Klaviyo: cost per active profile, AI by plan and what store owners report

What Klaviyo is

Klaviyo is an email and text-message platform built for online shops. It pulls in your store’s order data. Then it sends campaigns and automated flows: a welcome series, an abandoned-cart reminder, a “we miss you” email after months without an order.

Most users connect it to Shopify. Its Shopify App Store listing carried 3,428 reviews on 6 November 2026, and the Email plan card lists more than 350 integrations (Klaviyo pricing).

What sets it apart is the shopper data. Klaviyo predicts each customer’s lifetime value and churn risk, and you build segments on those predictions. The AI email marketing hub sets it beside the 14 other email tools we track.

What Klaviyo costs at your list size

Klaviyo bills by active profiles, and the Email plan climbs in tiers. It costs more than Omnisend Standard at each list size below: $150 against $132 at 10,000 contacts.

The gap grows with the list. At 50,000 profiles the Email plan costs $720 a month, against $413 for Omnisend Standard (Klaviyo pricing, Omnisend pricing).

Every Klaviyo plan bills monthly, and the billing article names no annual discount. The free plan holds 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month.

The Klaviyo pricing page lists each tier with its send cap, the SMS plan and the add-ons.

Who counts as an active profile

An active profile is anyone with an email address who is not suppressed from email. Suppressed means unsubscribed, bounced or marked as spam. A phone number alone does not count on the Email plan (billing article, updated 20 October 2026).

So a contact who unsubscribes from texts but still gets emails keeps counting. A contact who never opens keeps counting too. One store owner on Reddit says Klaviyo charges for 11,000 profiles while only 3,000 have opened anything (Reddit).

The tier moves one way by default. Your plan must cover the count at the end of each billing cycle, and past the tier Klaviyo upgrades you automatically. It does not move you back down after a clean-up unless you pick a lower tier or switch on auto-downgrade. The count can take up to 72 hours to refresh.

Commenters on r/Emailmarketing suggest a sunset flow: an automated sequence that suppresses contacts who stop opening, which keeps the count down (Reddit).

Which Klaviyo plan has the AI features

The free plan gets one AI tool, the subject line generator. The rest of the writing and segment AI comes with the paid Email plan.

The Email plan card lists “AI-generated segments, content, and images” and names no usage limit.

Composer is Klaviyo’s AI marketing agent. It schedules tasks, analyses results and builds campaigns and flows. The free plan includes $5 of Composer usage a month, and an add-on at $20 a month gives four times that (Klaviyo pricing).

Customer Agent answers shoppers’ support questions, with 50 free AI resolutions a month (Klaviyo pricing).

One part of the AI is not optional. Klaviyo’s AI FAQ says machine learning and predictive analytics cannot be switched off, while the generative features are optional.

Does Klaviyo train AI on your list

Partly barred, partly unstated. Clause 8.1 of the Terms of Service bars outside AI companies’ models from training on your data. The terms say nothing about Klaviyo’s own models (Terms of Service, updated 17 December 2025).

Terms of Service, 8.1

Customer Data will not be used to train third-party foundation models.

Clause 7.3 adds a wider grant. Klaviyo may build aggregated data that does not identify you and use it for “Services improvement, service and product development, research and marketing”. The Customer Agent help article goes further for that one product: it says customer data is never used to train large language models (help article).

The AI FAQ names OpenAI and AWS Bedrock as model providers and says they are contractually barred from training on your prompts. What the AI writes is yours: clause 8.2 says the customer “owns all Outputs generated for its account”. The guide to which email tools train AI compares this answer with the other 14 tools.

Bot sign-ups raise the bill and hurt deliverability

Deliverability means whether your emails reach the inbox or land in spam. Bot sign-ups hit the bill and deliverability at once.

A fake address that fills in your pop-up becomes an active profile, so it raises your tier and drags down open rates. One reviewer reports a jump from about 16,000 to about 65,000 profiles and a charge above $900 (Shopify App Store). A September thread on r/shopify blames bots for wrecking a store’s deliverability (Reddit).

A dedicated IP is a sending address no other sender shares. Klaviyo keeps it for “Klaviyo managed accounts that meet certain sending criteria” and publishes no price (help article, updated 31 March 2026). Everyone else sends from shared addresses.

What Klaviyo users praise and report

We read the 120 newest Shopify App Store reviews, 60 at each end of the rating scale, and 4 Reddit threads on 6 November 2026. The ones linked here date from 11 December 2024 to 29 October 2026.

Flows and segments lead the praise. One owner singles out the app “especially for building flows and creating segments” (Shopify App Store). Six positive reviews credit the training webinars.

Price leads the complaints. 21 of the 60 newest negative reviews object to a bill that climbs with list size (Shopify App Store, Shopify App Store). Support comes next: 18 of the 60 negative reviews say it is hard to reach, especially on the free plan or after a billing problem.

Klaviyo pros and cons

How Klaviyo compares

The e-commerce email tools list sets Klaviyo beside Omnisend, Brevo and Mailchimp for online stores. The Omnisend profile covers the cheaper Shopify rival, which bills contacts who receive automated messages.

Mailchimp counts unsubscribed contacts in its price, and Brevo bills by emails sent. The email price table prices all 15 tools at your own list size.

Questions buyers ask about Klaviyo

What is Klaviyo?

An email and SMS marketing platform for online stores. It sends campaigns and automated flows built on your store’s order data.

Is Klaviyo free?

Yes, for up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month. Email support ends after the first 60 days.

Does Klaviyo work with Shopify?

Yes. Klaviyo is a Shopify app, and its Shopify App Store listing carries more than 3,400 reviews.

Does Klaviyo charge for unsubscribed contacts?

No. Profiles suppressed from email, which covers unsubscribes, bounces and spam complaints, drop out of the count once suppression is processed.

Does Klaviyo have AI?

Yes. The free plan writes subject lines and includes $5 of Composer agent usage a month. The Email plan adds AI segments, content and images.

Every email tool, with its price at your list size, is in the AI email marketing hub →