Klaviyo vs Listrak: Mid-Market Compared

Klaviyo is the right call for a Shopify DTC brand that wants published pricing, a free tier and a native Shopify integration it can switch on today. Listrak suits a mid-market retailer with stores as well as a website, a team that wants a quoted contract, and channels like in-store and RCS on one platform.

Do you want published pricing or a quoted contract?

This is the sharpest difference between the two.

Klaviyo publishes a starting price. Its email marketing product page states that “Klaviyo pricing starts at $60 per month based on active profiles, and a free tier is available for accounts with under 250 active profiles and 500 monthly email sends” (Klaviyo product page, 4 October 2026; page modified 21 September 2026). An active profile is any profile that can be emailed through Klaviyo regardless of consent status, and your tier is set by the billable profile count at the time of billing (Klaviyo help centre, 25 March 2026). Klaviyo does not print its full tier table on the page we could retrieve, so the price at 20,000 or 50,000 profiles has to be checked in-product. SMS is a separate Mobile Messaging subscription, billed since 13 July 2026 at per-message dollar rates with carrier fees bundled in.

Listrak publishes nothing. Its /pricing URL returns a 404, and none of the pages we fetched carry a dollar figure, a “starts at”, a minimum or a trial (Listrak website, 4 October 2026). Pricing is by quote. Listrak’s positioning explains why: it says it is “built for retail brands that measure success in revenue, not list size”. That is a pitch against profile-based billing, and if your list is large relative to your revenue, it is a pitch worth hearing.

The honest read: Klaviyo lets you model cost before you talk to anyone. Listrak asks you to talk first. Neither is wrong, but they suit different buyers.

Do your customers shop in store as well as online?

Listrak’s headline is “The cross-channel personalization platform”, and the channel list on its site runs “across email, SMS, push, web, in-store, and emerging channels like RCS from a single platform” (Listrak website, 4 October 2026). In-store is the word that matters. If you have physical retail and want the same customer record to drive email, SMS and a point-of-sale interaction, Listrak is selling that directly. Its product set is named accordingly: Listrak Data Platform, Listrak Intelligence, Journey Orchestration, RCS Messaging and “Listrak Studio: Figma to Email”, a Figma-to-email workflow aimed at design teams.

Klaviyo’s product page is ecommerce first. Its lines are “Email marketing that delivers wins”, “One platform for every customer journey”, “Let AI do the optimizing for you” and “Integrate with 350+ apps” (Klaviyo product page, 4 October 2026). It calls itself “the autonomous B2C CRM” and cites 205,000+ brands across 100 countries. Shopify is described as a native integration. Klaviyo’s own page on Listrak, dated 7 October 2025, argues that “While Listrak scrambles to launch table-stakes capabilities, Klaviyo’s already built for the long haul” and includes a migration guide from Listrak. Listrak, for its part, publishes a guide to migrating from Klaviyo (Listrak help centre, 20 February 2024).

For a Shopify-only DTC brand with no stores, Listrak’s in-store and RCS channels are capability you would pay for and not use. For a retailer with 40 stores and a Shopify site, Klaviyo’s 350-app ecosystem matters less than one record that follows the customer into the shop. That is the fork.

How much of the build do you want to own in-house?

The pricing model tells you something about the service model. A self-serve platform with a free tier, like Klaviyo, expects your team to build flows, segments and templates themselves or with an agency. A quote-based platform like Listrak sells against a contract, and its page copy, from Journey Orchestration to “Figma to Email”, speaks to teams with a designer, a CRM lead and a data owner. Listrak’s phrase “Leading Retailers and Brands” is the audience it is naming.

Ask three questions. First, who builds and maintains the flows? If the answer is a two-person marketing team, Klaviyo’s templates and Shopify-native data are the faster start. Second, how many data sources feed the customer record? If it is Shopify plus a reviews app plus a loyalty app, Klaviyo’s 350+ integrations cover it. If it is Shopify plus a POS plus a warehouse system plus a wholesale channel, Listrak’s data platform pitch is aimed at you. Third, what does procurement need? A credit card and a free tier, or a contract with a named account team?

There are things Klaviyo’s page does not tell you. Its tier table could not be retrieved, so the mid-market price is a quote in practice too, just one you get in-product rather than from a rep. Its free tier carries Klaviyo branding in footers and email support for the first 60 days only (Klaviyo help centre, 4 October 2026). And the per-profile model bills every emailable profile, consented or not, so list hygiene is a cost line.

In our retention email programmes, [BMO NUMBER: insert the flow-attributed revenue share or revenue-per-recipient figure you measured on Klaviyo accounts, with account count and window] is the benchmark we hold builds to. For the self-serve end of the market, our Klaviyo vs ActiveCampaign comparison covers the alternative most brands shortlist, and at the enterprise end Klaviyo vs Braze is the pairing to read next.

In-body table: Klaviyo vs Listrak at a glance (vendor pages, 4 October 2026)