Pricing guide — checked 7 October 2026
Klaviyo Pricing Guide 2026
For a team that wants AI-assisted, profile-based lifecycle sending, Klaviyo is the pick to start with. Its free plan covers up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, and the first paid Email plan is $20 a month for 500 profiles, billed monthly.
The short answer
Klaviyo fits best when your list is made of people you can message one by one, when most sends are triggered by events such as a signup, an activation, a purchase or a cancellation, and when you want the platform to rank profiles by predicted behaviour. Predictive churn risk, expected lifetime value and send-timing models are the reason to pay for it. Those models only matter if the list is actually active, so the pricing question is really a question about how many profiles you will keep marketable.
It is a weaker fit for a plain monthly newsletter sent to a large, mostly silent list. There you pay for every active profile whether or not it ever buys anything, and a per-send or subscriber-based tool will usually cost less. The sections below set out the free plan, the paid brackets, the alternatives that appear in the same price range, and the checks to run before you commit.
Comparison at a glance
Four tools that sit near Klaviyo in budget or purpose. The prices listed are the ones checked on each vendor's pricing page on 7 October 2026. Where no price is published, the table says so.
| Tool | Best for | Starting price (plan and billing) | Key limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Klaviyo | Event-triggered lifecycle sends to active profiles, with predictive models | Free: up to 250 active profiles and 500 sends a month. Email plan: $20 a month for 500 profiles, monthly billing | Cost rises with every active profile; SMS pricing on request |
| Sender | Small lists that need reliable sending at low cost | Free Forever: 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month. Standard: $6.30 a month, 6,000 emails, 500 subscribers | The listed paid tiers are sized around 500 subscribers, so larger lists need a plan not shown in the figures checked |
| Ghost | Newsletters and paid memberships published from one site | Starter: $15 a month, up to 1,000 members, monthly or annual billing at the same rate | Built around publishing and members, not event-triggered lifecycle flows |
| Segment (Twilio Segment) | A customer data layer that feeds AI predictions and many destinations | Pricing on request; a free trial is offered for Connections, with no duration shown | A data pipeline, not a sending tool; you still need an email platform |
What the Klaviyo free plan actually gives you
The free plan has three limits that matter: 250 active profiles, 500 email sends a month, and a $5 mobile message allowance. Each one is a ceiling. Once a limit is exceeded, the account needs a paid plan to keep going, so the free plan is a place to build and test flows, not a long-term home for a list that is growing.
The profile limit counts active profiles, not every address you have ever collected. That distinction is the whole game. A list of 300 contacts, all of them active, already sits above the free plan and needs the smallest paid bracket, which covers 500 profiles at $20 a month. A list of 300 contacts where 120 have not opened anything in a year is a different case: if you suppress or remove the dormant addresses, the active count can fall back under 250.
The 500-send limit works differently. A single flow that sends a welcome series to every new signup can use a large part of it within a few weeks, even if the profile count is low. Count sends per month before you assume the free tier will last. A useful exercise is to take your last month of sends, split them by flow and campaign, and check whether the total stays under 500 once the flows you plan to launch are added.
Treat the free plan as a rehearsal. Build the signup flow, the activation flow and one win-back flow, then measure which events fire and which profiles enter each flow. If the rehearsal shows that most profiles are inactive, the paid cost will be driven by addresses that never engage, and that is a hygiene problem to fix before you upgrade.
Klaviyo's Email plan brackets
Klaviyo prices the Email plan by active profiles. The figures below are monthly prices. No annual price is listed for these brackets in the figures checked on 7 October 2026, so check the pricing page for any annual option before you budget for one.
| Active profiles | Email plan, monthly | Email+SMS plan |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 250 (free) | $0 with 500 sends a month and a $5 mobile allowance | Pricing on request |
| 500 | $20 a month | Pricing on request |
| 1,000 | $30 a month | Pricing on request |
| 2,500 | $60 a month | Pricing on request |
| 5,000 | $100 a month | Pricing on request |
| 10,000 | $150 a month | Pricing on request |
| 25,000 | $400 a month | Pricing on request |
The bracket is set by active profiles. Between two brackets, you pay for the next bracket up, so a list of 2,600 profiles sits in the 5,000 row at $100 a month, not the 2,500 row at $60. Trimming a list just under a bracket boundary can save real money at scale.
What it costs at realistic list sizes
The table compares four list sizes across Klaviyo, Sender and Ghost. Each tool counts something different (active profiles, subscribers or members), so read each row as a rough guide and check the counts against your own list.
| List size | Klaviyo Email plan | Sender | Ghost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 profiles or subscribers | $20 a month (500-profile bracket) | Free Forever: covers 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month | Starter: $15 a month, up to 1,000 members |
| 2,500 | $60 a month (2,500-profile bracket) | Free Forever, at the 2,500-subscriber limit | Business: $199 a month, up to 10,000 members |
| 10,000 | $150 a month (10,000-profile bracket) | Pricing on request | Business: $199 a month, up to 10,000 members |
| 25,000 | $400 a month (25,000-profile bracket) | Pricing on request | Pricing on request |
Derived annual figures use monthly prices only: at 10,000 profiles Klaviyo's Email plan works out to 12 × $150 = $1,800 a year, and Ghost's Business tier at 12 × $199 = $2,388 a year. The Sender row at 10,000 and the Ghost row at 25,000 are left open because no published price for those sizes was found on the vendor pages checked.
Klaviyo: where it earns the price
What it does well for this audience. Klaviyo is built for profiles that change state. Signups, activations, purchases and cancellations are the events that trigger flows, and the predictive layer ranks profiles by churn risk, expected lifetime value and the likely timing of the next send. The AI features on the page (subject line suggestions, flow drafting from prompts and audit-style checks on composed emails) help a small team move faster on the flows that carry the most revenue.
Where it falls short. Cost follows active profiles, so a freemium product with thousands of low-intent signups pays for each one as soon as it leaves the free plan. The vocabulary defaults to commerce (carts, orders, products), so SaaS teams usually need an editing pass to map flows to trials and seats. SMS is priced separately, and no monthly price for the Email+SMS plan is published on the pages checked.
Price. Free up to 250 active profiles and 500 sends a month. The Email plan starts at $20 a month for 500 profiles, billed monthly.
Sender: low-cost sending for smaller lists
What it does well. Sender's free tier is the most generous in this group for a small list: up to 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month at no cost. It suits newsletters and simple automated sequences where the question is reliable delivery at a low price rather than predictions per contact.
Where it falls short. The listed paid tiers, Standard at $6.30 a month for 6,000 emails and Professional at $10.50 a month for 12,000 emails, are both sized around 500 subscribers. A list above that needs a plan that is not shown in the figures checked, so confirm the next size on the pricing page. Predictive models are not part of the listed plan details.
Price. Free Forever up to 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month. Standard $6.30 a month and Professional $10.50 a month, both billed monthly or annually at the same monthly rate.
Ghost: publishing and paid memberships
What it does well. Ghost is a publishing platform first. Its paid tiers are built for a site that publishes newsletters and sells memberships, and the Publisher tier adds custom themes, paid subscriptions and analytics. A writer who wants the newsletter and the membership in one place will find the model more natural than a lifecycle sending tool.
Where it falls short. Ghost does not sell itself as an event-triggered lifecycle tool, so flows built on product events are not its strength. The price jump from Publisher ($29 a month, up to 1,000 members) to Business ($199 a month, up to 10,000 members) is large, and no published figures cover the gap between those sizes. Ghost is also separately open-source software; the paid tiers are the hosted service.
Price. Starter $15 a month for up to 1,000 members, Publisher $29 a month for up to 1,000 members, Business $199 a month for up to 10,000 members.
Segment: the data layer behind AI predictions
What it does well. Segment collects first-party data and sends it to destinations. The Customer Data Platform tier adds identity-resolved profiles, AI-powered audiences and journey orchestration, with AI predictions and recommendations included. It is the right kind of tool when several systems need one customer profile and the predictions should be shared across them.
Where it falls short. It does not send email on its own, so you still need a sending platform. Pricing is custom and no monthly figure is published, so budget conversations need a quote. The AI predictions and some audience features are add-ons on the Connections tier.
Price. Pricing on request. The pricing page mentions a free trial for Connections without giving its length or limits.
AI inbox clients are a different product
Superhuman, Shortwave, Spark and HEY are AI-native email clients. They help one person or one team read, triage, draft and answer mail in a personal or shared inbox. They do not send campaigns to a list, and they are not priced per profile, so they do not appear in the cost tables above. Pricing for them is on request from each vendor, and this page does not put a figure on them.
The distinction matters when a team asks for "AI email". If the goal is to send lifecycle messages to customers, a sending platform such as Klaviyo is the relevant comparison. If the goal is to get through a shared support or sales inbox faster, an AI inbox client is the relevant comparison, and the two can be used side by side.
How to choose
Start by counting active profiles, not total signups. Export the list, filter for addresses that have engaged in the last 90 days, and use that number to read the bracket. A list of 40,000 signups where 4,000 are active is a 4,000-profile problem for pricing purposes, provided the rest are suppressed or removed in a clear, consistent way.
Next, decide how much of the sending is event-triggered. If most messages follow a product event, Klaviyo's flow model fits. If most messages are a scheduled newsletter, Sender or Ghost will usually cost less per message, and the decision turns on whether you also want memberships (Ghost) or lowest cost at small volume (Sender).
Then decide whether predictions change what you send. Churn risk and expected lifetime value only pay off if a team acts on them: a rescue flow for high-risk profiles, a different offer for high-value profiles, or a timing rule for the next send. If the team will not change its messages based on a score, the predictive features are a cost without a return.
Last, model the next twelve months of list growth, not the current count. A tool that is cheap at 2,000 profiles can cost more than expected at 10,000, and a tool with a generous free tier can still need a large jump in budget once the list passes a limit. The briefs in the prompt gallery can help draft the flows you would test during a trial.
Which tool for which job
Use this table to match the requirement to the tool. The "because" column gives the reason that comes from each vendor's published plan details, not from a test.
| If you need | Pick | Because |
|---|---|---|
| Event-triggered flows on an active list, with predictive scoring | Klaviyo | Predictive churn, lifetime value and timing models are part of the platform; the Email plan starts at $20 a month for 500 profiles |
| Lowest cost for a list under 2,500 subscribers | Sender (Free Forever) | Covers 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month at no cost |
| A newsletter with paid memberships | Ghost | Publisher and Business tiers include paid subscriptions and member limits |
| One customer profile shared across many systems and AI audiences | Segment, paired with a sending tool | Identity-resolved profiles and AI predictions sit in the data layer, not in the sender |
| Faster handling of a shared personal or team inbox | An AI-native inbox client (Superhuman, Shortwave, Spark or HEY) | They work on mail you receive and reply to, not on lists you send to |
Profile hygiene is the cost lever
On a per-profile plan, the cheapest contact is the one you never import. Before any migration, remove exact duplicates, merge records that share an address with a different spelling, and drop addresses that have hard-bounced. Each duplicate that survives counts as an active profile if it is marketable, so the cleanup goes straight into the bill.
Write a sunset rule before you import. A common version is to suppress any profile with no open or click in 180 days, then move it to a re-engagement flow and remove it if it does not respond. The rule does not have to be perfect; it has to be written down so that the active count is the same every month and the bracket does not drift upward without anyone choosing it.
Consent matters as much as cost. Import only contacts who have a valid basis for marketing, keep the source of each list, and suppress addresses that have opted out. A list that is smaller and consented is cheaper to run and easier to defend than a larger one that includes people who never asked for email.
Setup and migration checklist
Moving to a new sending platform is mostly a data job. The predictions are only as good as the events feeding them, so instrument those events first and import contacts second. The table gives a practical order.
| Step | What to do | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Clean the list | Remove duplicates and hard bounces; merge records that share an address | One row per address, bounces removed |
| 2. Write the active rule | Define an active profile, for example an open or click in the last 180 days | The rule is written and agreed by the team |
| 3. Map the events | Set up signup, activation, purchase or subscription, and cancellation events | Each event fires once in a test account |
| 4. Import in segments | Import the engaged segment first, the rest after the first flows run | Active profiles match the expected count |
| 5. Build three flows | Welcome, activation and win-back flows, using the events from step 3 | Each flow enters the right profiles in test |
| 6. Warm up sending | Send to the most engaged segment first and widen it over a few weeks | Complaint and bounce rates stay stable |
| 7. Review predictions | Check whether the predicted segments match real behaviour after 60 to 90 days | A written note on which predictions changed a send |
Keep the old platform running for one cycle after the switch, so that a missed flow or a broken event can be checked against it. Do not import dormant contacts to make the list look larger on day one. Every dormant profile raises the bracket while adding nothing to the flows that depend on engagement.
Frequently asked questions
Is Klaviyo free to use?
Yes, within limits. The free plan covers up to 250 active profiles, 500 email sends a month and a $5 mobile message allowance. Above those limits you need a paid plan.
How many profiles can I have on the free plan?
Up to 250 active profiles. Inactive contacts can be kept in the account, but the limit is set by the profiles that are active and marketable, so suppressing dormant addresses is how most teams stay under it.
What is the cheapest paid Klaviyo plan?
The Email plan for 500 active profiles, at $20 a month on monthly billing. The next brackets are $30 for 1,000 profiles, $60 for 2,500, $100 for 5,000, $150 for 10,000 and $400 for 25,000.
Does Klaviyo offer annual billing?
The monthly prices checked on 7 October 2026 for the Email plan show no annual price, so check the Klaviyo pricing page for any annual option before you budget.
How much does Email+SMS cost?
Pricing on request. The Email+SMS brackets run from 500 to 25,000 profiles, but no monthly figure is published for them in the pricing details checked.
When is Sender cheaper than Klaviyo?
When the list is small and the sending is mostly newsletters or simple sequences. Sender's free tier covers 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month, while a Klaviyo profile bracket of 2,500 costs $60 a month.
Is Klaviyo a good fit for SaaS products?
It can be, if the team has an event model for trials, activations and cancellations and is willing to map the commerce vocabulary to seats and plans. Budget for an editing pass on the flow copy and a mapping pass on the events, and check the profile count against the trial and free-tier users you expect to keep.
Related
- AI-native email tools overview — the wider list this guide sits within.
- Pricing overview — all pricing guides compared.