Klaviyo is free for very small lists, and above that the monthly price depends on how many people the account can email. Text messages and the one-off set-up work come on top. Orla, who runs a small skincare shop in Clonmel, found that out the hard way when her free Klaviyo plan stopped sending over a bank holiday weekend.
Key takeaways
- Klaviyo is free for accounts that can email fewer than 250 people and send no more than 500 emails a month.
- Above that, the monthly price follows the number of people the account can email, and Klaviyo shows it in US dollars.
- Every Klaviyo customer gets $5 of mobile messaging credit free each month, and anything extra is prepaid and priced per message.
- Once a list passes its profile limit, a paid account moves to a higher plan at the next billing cycle, and a free account cannot send.
- One-off set-up work usually costs €1,650–€3,300 before VAT, as a typical Irish market estimate.
On this page
How Klaviyo pricing works#
Klaviyo charges mainly for the number of people an account can email. Every Klaviyo plan is billed monthly, and any contact the account can email counts as an active profile (A person the account can email, with or without consent.), whatever their consent status. Klaviyo’s help centre sets out that rule, and the section on outgrowing the free plan below explains what happens at the limit.
The free plan itself suits businesses with fewer than 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, according to Klaviyo. Above those limits, Klaviyo’s pricing page lists the plans and shows the monthly price for the reader’s own number of profiles.
Note: VAT on a digital subscription depends on the business’s own tax registration, so two Irish shops can pay different totals for the same Klaviyo plan.
Klaviyo shows its prices in US dollars rather than euro. That means a bank may add a currency fee on every payment, and the euro amount on a statement will rarely match the figure on the page.
Orla checked the pricing page with her own contact count before deciding anything. She also asked her bank what a dollar payment costs her each month.
Klaviyo plans and pricing plans#
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Klaviyo pricing plans come in three shapes: the free plan, a paid email plan, and an email plan with mobile messaging added on. The free plan covers only the smallest lists. A paid email plan sends the campaigns and the email flows (Automatic emails sent when a shopper does something.) that most shops depend on. Its price rises with the number of people the account can email.
Extra tools sit on top of the plan. At the time of writing in October 2026, Klaviyo’s help centre lists two paid add-ons. Customer Hub starts at $20 per month for up to 10,000 active profiles. Marketing Analytics starts at $100 per month for up to 13,500 active profiles. Neither one is part of the core plan, so an owner who wants them should add both to the monthly figure. The official pricing page shows what each plan includes.
Klaviyo SMS pricing#
Text messages are billed separately from email, which catches owners out. Every Klaviyo customer gets $5 of mobile messaging credit each month for free at the time of writing in October 2026, according to Klaviyo’s help centre. Anything beyond that credit is prepaid each month. Each message is priced by channel and country, with carrier fees included, and unused credit does not roll over.
Marketing texts to Irish customers also need clear permission under Irish and EU data protection rules. A business must be able to show where each agreement came from. The Data Protection Commission is the Irish regulator for data protection questions.
Watch out: Unused mobile messaging credit does not carry over, so a big top-up before a one-off sale can be wasted.
Orla held back on texting at first. She kept the monthly top-up small until enough customers had clearly agreed to receive texts.
What happens when a list outgrows the free plan#
Once a list passes its profile limit, the two kinds of plan behave differently. On a paid plan the account moves to a higher plan from the next billing cycle, and the shop keeps sending. On the free plan nothing is upgraded, and the account cannot send emails.
Orla met the free-plan version of that problem. Her list had grown past the limit, the automated flows had gone quiet, and the weekend emails she had planned never left the account.
Not every contact on a list deserves to stay. Removing people the business cannot email, or marking them so they are never contacted, lowers the active profile count.
Tip: Before paying for a bigger plan, export the list, clean out the contacts you can no longer email, and store your consent records in a separate file.
First-year set-up costs around Klaviyo#
The subscription is only part of the first year. The rest is the work of getting the account right, and in Ireland that work is usually quoted as a one-off project. The rows below are the line items an owner normally sees on that quote.
| Set-up work | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Shop or website connection and data import | €350–€700 |
| Consent records and sign-up forms | €250–€500 |
| Automated email flows, three to five of them | €600–€1,200 |
| Templates, styling and a staff training session | €450–€900 |
| Total one-off set-up | €1,650–€3,300 |
Typical Irish market estimate, October 2026, excluding VAT.
What moves the price is mostly the starting point. A shop with a clean list, a modern platform and two flows sits near the bottom of the ranges. A business moving from a spreadsheet, with old consent records and no design assets, sits near the top. The Klaviyo subscription is charged on top of these figures, at whatever the official pricing page shows for that account.
Which Klaviyo plan suits an online shop versus a service business#
An online shop earns most from the automated emails that follow what a shopper does. A welcome message, a basket reminder and a follow-up after a first order are the usual three. Text messages suit shops that run short, time-limited offers. For those businesses, a paid email plan with a few automated flows usually does the work.
A service business works differently. An accountant, a clinic or a tradesperson sends far fewer emails, and most enquiries arrive by phone, web form or email. The bigger win there is capturing each enquiry in a CRM (Software that stores customer details, enquiries and sales notes.) so that somebody follows it up. That is the work covered by lead generation and CRM automation.
Orla’s shop sits in the first group. For her, the plan choice comes down to how many people she can email, how many flows she runs, and whether texting earns enough to justify the extra prepaid bill.
How Baikou uses one automated email for its own enquiries#
Baikou runs a free Growth Check on its own website. When someone completes it, an automatic email goes out with a short plan for that business: the gaps the check found, the next steps, a few relevant guides and a button to confirm a free audit. A confirmed audit lands in the enquiry list with a deadline of two working days, so a person follows it up.
The email is sent from the website itself rather than from a separate email platform, because for a single step like this one well-timed message is enough. Orla can start the same way: one automated email tied to what a shopper has just done is worth more than a busy newsletter calendar.
Putting Klaviyo to work in an Irish small business#
Signing up is the easy part. The account then has to be connected to the shop or website, and the existing list has to be imported without duplicates. The consent records and sign-up forms also need checking, so the business can show where every contact came from. A simple approval rule, where one person reviews a campaign before it sends, prevents most early mistakes.
Training is the step owners most often skip. Someone in the business should be able to build a campaign, read the basic report and understand the monthly bill. That is normally a short session rather than a project.
Some parts of a small business do not fit neatly into an email platform. Cash sales at a market, wholesale orders paid by invoice and enquiries taken by phone rarely connect to online customer records. Those details often stay in a spreadsheet. Deciding where the customer record actually lives is worth doing before the tools are bought.
Where the platform is old or the list is in poor shape, outside help is often the faster route. Email marketing set-up and automation is the type of work involved. The Local Enterprise Office Grow Digital Voucher may part-fund new off-the-shelf software subscriptions together with their set-up and training, as set out in this guide to the Grow Digital Voucher. Some owners compare Klaviyo with Mailchimp before deciding, and the Mailchimp pricing guide sets out what that platform costs.
What to do next#
Count how many people the business can email, put that number into Klaviyo’s own pricing page, and add any mobile messaging on top. Then add the one-off set-up ranges from the table and judge whether the total suits the size of the shop. Choosing the smallest plan that fits today’s list keeps the first year affordable. Baikou helps Irish businesses with email marketing and automation, from the first set-up through to the ongoing flows.
How these numbers were worked out
The Klaviyo figures here come from Klaviyo’s help centre and its email marketing page, both linked above and read in October 2026. The set-up figures are typical Irish market quotes for this kind of project. They are a budgeting guide rather than a quote for any one business, and the Klaviyo subscription is charged separately on top. VAT and bank currency charges are excluded from the table.
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Sources, checked on 13 Oct 2026:
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How much does Klaviyo cost?
Nothing at all while an account stays under 250 people who can be emailed and 500 sends a month. Above that, the monthly price follows the number of active profiles and is charged in US dollars, so a bank fee can appear on the statement too. The set-up work is a separate cost, quoted by whoever carries it out.
Does Klaviyo have a free plan?
Yes. It is aimed at accounts with fewer than 250 active profiles and no more than 500 email sends in a month. That suits a new shop testing a welcome email, or a business with a very small list. Once either limit is passed, the free account cannot send anything until the list is trimmed or a paid plan is chosen.
How does Klaviyo SMS pricing work?
Mobile messaging runs on prepaid credit rather than a flat monthly fee. Klaviyo adds $5 of free credit every month, and anything beyond it is topped up in advance. The rate per message depends on the destination country. Unused credit expires at the end of the month, so small top-ups are safer.
What is the best Klaviyo plan for a small business?
It depends on the size of the list and whether text messages are needed, not on the size of the company. An online shop usually gains most from a paid email plan with a handful of automated flows. A service business with a short list may be better served by keeping enquiries in a CRM and sending a simple newsletter. The free plan is a fair starting point while the list is small.
