Overview
Klaviyo and ActiveCampaign are both powerful email marketing platforms, but they excel in different areas. Klaviyo is the undisputed leader for e-commerce email marketing with the best Shopify integration and revenue-focused features. ActiveCampaign is a versatile marketing automation platform with CRM capabilities that works well across many business types. See our detailed Klaviyo comparison and ActiveCampaign comparison.
E-commerce vs General Marketing
Klaviyo was built from day one for e-commerce. Every feature centers on shopping behavior, purchase data, and revenue generation. You get predictive analytics, CLV tracking, product recommendations, and the deepest Shopify integration available.
ActiveCampaign is a generalist. It handles e-commerce adequately through integrations, but its real strength is versatile marketing automation that works for service businesses, agencies, B2B companies, and more.
Automation Capabilities
ActiveCampaign's automation builder is one of the best in the industry. It offers deeper conditional logic, more trigger options, and greater flexibility than Klaviyo. You can build complex workflows for lead nurturing, sales follow-up, customer journeys, and more.
Klaviyo's automation is excellent but focused on e-commerce scenarios. Abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase, and win-back flows are where it shines. For general marketing automation, ActiveCampaign has the edge.
CRM Integration
ActiveCampaign includes a full CRM with deal tracking, sales pipelines, and lead scoring. This makes it a complete sales and marketing solution. Klaviyo focuses purely on marketing and customer data, requiring a separate CRM for sales management.
Pricing Reality
At 10,000 subscribers, ActiveCampaign costs $79/month compared to Klaviyo's $150/month. That is a significant difference. For non-e-commerce businesses, ActiveCampaign clearly offers better value. For e-commerce, Klaviyo's specialized features often generate enough additional revenue to justify the premium.
The Verdict
If you run an e-commerce store, especially on Shopify, Klaviyo is worth the investment. Its e-commerce features are unmatched. If you run any other type of business, ActiveCampaign offers better value with more versatile capabilities.
For SaaS Companies
Neither Klaviyo nor ActiveCampaign is ideal for SaaS businesses. Sequenzy is built specifically for SaaS with native Stripe integration, subscription-aware automation, and unified transactional + marketing emails. Check our pricing page for details.