Klaviyo is our recommended email marketing platform and has announced SMS as a strategic focus. While it’s nice in theory to manage email and SMS on a single platform, we don't recommend it. Klaviyo’s main focus is email, and SMS has historically been an afterthought, and Klaviyo’s SMS product has suffered as a result. Customer profiles are built off email addresses in Klaviyo and merging profiles is difficult with Klaviyo SMS, so if someone has signed up for your email list with multiple emails (e.g., work and personal) then you may end up sending duplicate texts to the same person. Segmenting and AB testing is also more difficult with Klaviyo SMS vs our recommended solution (Postscript).
Read our full guide on: SMS Marketing Tools 💬
Best for: Medium ($10M+ revenue) and Enterprise ($50M+ revenue) size companies
Klaviyo is primarily an email marketing platform that also offers SMS (text message) marketing in addition to their core email offering.
Klaviyo was founded back in 2012 by Andrew Bialecki and Ed Hallen who worked together at a technology consulting company Applied Predictive Technologies (APT). It didn't start as an email marketing platform. When it was founded, Klaviyo was a database to collect eCommerce data. The founders built a custom database to store and stitch together disparate eCommerce data (website browsing history, purchase data, etc.). Later they realized that in order to sell this product, they had to make the data they were collecting translate into revenue for their customer. They realized email was the best place to action on the data insights and added email capability to their strong database. Klaviyo has grown into the dominant email marketing platform among eCommerce companies and for good reason. We think it is the best email marketing solution, however, we think their are better point solutions for SMS marketing.
Klaviyo's SMS is an additional cost to their email plan and starts at $15 per month. You would still pay for the base email offering even if you just used SMS.
Klaviyo's SMS pricing is usage based. SMS will cost one credit ($0.01) per send. MMS (texts including photos or videos) cost three credits ($0.03) per send. Prices will scale up based on the number of sends.
Does Klaviyo offer SMS?
Yes, Klaviyo offers SMS (text message) marketing in addition to their core email offering.
Who uses Klaviyo SMS?
Klaviyo SMS customers include Athletic Greens, Glossier, and Honeylove.
How much does Klaviyo charge per SMS?
It costs $0.01 to send a SMS using Klaviyo SMS (in the US). International pricing will vary by market.
What are the cons of Klaviyo SMS?
While it’s nice in theory to manage email and SMS on a single platform, we don't recommend Klaviyo SMS. Klaviyo’s main focus is email, and SMS has historically been an afterthought, and Klaviyo’s SMS product has suffered as a result. Customer profiles are built off email addresses in Klaviyo and merging profiles is difficult with Klaviyo SMS, so if someone has signed up for your email list with multiple emails (e.g., work and personal) then you may end up sending duplicate texts to the same person. Segmenting and AB testing is also more difficult with Klaviyo SMS vs our recommended solution.
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