Klaviyo vs. Mailchimp for Shopify: Why We Only Work With Klaviyo

"Should we use Klaviyo or Mailchimp?"

We get this question on nearly every discovery call. The brand is on Shopify, they're either starting email from scratch or outgrowing their current tool, and they want to know which platform is the right choice.

Our answer is always Klaviyo. Not because we're biased (though we are specialists). Because for Shopify e-commerce brands, the two platforms aren't even in the same category once you look past the surface.

Here's the honest breakdown.

The Fundamental Difference

Mailchimp is a general-purpose email marketing platform. It works for bloggers, SaaS companies, nonprofits, restaurants, and yes, e-commerce stores. It's designed to be good enough for everyone.

Klaviyo is built specifically for e-commerce. Every feature, every integration, every metric is designed around one thing: turning customer data into revenue. It's not trying to serve everyone. It's trying to be the best tool for online stores.

This philosophical difference shows up in everything: data handling, flow capabilities, segmentation, reporting, and especially the Shopify integration.

Shopify Integration Depth

This is where the gap is widest.

Klaviyo's Shopify integration syncs everything: orders, products, customer profiles, browsing behavior, cart activity, checkout events, fulfillment data, and refunds. It happens in real-time. When a customer views a product on your Shopify store, Klaviyo knows about it within seconds and can trigger a flow based on that behavior.

Mailchimp's Shopify integration syncs basic data: orders, customer information, and product catalog. But the behavioral tracking — product views, cart additions, checkout starts — is either limited or requires additional setup. The real-time event processing that powers abandoned browse, abandoned cart, and other behavioral flows doesn't work at the same depth.

In practice, this means Klaviyo can trigger a Browse Abandonment email within an hour of someone viewing a product. With Mailchimp, building the same flow is either impossible or requires workarounds that are fragile and hard to maintain.

Flow and Automation Capabilities

Klaviyo's flow builder is designed for e-commerce complexity. You can build flows triggered by any Shopify event, add conditional splits based on purchase history, cart value, product category, customer segment, engagement level, and dozens of other criteria.

The branching logic is where the real power lives. A Welcome Series in Klaviyo can split based on whether the subscriber signed up through a discount popup or a product quiz, show different products based on browsing history, and adjust the offer based on their predicted customer lifetime value.

Mailchimp has automation capabilities, and they've improved significantly. But the trigger options are narrower, the branching logic is simpler, and the e-commerce-specific events that Klaviyo handles natively require custom integrations or Zapier workarounds in Mailchimp.

For basic automations — a simple welcome email, a basic abandoned cart — both platforms work. For the kind of sophisticated, behavior-driven flows that generate serious revenue, Klaviyo is in a different league.

Segmentation

Klaviyo's segmentation is built on real-time customer data. You can create segments based on:

• Engagement recency (opened in last 14, 30, 60, 90 days)
• Purchase behavior (first-time buyer, repeat buyer, VIP by revenue)
• Product affinity (viewed or purchased specific categories)
• Predictive analytics (expected date of next order, predicted lifetime value, churn risk)
• Custom properties synced from Shopify (tags, metafields, order data)

These segments update automatically and in real-time. When a subscriber opens an email, they immediately move into the "Engaged 14" segment. When a customer's predicted churn risk increases, they can automatically enter a winback flow.

Mailchimp's segmentation works on similar principles but with less granularity and slower updates. The predictive analytics that Klaviyo offers — particularly the predicted CLV and expected next order date — don't have equivalents in Mailchimp's e-commerce feature set.

For campaign targeting, the difference is practical: Klaviyo lets you build the precise sending cadence rules (4-5 sends/week to Engaged 14, 2-3 to Engaged 30, 1-2 to Engaged 60) that protect deliverability while maximizing revenue. In Mailchimp, achieving the same precision requires more manual work.

Revenue Attribution and Reporting

Klaviyo's reporting is built around revenue. The dashboard immediately shows you Klaviyo-attributed revenue, flow vs. campaign breakdown, revenue per recipient, and how email's share of total store revenue is trending.

This matters because the primary question every e-commerce brand asks about email is: "How much money is it making?" Klaviyo answers this on the home screen.

Mailchimp has revenue tracking, and it's improved with their e-commerce features. But the attribution model, the depth of flow-level reporting, and the integration with Shopify's revenue data aren't as seamless.

When we build client reports, every number we need is available natively in Klaviyo. With Mailchimp, getting the same level of revenue insight typically requires exporting data and combining it with Shopify reports manually.

Pricing: Where Mailchimp Wins (Sort Of)

Mailchimp is cheaper at lower subscriber counts. Their free tier works for very small lists, and their paid plans are less expensive than Klaviyo's at most list sizes.

Klaviyo is more expensive. There's no free tier for meaningful usage. Pricing scales with subscribers and SMS messages.

But here's the thing: for e-commerce brands doing €50K+/month on Shopify, the tool cost is a rounding error compared to the revenue difference. If Klaviyo's superior flows, segmentation, and Shopify integration generate even 5% more email revenue than Mailchimp, the ROI on the higher price is massive.

We've seen brands switch from Mailchimp to Klaviyo and see email revenue increase 30-50% within 90 days — not because Mailchimp is bad, but because Klaviyo's tools let you execute strategies that Mailchimp can't support at the same level.

The One Scenario Where Mailchimp Makes Sense

If you're a very early-stage brand doing less than €10K/month, haven't validated product-market fit yet, and need basic email functionality without investment, Mailchimp's free or low-cost tier is reasonable. You can send newsletters and basic automations while you figure out whether the business works.

But the moment you're serious about scaling — the moment email needs to become a real revenue channel — you'll outgrow Mailchimp and the migration will cost you time and momentum.

Our recommendation is always to start on Klaviyo if you know e-commerce is your business. The learning curve is similar, the cost difference at small scale is minimal, and you avoid the painful migration later.

Why We Only Work With Klaviyo

We're transparent about this: Redot only builds on Klaviyo. Not because we're paid to (we're not). Because specialization produces better results.

Every flow we build, every segment we design, every campaign strategy we execute is built on deep Klaviyo expertise. We know the edge cases, the hidden features, the optimization tricks that come from working in one platform extensively.

A generalist who works across five email platforms will always know less about each one than a specialist who works in one. When that knowledge gap translates into revenue, the specialist wins.

For our DTC clients, Klaviyo has been the platform that consistently delivers. The combination of Shopify integration depth, flow sophistication, real-time segmentation, and revenue-focused reporting makes it the right tool for the job.

The platform you choose is the foundation of your email program. Choose the one built for what you're trying to do.