How Much Should You Spend on Email Marketing? A Realistic Budget Breakdown

Email marketing has the highest ROI of any digital channel. The commonly cited number is €36 returned for every €1 spent. But that number means nothing if you don't know what "spent" actually looks like for a Shopify brand at your stage.

The honest answer to "how much should I spend?" is: it depends on where you are, what you're building, and whether you're doing it yourself or hiring help. Here's the realistic breakdown.

The Three Cost Categories

Email marketing costs fall into three buckets:

1. Platform costs — what you pay Klaviyo (or your ESP) monthly

2. Execution costs — the people doing the work (you, a freelancer, or an agency)

3. Support costs — design tools, list verification, additional software

Most brands drastically underestimate category 2. They see Klaviyo's monthly fee and think that's the email marketing budget. The platform is the smallest line item. The strategy and execution are where the real investment goes.

Platform Costs: What Klaviyo Actually Costs

Klaviyo's pricing scales with your subscriber count and SMS message volume. As of early 2026, the rough tiers for email-only:

• 0-500 subscribers: Free tier (limited features)
• 1,000-5,000 subscribers: €45-€100/month
• 5,000-15,000 subscribers: €100-€250/month
• 15,000-30,000 subscribers: €250-€400/month
• 30,000-50,000 subscribers: €400-€700/month
• 50,000-100,000 subscribers: €700-€1,200/month

SMS adds cost on top — priced per message, varying by country. For most Shopify brands starting SMS, budget an additional €100-€300/month for SMS credits.

Important: these costs only cover the platform. Klaviyo sends your emails. It doesn't write them, design them, strategize them, or optimize them.

Execution Costs: The Real Investment

This is where the budget conversation gets real. Someone has to do the work: strategy, copywriting, design, flow building, campaign execution, segmentation, testing, reporting.

Option 1: DIY (You Do It Yourself)

Cost: €0 in direct spend. 10-20 hours/month of your time.

If you're a founder doing €50-100K/month and wearing multiple hats, this is where most brands start. You can learn Klaviyo, set up basic flows, and send campaigns yourself.

The trade-off is opportunity cost. Every hour you spend building email flows is an hour you're not spending on product development, customer relationships, or other growth channels. For brands in the early stages, this trade-off is acceptable. For brands scaling past €100K/month, your time is too valuable for email execution.

Realistic DIY output: basic Welcome Flow, basic Abandoned Checkout flow, 1-2 campaigns per week with simple design.

Option 2: Freelancer

Cost: €500-€2,000/month depending on scope and experience.

A good Klaviyo freelancer can handle campaign execution, basic flow building, and reporting. They won't typically provide high-level strategy, advanced segmentation architecture, or the kind of systematic optimization that moves email from 5% to 25% of store revenue.

Best for: brands doing €50-150K/month who need execution support but can provide strategic direction themselves.

What to look for: Klaviyo certification, Shopify-specific experience, portfolio showing flow architecture and campaign results, not just pretty designs.

Option 3: Specialized Agency

Cost: €1,500-€5,000+/month depending on scope and list size.

An agency provides the full package: strategy, implementation, execution, optimization, and reporting. A good agency doesn't just send emails — they build a systematic email program that grows revenue month over month.

Best for: brands doing €100K+/month who want email to become a serious revenue channel (25-40% of total store revenue) and don't have the in-house expertise to get there.

The agency fee should be evaluated against the revenue it generates, not as a standalone cost. If an agency costs €3,000/month and generates €30,000+/month in Klaviyo-attributed revenue, the ROI is 10x. That's a profitable investment, not an expense.

Option 4: In-House Hire

Cost: €3,000-€6,000+/month (salary + benefits for a dedicated email marketer).

For brands doing €300K+/month with email contributing significantly to revenue, a dedicated in-house email marketer can make sense. They know the brand deeply and can execute quickly.

The challenge: finding someone with both strategic thinking and technical Klaviyo skills is difficult. Most in-house hires are strong in one area but weak in the other. Many brands that hire in-house still work with an agency or consultant for strategy and optimization.

Support Costs: The Extras

These costs are smaller but worth budgeting:

Email design tools: Canva Pro (€12/month) or Figma for custom designs. Many brands use Klaviyo's built-in template editor, which is included in the platform cost.

List verification: Services like NeverBounce or ZeroBounce for cleaning imported lists. €50-200 per cleaning depending on list size. Typically needed once at setup and occasionally after that.

Testing tools: Litmus or Email on Acid for cross-client rendering tests. €80-150/month. Optional — Klaviyo's built-in preview covers most needs.

Stock photography: If you don't have original product photography for every email. €15-30/month for a stock subscription. But honestly, your own product photos will always outperform stock.

The Budget Framework by Revenue Stage

Here's how the total monthly email marketing budget typically breaks down:

€50K-100K/month store revenue:

• Klaviyo: €50-150
• Execution: DIY or freelancer (€0-1,500)
• Support: €0-50
• Total: €50-1,700/month
• Target: Get email to 15-20% of store revenue

€100K-300K/month store revenue:

• Klaviyo: €150-400
• Execution: Freelancer or agency (€1,500-3,500)
• Support: €50-150
• Total: €1,700-4,050/month
• Target: Get email to 25-30% of store revenue

€300K-500K+/month store revenue:

• Klaviyo: €400-1,200
• Execution: Agency or in-house hire (€3,000-6,000)
• Support: €100-300
• Total: €3,500-7,500/month
• Target: Maintain 25-40% of store revenue from email

The ROI Math That Justifies the Investment

Let's say you're doing €150K/month on Shopify. Email currently contributes 5% (€7,500/month). You invest €3,000/month in an agency.

After 90 days, email grows to 20% of store revenue: €30,000/month. Your investment of €3,000 generated an incremental €22,500/month in email revenue. That's a 7.5x return.

After 6 months, email stabilizes at 25-30%: €37,500-45,000/month. The €3,000/month agency fee is now generating 12-15x return.

This is why the question isn't "can I afford email marketing?" It's "can I afford not to invest in email marketing?" For brands leaving 20-30% of potential revenue on the table, the cost of inaction far exceeds the cost of investment.

What to Watch Out For

Agencies that charge per email sent. This creates a perverse incentive to send more emails, not better emails. Look for retainer-based pricing aligned with outcomes.

Freelancers who only do design. A beautiful email that goes to the wrong segment at the wrong time with the wrong offer doesn't generate revenue. You need strategy and execution, not just design.

"Guaranteed" revenue numbers. No legitimate agency or freelancer can guarantee specific revenue from email. They can show past results, explain their process, and set targets — but guaranteeing outcomes they don't fully control is a red flag.

Lowest-bid pricing. If someone offers to manage your Klaviyo account for €300/month, they're either spending 2 hours on your account or outsourcing to someone who doesn't know your brand. You get what you pay for.

The Bottom Line

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective revenue channels available to Shopify brands. The platform cost is modest. The real investment is in the people who build and manage the program.

Match your investment to your stage. DIY at the start if you need to. Hire help when email needs to become a serious revenue channel. Evaluate every cost against the revenue it generates, not in isolation.

The brands that invest properly in email marketing consistently outperform those that treat it as an afterthought. The math makes it one of the clearest investments in e-commerce.