​​Klaviyo Pricing: The Honest Breakdown for 2026

I’ve used Klaviyo on and off for years across different ecommerce projects without any noticeable bumps in the road. However, the 2025 pricing changes and soft Klaviyo overage charges that kick in when you exceed your plan limits really caught me off guard. 

Klaviyo had shifted from billing by email volume to active profile count, added automatic plan upgrades, and applied a 25% price increase cap for existing customers.

While I still appreciate the platform’s powerful automation and Shopify-native integrations, these new costs and hidden fees have made me rethink Klaviyo ROI and overall budgeting approach—especially without any Klaviyo annual billing discounts to lock in predictable pricing. 

This guide breaks down everything I’ve learned about updated Klaviyo pricing plans, from monthly plans and SMS costs to transactional email blocks, and compares it with key competitors so you can decide if it’s still worth the price.

Klaviyo Pricing at a Glance

Klaviyo Plans & Costs Reviewed

No matter what size business you come from, email marketing will always be one of the most pressing questions. So, here’s the Klaviyo pricing, summarized for your convenience:

Free Plan Review

I tested Klaviyo’s free plan recently for a new project, and it’s far more restrictive than what I remember from previous years—now capped at just 250 subscribers and 500 monthly emails. Since the February 2025 transition to profile-based pricing, even this free tier counts all active profiles—not just engaged subscribers—toward your 250-person limit.

I quickly discovered it lacks A/B testing, advanced segmentation, and live support, and that Klaviyo branding doesn’t help either (at least this one’s expected). While it worked for testing basic workflows and managing a small contact list, I outgrew it within weeks—much faster than with the free plans of competitors I’ve tried.

Sender, for instance, offers up to 15,000 emails monthly to 2,500 subscribers completely free—I switched my smaller projects there and haven’t looked back.

Email Plan

Klaviyo’s email pricing plan is what I use for most of my projects, starting at $20/month for 500 subscribers. The plan includes unlimited monthly email sends and access to Klaviyo’s advanced automation—features I genuinely value for creating targeted campaigns. 

But here’s what hit me hard: following the February 2025 Klaviyo pricing tier update, this plan now charges based on how many active profiles you have rather than email volume. My costs increased significantly for lists with less engaged subscribers, since the Klaviyo cost per contact now applies whether people engage or not.

While the ecommerce-focused automation is excellent, the steep price jumps have made me reconsider whether smaller projects can justify the expense, especially compared to other email marketing platforms that offer similar features for less.

Email + SMS Plan

I upgraded to the Email + SMS plan for one ecommerce store project, which starts at $35/month for 500 subscribers. The starter monthly SMS/MMS credits disappeared faster than expected, and costs rose quickly when we scaled our email and SMS campaigns—especially for international messaging. 

The multichannel automation is powerful, and I appreciate the advanced flows and segmentation. However, the combined pricing often surprises me when the monthly bill arrives. I’ve found it only makes sense for stores that can actively monetize both email and SMS audiences, and I’ve learned to send fewer SMS messages to control costs.

Klaviyo Enterprise

I’ve worked with a few brands on Enterprise plans, typically those with 150,000+ profiles who need dedicated support for their sales team and advanced marketing analytics. The pricing negotiations were always custom and based on specific needs like dedicated IPs. 

While the dedicated account manager and priority support were game-changers for large-scale campaigns, the lack of a transparent Klaviyo pricing structure made budgeting challenging. Every add-on seemed to come with additional Klaviyo fees that weren’t clear upfront.

It’s worth noting that brands spending over $10,000/month are automatically enrolled in Klaviyo One, which adds a 20% fee to your base plan.

Klaviyo Hidden Fees & Extra Costs

This is where I learned some expensive lessons. While Klaviyo’s base plans cover core features, I’ve encountered numerous hidden costs that inflated my bills.

Since February 2025’s shift to active profile billing, I discovered that even unsubscribed contacts impact Klaviyo monthly cost—a painful change from the previous email volume model. I was shocked to discover that suppressed contacts still count toward limits, which unexpectedly affected my next Klaviyo billing cycle.

Additional charges for SMS credits sneak up quickly, and international texting costs more than expected. What really frustrated me were the auto upgrades—I’ve been bumped to higher tiers without warning when exceeding the plan’s limit, another sneaky tactic out of Mailchimp’s playbook. 

Finally, before I proceed with the in-depth analysis of Klaviyo’s pricing features, it’s worth pointing out that transactional emails are billed separately through pre-paid blocks, as in—not included in your plan.

How to Reduce Klaviyo Costs

If you’ve been a long-time user, you probably noticed the recent Klaviyo pricing changes—and they likely didn’t leave you giddy with excitement. If you enjoy Klaviyo but have some reservations about the cost, here are a few practical ways to save money on your monthly bill:

• Suppress inactive profiles. Remove unengaged contacts before your billing cycle resets to avoid paying for profiles that never convert;
• Run sunset or re-engagement flows. Attempt to reactivate dormant users first, then suppress anyone who doesn’t respond;
• Maintain strong list hygiene. Regularly clean bounced, unengaged, or legacy contacts to prevent paying for dead weight;
• Understand billing thresholds. Track your active profile count so you know exactly when an auto-upgrade will trigger;
• Use flexible sending strategically. Temporarily increase send volume during promotions or peak seasons without locking into a higher plan;
• Segment before you send. Target high-intent segments instead of blasting your full list to keep engagement (and active profiles) in check;
• Audit integrations and data sources. Disable unused integrations that may be quietly creating or reactivating profiles.

The 25% Appreciation Discount (who qualifies)

Klaviyo’s 25% Appreciation Discount is meant to ease the transition for existing customers affected by the shift to active-profile-based billing. Rather than offering a flat Klaviyo discount code, it temporarily caps Klaviyo price increases at 25% above your previous plan, preventing sudden jumps in monthly costs. 

Say, a customer was previously paying $100/month but now qualifies for a $200/month plan under the new model. Klaviyo caps the increase at 25%, which means they’d pay $125/month instead of $200—effectively receiving a $75 appreciation discount off the new plan’s list price. Naturally, once the transition period ends, normal pricing applies under the new billing model.

90-Day Suppression Lock Rule

Klaviyo’s 90-Day Suppression Lock Rule means that once you suppress a profile, it won’t count toward your bill. The flipside of this is that you also can’t unsuppress it for 90 days. Essentially, this prevents users from temporarily suppressing contacts just to dip below a billing threshold. 

This rule encourages intentional list cleanup—so before suppressing profiles in Klaviyo, make sure they’re truly inactive or no longer valuable to your marketing efforts.

10x Email Send Cap

Klaviyo’s 10× Email Send Cap limits how many emails you can send each month to 10 times your active profile count. For example, if you have 5,000 active profiles, you can send up to 50,000 emails that month. 

This cap is designed to prevent excessive blasting and encourage more targeted sending. If you need more volume, you’ll have to upgrade your plan or reduce your active profile count in Klaviyo.

Klaviyo Monthly Pricing by Subscriber Count

*These prices reflect Klaviyo’s February 2025 model based on active profiles. I’ve noticed existing customers transitioning from the old system sometimes see different rates due to the 25% increase cap.

Klaviyo Transactional Email Pricing 

Klaviyo’s transactional emails are for the flows triggered by a customer action—order confirmations, shipping updates, password resets and whatnots. Under this marketing platform’s domain, they must be strictly informational, which means no promos, discounts, or product plugs. 

Furthermore, transactional emails now live in metric-triggered flows and need to be approved by Klaviyo’s support as transactional. While it does sound weird at first, the whole confirmation procedure is usually relatively smooth and doesn’t take longer than 24 hours. 

Plus, you no longer have to pay extra for transactional email and SMS on top of your main plan, which used to be the case.

Klaviyo SMS Pricing & Costs

You’ll purchase credits to send mobile messages. Each type of message uses a different number of credits, depending on where the message is being sent to. For example, 1 SMS sent to the United States costs 1 credit.

SMS Pricing by Country Table

*Klaviyo’s messaging starts at 250 messages per month, which equals 1,250 credits, with credit allotments increasing gradually as message volume scales.

Klaviyo vs. Competitors: Which Costs Less?

Is Klaviyo Worth the Price?

After years of using Klaviyo, I believe it’s worth the investment if you’re an established ecommerce brand with a large customer base and high average order value. Following February 2025, when Klaviyo transitioned to profile-based billing, the value proposition shifted dramatically.

I’ve seen my costs increase significantly for databases with less engaged subscribers. The Shopify integration and customer data tools remain powerful growth drivers at scale.

However, for my smaller projects and seasonal stores, the high entry price and hidden fees have become deal-breakers. I’ve moved several of my own projects to alternatives like Omnisend, Mailchimp, or especially Sender (which saved me hundreds monthly on my smaller stores), which deliver similar functionality at a fraction of the cost.

Klaviyo Pricing FAQs