Shopify Email Marketing: Klaviyo, Mailchimp and Shopify Email Compared

By Claire. A Newcastle pet supplies merchant emailed us in February asking whether she should move from Mailchimp to Klaviyo. She’d been on Mailchimp for four years, was paying around $180 a month, and had heard everyone in the Shopify world raving about Klaviyo. The honest answer wasn’t the popular one. After looking at her list size, average order value, and how much segmentation she actually used, we recommended she stay where she was for another six months and revisit when she crossed $2 million in annual revenue. This guide is the framework we used, and it should help you make the same decision honestly.

The three serious options for Australian Shopify merchants

There are dozens of email marketing tools that integrate with Shopify, but for most Australian merchants the realistic shortlist is three: Klaviyo, Mailchimp, and Shopify Email. Each is genuinely good. None is universally the right answer.

• Klaviyo: built specifically for ecommerce, deep Shopify integration, sophisticated segmentation and automation.
• Mailchimp: a generalist tool, decent Shopify integration since the reconciliation in 2022, easier UX for non-technical marketers.
• Shopify Email: native to Shopify, free up to 10,000 emails per month, basic but improving fast.

Features compared honestly

On segmentation, Klaviyo is the clear leader. You can build segments based on browse behaviour, purchase history, predicted lifetime value, time since last order, product affinity, and dozens of other signals. Mailchimp’s segmentation is competent but less ecommerce-aware. Shopify Email’s segmentation has improved (you can now segment by purchase behaviour and tags) but it’s still the most basic of the three.

On automation, Klaviyo’s flow builder is the most powerful. Abandoned cart, abandoned browse, post-purchase, win-back, replenishment, birthday: all are first-class templates with deep variable injection. Mailchimp has the equivalents and they work, but the editing experience is fiddlier and the triggers are less granular. Shopify Email recently added flows through Shopify Flow integration, which is fine for simple welcome series and abandoned cart but not for the kind of multi-branch logic Klaviyo handles natively.

On SMS, Klaviyo’s built-in SMS is genuinely useful and cheaper than running a separate SMS provider. Mailchimp’s SMS is newer and less mature. Shopify Email doesn’t offer SMS at all (you’d use Shopify’s separate SMS product or a third-party).

On templates and design, all three have moved closer together in 2026. Klaviyo’s new editor is much better than it was. Mailchimp has always been strong on templates. Shopify Email is the simplest of the three, which is sometimes an advantage.

Pricing for Australian merchants in 2026

All three are priced in USD, which matters because the exchange rate eats into your margins. Indicative pricing (verify on the vendor sites because pricing changes):

• Shopify Email: free up to 10,000 emails per month, then USD 1 per 1,000 emails. No subscriber tier pricing.
• Mailchimp: free up to 500 contacts, then tiered by contact count. A 5,000-contact account on the Standard plan is around USD 75 per month.
• Klaviyo: free up to 250 contacts and 500 emails per month, then tiered by contact count. A 5,000-contact account is around USD 100 per month for email, plus SMS if you use it.

Klaviyo is typically 30 to 50 per cent more expensive than Mailchimp at equivalent list sizes. If you’re generating meaningful revenue per email, the premium is easily justified. If you’re sending one campaign a month to a list of 4,000 hobbyists, it isn’t.

Integration depth: where Klaviyo earns its premium

The reason Klaviyo dominates in serious Shopify shops is integration depth. It pulls in every event Shopify emits, in close to real time: viewed product, added to cart, placed order, refunded order, customer created, even custom events you push through their API. This data backbone is what makes the segmentation and personalisation feel almost effortless. If you want to see what Shopify actually exposes to tools like this, our guide walks through how to utilise Shopify’s APIs.

Mailchimp’s Shopify integration is functional but operates on a slower sync cycle, which matters for time-sensitive flows like abandoned cart. Shopify Email obviously has the deepest integration of all (it’s native), but lacks the flow logic to take full advantage of the data.

Deliverability: not just a vendor question

Deliverability (whether your emails actually reach the inbox rather than the spam folder) depends on three things: the sender’s domain reputation, list hygiene, and the ESP’s shared IP reputation. All three vendors have generally good deliverability, but Klaviyo and Mailchimp let you set up dedicated sending domains (so your reputation is yours, not shared) which is the right move for any merchant doing serious volume.

Whichever you choose, configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC correctly. Without them, Gmail and Outlook are increasingly aggressive about routing your mail to spam. Both Klaviyo and Mailchimp have setup wizards. Shopify Email handles this automatically when you authenticate your domain through Shopify.

The decision framework: pick by stage, not hype

The honest decision rule we give Australian Shopify merchants:

• Under $500k annual revenue, small list, simple needs: start with Shopify Email. It’s free, it’s good enough, and it removes one moving part from your stack.
• $500k to $2 million annual revenue, growing list, need solid automation but limited budget: Mailchimp is a defensible choice. Don’t let anyone shame you into Klaviyo at this stage.
• Over $2 million annual revenue, or a list where email drives more than 25 per cent of revenue: move to Klaviyo. The segmentation and flow capabilities will pay for the premium.
• If SMS is core to your strategy from day one: Klaviyo, even at lower revenue, because the unified SMS plus email setup is genuinely better.

Migration is real work, plan for it

Switching ESPs isn’t painless. You’ll need to:

• Export your list with all its historical data and re-import it (some metadata won’t survive).
• Rebuild every flow from scratch (they don’t port).
• Re-warm your sending reputation on the new platform, especially if you change sending domain.
• Update every signup form and integration that points at the old ESP.

Budget two to four weeks for a clean migration, longer if you’re moving complex automations. Run both platforms in parallel for a fortnight before fully switching.

Email isn’t the only owned channel

Email is reliably the highest-ROI marketing channel for Shopify merchants, but it works best alongside the rest of your owned media: a fast site that doesn’t bounce visitors, a checkout that converts, and CRO fundamentals that turn email-driven traffic into orders. Our CRO quick wins guide covers the on-site work that complements a good email strategy. For checkout-side performance, see checkout speed optimisation.

The right tool is the one you’ll actually use

A perfectly configured Klaviyo account collecting dust because nobody on your team has time to use it is worse than a Shopify Email setup you’re actively sending from every week. Pick the tool that matches both your stage and your operational capacity. Upgrade when you outgrow it, not when an influencer tells you to.

If you’d like a hand auditing your current setup, choosing the right platform, or migrating between them, our Sydney team works with Australian Shopify merchants on email and marketing infrastructure. Start a project to talk it through, or see our services for ongoing support options.

Want the technical side handled while you focus on campaigns? Our Shopify development crew keeps Australian merchants’ stores ready to convert every send.