Our managed Klaviyo services page covers what professional segmentation and flow management delivers.
SMS and multi-channel
Both platforms offer integrated SMS marketing, which is increasingly important for ecommerce brands.
Omnisend includes SMS, email, push notifications, and social media retargeting in a single platform. SMS credits are included in the Pro plan, and SMS can be integrated into the same automation workflows as email. Omnisend also supports web push notifications, which provides an additional re-engagement channel.
Klaviyo offers SMS and email from a single platform. SMS uses the same customer data, segmentation, and flow builder as email. Klaviyo's SMS capabilities are robust and include A/B testing, MMS (multimedia messages), and smart sending rules to prevent over-messaging.
Both platforms support UK SMS marketing with proper compliance handling. The main difference is that Omnisend includes push notifications as an additional channel, while Klaviyo focuses on email and SMS only.
Templates and design
Omnisend offers an excellent drag-and-drop email builder with a strong template library. The Product Picker feature allows you to pull products directly from your Shopify catalogue into emails, creating product recommendation blocks with images, prices, and links. The email builder is intuitive and produces professional results without design skills.
Klaviyo's email builder has improved significantly and now offers comparable drag-and-drop functionality. Klaviyo's template library includes ecommerce-focused templates, and the dynamic content capabilities (showing different content to different segments within the same email) are more advanced than Omnisend's.
Forms and popups
Both platforms include form and popup builders for list growth.
Omnisend offers a variety of sign-up form types including popups, embedded forms, landing pages, and the Wheel of Fortune (gamified popup). These forms are easy to create and integrate directly with Omnisend's segmentation and automation.
Klaviyo provides sign-up forms, popups, flyouts, and embedded forms. The targeting options are more granular — you can show different popups based on URL, referral source, device type, and customer segment. Klaviyo's forms feed directly into its segmentation engine, enabling immediate automation triggers based on form submissions.
Analytics and reporting
Klaviyo's reporting is more comprehensive, with detailed revenue attribution, flow performance analytics, campaign comparison tools, and predictive analytics dashboards. The ability to attribute revenue to specific emails and flows with configurable attribution windows provides clear ROI visibility.
Omnisend's reporting covers campaign performance, automation revenue, and subscriber growth. The reporting is clean and accessible, though not as deep as Klaviyo's. For most brands, Omnisend's reporting provides sufficient insight for decision-making.
Ease of use
Omnisend is generally easier to learn and use. The interface is clean, the pre-built workflows reduce setup time, and the learning curve is gentle. A brand new user can have working abandoned cart and welcome series automations running within a day.
Klaviyo has a steeper learning curve. The depth of features, the flexibility of the flow builder, and the granularity of segmentation options mean there is more to learn. However, this complexity is the flip side of Klaviyo's power — the features that make it harder to learn are the same features that enable more sophisticated marketing.
For teams without a dedicated email marketer, Omnisend's accessibility is a practical advantage. For teams with email marketing expertise or who plan to invest in professional Klaviyo management, the platform's depth is a significant asset.
The verdict
Choose Omnisend if:
- Budget is a significant consideration and you want strong ecommerce email at a lower price
- You want fast setup with pre-built workflows that work out of the box
- Your team does not include a dedicated email marketing specialist
- You want an all-in-one tool with email, SMS, and push notifications
- Your segmentation needs are straightforward (purchase history, engagement, demographics)
- You are a small to mid-sized brand doing under £1M in annual revenue
Choose Klaviyo if:
- Email is a primary revenue channel and you want maximum return
- You need advanced segmentation based on purchase behaviour and predictive data
- Complex automated flows with conditional logic are important to your strategy
- You have a dedicated email marketer or plan to use professional management services
- Revenue attribution and predictive analytics inform your marketing decisions
- You are a growing brand focused on data-driven marketing optimisation
Both platforms are strong choices for ecommerce email. Omnisend is the better value proposition for brands that want effective ecommerce email marketing without complexity. Klaviyo is the better investment for brands that want to squeeze every pound of revenue from their email channel through data-driven personalisation and sophisticated automation.
If you are evaluating email marketing platforms or considering a switch, get in touch. We can help you choose the right platform and configure it for maximum revenue impact.