Same price, different foundations
At 10,000 contacts, Klaviyo and ActiveCampaign cost almost the same: about $150/mo for Klaviyo's Email plan and $149/mo for ActiveCampaign Starter on annual billing. So the decision is not about the invoice. It is about what each tool is built on.
Klaviyo is built on store data. Connect Shopify or another store platform and Klaviyo pulls in catalog items, orders, checkouts and product views. Every profile carries that history, and Klaviyo calculates predictions from it: expected lifetime value, churn risk and when the next order is likely.
ActiveCampaign is built on contacts, tags and a sales pipeline. Store integrations bring in orders and carts, but the heart of the product is a flexible automation builder, site tracking and lead scoring that feed deals for a sales team.
A store's first 90 days on each
On Klaviyo, a typical store turns on prebuilt flows in the first week: welcome series, abandoned checkout, browse abandonment, post-purchase and win-back. Segments like "bought twice, not in 60 days" or "high predicted CLV" are available without custom fields. By month three, the team is testing product recommendation blocks and adding SMS to the cart flow, and reporting shows revenue per flow.
On ActiveCampaign, the first week involves connecting the store, installing site tracking and building a cart recovery automation. Segments depend on the fields and tags the integration writes. By month three, the team has capable automations, and if it sells to businesses too, it is scoring wholesale leads and moving them through a pipeline. Store-specific predictions and AI recommendations are not part of the picture.
For a pure online store, Klaviyo gets further, faster. For a business that sells online and through people, ActiveCampaign covers both halves.
Active profiles versus contacts
Both tools price by audience size, but they count differently. Klaviyo bills on active profiles, the people you can email, so suppressed profiles do not count toward the plan. ActiveCampaign bills on contacts in the account. On both, cleaning out people who never engage lowers the bill, but on Klaviyo suppression is the lever, while on ActiveCampaign you archive or delete contacts.
This matters for stores that collect many one-time buyers. Every checkout adds a profile, so a store can grow its list much faster than its engaged audience. Build a sunset flow early on either platform, and review the audience count each month before the plan renews.
Pricing reality over a year
For a store with 10,000 emailable customers:
| Plan | Monthly | Year one |
|---|---|---|
| Klaviyo Email | About $150 | About $1,800 |
| ActiveCampaign Starter (annual) | $149 | $1,788 |
| ActiveCampaign Plus (annual) | $189 | $2,268 |
| ActiveCampaign Pro (annual) | $375 | $4,500 |
SMS is extra on both. If the store plans to text, Klaviyo's Email and SMS plan includes credits and raises the price with volume, while ActiveCampaign's SMS is an add-on. For email alone, the most common real comparison is Klaviyo Email against ActiveCampaign Plus, which makes Klaviyo slightly cheaper at this size.
Where the pricing diverges
Both tools price by list size, so the gap appears in the details:
- Tiers: ActiveCampaign Starter limits automation actions and users, so many stores need Plus ($189/mo) or Pro ($375/mo) at 10,000 contacts. Klaviyo's Email plan includes its ecommerce features at every size.
- SMS: Klaviyo's Email and SMS plan starts at $35/mo on small lists with 1,250 credits and grows with sending. ActiveCampaign's SMS is an add-on.
- List hygiene: Klaviyo bills on active profiles, and ActiveCampaign on contacts. On both, suppress or remove people who never engage.
Reporting you will look at every week
Klaviyo's reporting is framed around money: revenue attributed to each flow and campaign, performance against benchmarks for similar stores, and how segments like first-time buyers or lapsed customers are trending. For a store owner, that answers the question "what did email earn this month" directly.
ActiveCampaign's reporting is framed around engagement and pipeline: opens, clicks and goal completions per automation, contact trends, and deal values by stage. Ecommerce reporting is available, but it is not the center of the product. For a business where a sale happens on a call, pipeline reporting is the more useful view.
Use-case matchups
| Need | Better fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Repeat-purchase DTC brand on Shopify | Klaviyo | Store data, predictions and revenue reporting |
| Email plus SMS from one profile | Klaviyo | Native SMS and push |
| Wholesale accounts handled by reps | ActiveCampaign | Deal pipelines and scoring |
| Service business with an online shop on the side | ActiveCampaign | Automation beyond shopping events |
| Smaller store wanting core flows at lower cost | Sequenzy | Shopify, WooCommerce and Wix flows priced by sends |
Hybrid businesses
Some businesses sit in the middle, for example a brand that sells online to consumers and wholesale to retailers. There are two workable setups: Klaviyo for the consumer store with a separate CRM for wholesale accounts, or ActiveCampaign for both with lighter store automation. Choose based on which side earns more and which side would suffer most from a weaker tool.
Who should not choose Klaviyo
Klaviyo is a strong product, but it is the wrong fit if you do not have a store as your main revenue source. Service businesses, agencies, course creators and B2B companies end up paying for store features they never use and missing a CRM they need. ActiveCampaign, or a lighter tool, serves them better.
Who should not choose ActiveCampaign
If you run a DTC brand where most revenue comes from repeat purchases and email is a major channel, ActiveCampaign leaves money on the table. Predictions, recommendations and per-flow revenue reporting are the tools you would use every week, and they are Klaviyo's core.
Migration checklist
| Step | Moving to Klaviyo | Moving to ActiveCampaign |
|---|---|---|
| First | Connect the store so historic orders and catalog sync | Connect the store and install site tracking |
| Contacts | Import contacts, tags and fields; suppressions first | Import profiles, properties and lists; suppressions first |
| Automations | Start from prebuilt ecommerce flows, then customize | Rebuild flows as automations with goals and tags |
| What you lose | Deals, pipelines and lead scores | Predictions, AI recommendations and mobile push |
| SMS | Bring consent records with every number | Confirm add-on coverage and consent before texting |
Decision checklist
- Most revenue comes from online orders and repeat purchases: Klaviyo.
- SMS or push is part of the plan: Klaviyo.
- You sell through reps or quotes as well as online: ActiveCampaign.
- Your business is not primarily a store: ActiveCampaign or a lighter tool.
- You want cart, browse and post-purchase email without profile pricing: Sequenzy.
Where Sequenzy fits
Sequenzy is an email platform that syncs Shopify, WooCommerce (beta) and Wix, and runs cart and checkout recovery, browse abandonment and post-purchase flows. It calculates store predictions such as lifetime value, churn risk and expected next order date, and supports rule-based product recommendation blocks. For subscription brands, it also syncs Stripe, Paddle and Polar and sends transactional email from the same account. Pricing is by emails sent with unlimited contacts: $49/month for 60k emails (unlimited subscribers).
Where Klaviyo wins: AI product recommendations, mobile push, a deeper commerce data layer and a mature SMS program. Where ActiveCampaign wins: CRM, lead scoring and non-commerce automation. Sequenzy fits stores that want the core email flows without Klaviyo's profile-based pricing, and teams that care more about email than SMS.
See the Klaviyo pricing breakdown and the ActiveCampaign pricing breakdown for more.
