Email Marketing
What does Klaviyo cost in 2026, and when does the free plan stop working?
Klaviyo pricing starts at $0 for up to 250 active profiles and $20 a month for email once you pass 250 profiles, verified on the official pricing page on 17 October 2026. There is no published rate card: the plan builder prices email, SMS, Composer and Customer Hub off a single profile count.
What matters
- Free covers 250 active profiles, 500 email sends a month, $5 of mobile messages and $5 of Composer usage, and Klaviyo's FAQ says the plan can be kept indefinitely inside those limits.
- Email starts at $20 a month for 251 to 500 active profiles; the same band costs $35 when SMS/MMS credits are bundled in, per the offer data on klaviyo.com/pricing (read 17 Oct 2026).
- At 500 profiles the plan builder includes 5,000 email sends a month and was running a $19 first-month discount, which left $1 due in month one.
- Composer is a $20 a month add-on once the free $5 allowance runs out, and extra usage is sold in $10 increments.
- A single profile count reprices four products at once: the builder states that Email, Personalization and Social marketing all move with the same slider, and Customer Hub is tied to it.
Klaviyo pricing at a glance
Klaviyo does not publish a rate card. The pricing page opens on a free-plan summary, and paid pricing comes out of a "Build a plan" flow that asks for one number, your active profile count, then returns a monthly total. Email is bundled into every paid plan. Composer, mobile messages, Customer Hub and social marketing are priced as additions against that same profile count.
Only two figures are published without touching the builder: the free tier, and the entry price for the 251 to 500 profile band, where Email is $20 a month and Email + SMS is $35. Anything above 500 profiles has to be quoted by the builder, which is why most third-party comparisons go stale: the rates are generated, not listed.
That structure has a practical consequence. You cannot price Klaviyo from a screenshot of its pricing page, and anyone who quotes a full tier ladder for 2026 is working from an older plan structure or from memory.
Email at $20 a month includes 5,000 sends at 500 profiles
On the builder's 500-profile step, Email showed $20 a month with 5,000 email sends included. Profiles and sends are two separate counters: the profile figure sets the price, the send allowance sets how much mail you can push out, and a heavy month can exhaust sends without the profile count moving at all.
A first-month offer was live during the check. The builder applied $19 off on the 500-profile step, which made month one $1 instead of $20. Offers rotate and the terms page governs them, so budget the standing $20 rather than the promotional dollar.
Over twelve months, email at that band is $240. The move from free to paid is a step rather than a slope: 250 profiles is $0, and 251 profiles is $20 a month.
What counts as an active profile
Klaviyo's FAQ defines the billing unit as active profiles, meaning "contacts who may receive marketing emails". That is not the same thing as your subscriber count, and the gap between the two is where surprise bills come from.
Before picking a band, read the profile count inside the account rather than the list size you imported, and archive records you will never mail again. The same number does more than set the email price: Klaviyo's builder warns that moving the profile slider also changes the prices for Email, Personalization and Social marketing, and Customer Hub is priced against it too. Marketing decisions about list hygiene turn into billing decisions here.
The free plan, and the wall at 250
Free is a real tier, not a 14-day trial. Klaviyo's FAQ says an account can stay on it indefinitely as long as it holds 250 active profiles or fewer and sends no more than 500 emails a month. The free plan also includes $5 of mobile messages a month (region and carrier dependent), $5 of Composer usage, web forms, the drag-and-drop editor, an AI subject line generator, basic segmentation and built-in reporting.
Cross either limit and sending pauses until you upgrade. That is the failure mode to plan for: nothing is deleted and no card is charged, your campaigns and flows simply stop delivering, which is worse than a bill if you notice late.
Support is the other free-tier limit. Email support runs for the first 60 days, then drops to the academy, community and help centre.
The send allowance is where free gets tight. MailerLite's free plan also caps the list at 250, but it allows 2,500 monthly emails, five times Klaviyo's ceiling. A 250-person list mailed weekly needs roughly 1,000 sends a month, so it fits MailerLite's free tier and breaks Klaviyo's.
Four costs that sit outside the plan price
- Mobile messages. SMS is metered per send rather than bundled: the builder lists $0.01 per US toll-free SMS plus carrier fees, and rates differ by destination and message type.
- Composer. A $20 a month add-on, with extra usage purchased in $10 increments. Free accounts get $5 of Composer usage instead.
- Customer Hub. Priced against the same active-profile slider, so onboarding it raises the whole plan rather than adding a flat fee.
- Profile growth. Each step up in profile count re-prices every attached product, so a list that grows lifts several line items together, not just email.
Add those four up before comparing Klaviyo with a flat-rate competitor. A $20 email plan plus a $20 Composer seat plus metered SMS is a $40-plus platform, and the builder showed exactly that total once Composer was switched on.
Email + SMS at $35, and who it suits
The $35 band exists for accounts that want both channels reading from one profile list. It includes email plus SMS/MMS credits, per the offer data on the pricing page, and per-message rates still depend on destination, with US toll-free SMS quoted at $0.01 plus carrier fees.
The bundle earns its keep when text is a real channel: abandoned-cart nudges, back-in-stock alerts and delivery updates all land better by SMS, and running them from the same profile record keeps segmentation and suppression consistent across both channels. If texts are occasional, the $20 Email plan plus metered messages is the cheaper structure, because you pay for the messages you send instead of committing to the bundle every month.
How this compares with contact-based pricing
Mailchimp prices by contact count and expresses the monthly send allowance as a multiple of contacts, listing 15X, 12X and 10X across its three paid tiers alongside a Free plan, according to its plan comparison page. Klaviyo's logic is similar in spirit, one list metric sets the price, but the mechanics differ: Klaviyo quotes a bundled email price per profile band and then meters message credits on top, while Mailchimp quotes per contact with a send multiple attached.
For a buyer the difference shows up in two places. First, Klaviyo's free tier is generous on profiles and stingy on sends, which suits a big dormant list and punishes a small active one. Second, the paid entry at $20 for 251 to 500 profiles is competitive against contact-based plans at the same list size, but the number is only checkable in the builder, so a like-for-like comparison means running both vendors' calculators rather than reading two pricing pages.
Who should pay, and when to walk away
- Under 250 profiles and under 500 sends a month: stay on free. There is no time limit, and the feature set covers forms, templates, segmentation and basic flows.
- Ecommerce running flows plus SMS off one list: Email + SMS at $35 for the 251 to 500 band is the entry point, and the shared profile count keeps cross-channel segmentation consistent.
- Newsletter-first with a tight budget: a flat-rate tool with a bigger free send allowance, such as MailerLite at 2,500 monthly emails on 250 subscribers, covers the same list for less.
- Above 500 profiles: get the builder quote first. With no public table, price discovery has to happen before the platform comparison, not after.
The honest summary: Klaviyo is priced for stores that will grow, and its free tier is shaped to move you off it quickly once sending volume picks up. If your list is small and your sends are modest, the wall at 250 profiles and 500 sends arrives sooner than the profile limit suggests.
At a glance
| Plan | Active profiles | Price | Email sends included | What costs extra |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Up to 250 | $0 | 500 per month | $5 mobile messages and $5 Composer usage are included, then metered |
| 251 to 500 | $20 per month | 5,000 per month (builder at 500 profiles) | SMS at $0.01 plus carrier fees per US toll-free send; Composer $20 per month | |
| Email + SMS | 251 to 500 | $35 per month | Email allowance plus SMS/MMS credits | Per-message rates vary by destination and carrier |
| Above 500 profiles | Custom | Quoted in the builder | Scales with the profile band | Email, Personalization, Social marketing and Customer Hub reprice together |
FAQ
Is Klaviyo free?
Yes, within limits: 250 active profiles, 500 email sends a month, plus $5 of mobile messages and $5 of Composer usage. Klaviyo says the plan can be kept indefinitely inside those limits, and sending pauses rather than charging you if you exceed them.
How much does Klaviyo cost for 1,000 contacts?
Klaviyo publishes no rate card above 500 profiles, so a 1,000-profile price has to come from its plan builder. What is published: Email is $20 a month at 251 to 500 active profiles, and Email + SMS is $35 at the same band.
Is Klaviyo cheaper than Mailchimp?
Neither vendor publishes a head-to-head, and both price on list size. Klaviyo's published entry is $20 a month for email at 251 to 500 profiles, while Mailchimp lists Free, Essentials, Standard and Premium with send allowances of 15X, 12X and 10X contacts. Run both calculators at your own profile count.
Related reading
Mailchimp vs Klaviyo compared, best email marketing software, Klaviyo tool profile