Attentive vs Klaviyo: Which Platform Fits Your Store?

Attentive vs. Klaviyo is one of the most common comparisons that ecommerce brands are making right now. These two platforms both allow you to set up multi-channel marketing and use AI to create better marketing campaigns. But under the surface, they have different sets of priorities.

In this article, we’ll provide you with a detailed comparison between their features. We’re talking about email and SMS marketing tools, automation, segmentation, pricing, and integrations.

Attentive vs Klaviyo: Quick Comparison

If you’re short on time, here’s a quick look at how these two platforms compare: 

Dimension	Klaviyo	Attentive	Why It Matters
Primary focus	B2C CRM and marketing automation	Mobile-first marketing platform	Tells you what each platform was actually built for
Channels	Email, SMS/MMS, RCS, WhatsApp, web forms, and mobile push	SMS, MMS, RCS, email, and push notifications	Allows you to check whether your most-used channels are supported
Customer support	24/7 email, live chat (depends on plan)	Onboarding and deliverability support; 24/5 customer support	Shows how quickly they respond to issues and questions
Pricing model	Monthly subscription (profile-based)	Custom pricing (usage-based)	Affects your budget
Free Plan/ Free Trial options	Has a free tier (500 emails + 150 SMS credits)	30-day trial	You can test before paying for any platform
Integrations	350+ native integrations	100+ direct integrations	More app connections mean better data syncing
Data and personalization	Advanced segmentation, AI-powered recommendations	Optimized segmentation for SMS and mobile campaigns; Shopify data integration available	Lets you see how targeted your campaigns can get
Ideal business size	SME businesses	Mid-to-large businesses	Helps you “assess” if the platform matches your business type and size
Unique strength	Lifecycle automation and detailed analytics	SMS engagement and high deliverability	Quick snapshot of what each platform does best
Potential limitation	May be less suitable for brands seeking a dedicated SMS-first platform	Offers fewer features for lifecycle automation than Klaviyo	Helps you see the possible cons you might get

You now have a clear (and quick) idea of what the platforms are. Now, let’s see them closely (and side-by-side).

What Is Attentive?

Attentive is a mobile-first marketing and communication platform. It has features for automating and sending SMS, RCS, emails, and push notifications.

Like most tools nowadays, Attentive uses AI to personalize messages by analyzing customer behavior and purchase history data. Each message you send will feel like it’s written specially for that customer.

With this platform, you can listen to your audience, understand them better,… and deliver the right message to encourage the right action.

Attentive’s Best-Fit Ecommerce Use Cases

Brands that are already using SMS marketing will really find this useful. It’s useful for building retention campaigns like restock alerts and flash sales, and also for product launches, new deals, and promotions.

If you’re looking for a platform that offers dedicated support with 24/5 service and handles onboarding and deliverability, Attentive offers those.

What Is Klaviyo?

Klaviyo is a B2C marketing platform that supports email, SMS/MMS, RCS, WhatsApp, web forms, and even mobile push. 

These channels and customer interactions can be connected through Klaviyo’s “unified” customer profiles. Its messaging channels can be used within campaigns and automated workflows.

Because of its multi-channel automation, coupled with customer lifecycle data, Klaviyo becomes a great option for merchants at different levels. But the channels and advanced features you get may vary based on your plan, region, or account setup. 

Klaviyo’s Best-Fit Ecommerce Use Cases

Klaviyo is great for merchants and e-commerce brands that want to cover the whole lifecycle of marketing. It supports you in “nurturing” customers at every stage, from awareness all the way to advocacy.

And since it supports multi-channel natively, you don’t have to depend on separate tools to manage communication and automation.

Key Differences Between Attentive and Klaviyo

Here’s a quick comparison between Attentive and Klaviyo:

• SMS vs. Multi-Channel Focus: Attentive is an attractive platform for ecommerce brands that count on SMS revenue. It offers mobile-first engagement and powerful SMS capabilities. Klaviyo is a great choice for merchants who need multi-channel control with customer data access, advanced segmentation, and “lifecycle” marketing automation. 
• Pricing Approach: Klaviyo offers public tier-based pricing. Attentive provides custom, usage-based pricing that you have to request from their team. They are both flexible and change depending on active profiles, subscriber volume, message use, channels, etc.
• Shopify Merchant Fit: Attentive is the best for mid-market to large brands (with mature SMS programs and high-volume mobile messaging). Klaviyo works for ALL business sizes that are looking for a “unified platform” with SMS and email marketing tools, segmentation, and retention workflows.
• Decision Insight: Choose Attentive if your main goal is to improve SMS engagement… and conversational commerce. But you can opt for Klaviyo if you want better tools for customer retention and multi-channel campaigns. 

1. Klaviyo vs Attentive: Email Marketing Comparison

Let’s start with the email marketing aspect, as it’s one of the most used channels of ecommerce businesses.

Email Campaign Creation

Klaviyo provides over 160 customizable templates partnered with a drag-and-drop editor. It includes an AI feature that allows you to write effective subject lines much faster. Its email tools also let you personalize product recommendations and send campaigns (to up to 15 segments), so you can be more precise with “who” gets “what” message.

Attentive also has an email composer. You can access dynamic personalization for subscriber names, product upsells, and discount codes.

Email Automation and Flows

Klaviyo has a solid amount of pre-built workflow templates (about 60 as of writing). To name a few, it has welcome email series, cart recovery, post-purchase follow-ups, and win-back campaigns. 

These flows also collect data from predictive analytics (i.e., churn risk and customer lifetime value). So, you get to create more targeted retention workflows as you collect data.

Attentive also has pre-built templates (although fewer than what Klaviyo has) and supports some “behavioral triggers.” If you connect it with Shopify, you get to create sequences for order confirmations and shipping updates.

On top of that, you may access advanced AI features with a certain package or contract.

Deliverability and Inbox Placement

Both platforms require DMARC/SPF/DKIM authentication and branded domains for sending emails. 

Klaviyo has its own “Deliverability Hub” where you can monitor your sender reputation score, track open rates, bounce rates, and spam complaints, and receive recommendations to fix these issues.

Attentive has its own team of experts to help you with deliverability. They build custom warming plans and proactively monitor your campaigns.

Verdict: These two apps have decent basic email marketing features (you can pick any). But if you want more advanced automation, better template options, and some visibility on your email deliverability, Klaviyo has the advantage.

2. Klaviyo vs Attentive: SMS Marketing Tools Comparison

Next, let’s check out how Klaviyo and Attentive support SMS campaigns along with list growth, compliance, and two-way messaging. 

SMS Campaign Management

SMS is an important communication channel for ecommerce merchants. The good thing is that Klaviyo and Attentive have the tools to run successful campaigns, grow your lists, and also engage with customers.

Since Attentive is a “mobile-first” platform, it supports SMS, MMS, and RCS. That allows you to send rich media, interactive campaigns, and verified brand messages.

Klaviyo also handles SMS and MMS, but it’s more powerful in integrating messaging with email and push notifications. And with that, you can coordinate across multiple channels, plus use and share customer data better. 

SMS List Growth and Opt-Ins

For list growth and compliance, these two platforms also offer decent tools. Attentive uses “two-tap” signup technology and also provides compliance checks with audit trails. You can be sure that you collect subscribers properly (without any regulatory violations) and efficiently.

Klaviyo lets you collect phone numbers through Smart Opt-in and site forms. Plus, your subscribers can manage their own consent separately for marketing and transactional messages. separately. And that lowers the “unsubscribe” risks.

Two-Way Messaging and Mobile Engagement

The good news is that Klaviyo and Attentive both offer two-way messaging. 

Attentive’s Concierge feature allows you to combine AI and live agent support to deal with requests, product questions, and campaign replies in real-time. 

Klaviyo also uses AI (through its Customer Agent) to help you respond to inquiries 24/7 and within multiple channels like web, email, SMS, and WhatsApp.

Verdict: Attentive is effective in providing replies for SMS and conversational commerce. But if you want a platform that can cover multiple channels, Klaviyo is the one for that. 

3. Automation and Customer Journey Flows

Now, let’s talk about automation flows that brands can use for customer retention and better sales.

Welcome and Signup Flows

Your welcome flow is the perfect sequence to talk about your brand values and set expectations with your customers. 

Klaviyo and Attentive provide you with ready-made welcome templates for email and SMS. Klaviyo even lets you collect preferences right away, and that’s useful in sending more relevant messages (in the future).

Abandoned Cart and Browse Flows

Automated cart recovery and browse abandonment flows are also available in both apps.

Klaviyo offers dynamic product blocks that “fetch” the exact items a customer left in their cart. And you can use those to send reminder emails (two to four hours after abandonment).

Attentive offers flow for session, browse, cart, and checkout abandonment separately. So, each “drop-off” point gets its own targeted campaign.

Post-Purchase and Retention Flows

You can send order follow-ups, review requests, and product recommendations after a purchase within Klaviyo and Attentive.

But Klaviyo gives you access to more pre-made retention flows. Some examples are “thank you,” “cross-sell and upsell,” “price drop,” and “low inventory flows.” Plus, you get to use customer data to send more specific messages (to the right subscriber group).

Attentive allows you to send different messages based on what was purchased, like care instructions or complementary product suggestions.

Win-Back and Re-Engagement Flows

Klaviyo’s win-back flow is a bit more manual in setup, but it gives you more control. You can target lapsed customers based on your average buying cycle and engagement drop-off. 

Attentive uses AI to review each subscriber’s purchase history and transaction value to identify customers with high-churn chances. Then, it triggers the “win-back” flow automatically to these shoppers.

Verdict: These two platforms have decent automation tools, but Klaviyo is better for building a lifecycle marketing strategy. It has deeper flow options, predictive analytics, and more detailed customer data you can use.

💡Learn more about Klaviyo post-purchase flows and the best flows for customer retention to boost repeat sales.

4. Segmentation and Access to Customer Data

How well your chosen platform collects and organizes customer data can also affect how “fitting” your campaigns will be to your audience. 

Real-Time Segmentation

Klaviyo’s segments update in near real-time based on browsing, purchases, and engagement. Attentive’s segments also update automatically as subscribers meet conditions.

But since segments update on customers’ current activities (rather than what they did last month), Klaviyo allows you to send more relevant messages.

Customer Profiles

Klaviyo is great for creating more detailed customer profiles. It can extract customers’ purchase history, engagement data, and even behavioral signals. Plus, you get to use predictive data like churn risk and customer lifetime value.

Attentive also accesses customer and purchase data with Shopify integration. So, merchants can use Shopify historical orders and other store events to create more dynamic segments.

Attentive’s segmentation is optimized for subscriber engagement and messaging activity. But it can still use ecommerce data (for more targeted mobile campaigns).

Behavioral and Purchase-Based Targeting

Do you want to send highly effective messages to new buyers, repeat or existing customers, and inactive shoppers?

Klaviyo lets you do that by segmenting based on actual purchase and browsing behavior. Attentive can do this too with customer and lifetime purchase data. But that works with the help of Shopify integration.

Verdict: Klaviyo’s customer profiles and predictive segmentation are more useful for activity-based targeting. Attentive is still good for “SMS-driven” segmentation, but that requires a connection with other tools.

5. Shopify and Ecommerce Integrations

Integration with Shopify and ecommerce platforms gives you access to more store data and use them on your marketing workflows. Let’s see the score between these two software.

Shopify Data Sync

Klaviyo allows you to sync:

• Customer profiles (and custom properties)
• Subscription statuses on email and SMS
• Purchase events, email opens, and clicks

While Attentive can gather:

• Product data and past customer purchases
• Abandoned checkouts and customer data
• Real-time SMS and email opt-ins via bidirectional syncing

You can then “feed” this data directly into your segments, flows, and campaigns on either platform.

Ecommerce App Ecosystem

Both platforms have an app marketplace where you can connect your favorite app to either Klaviyo or Attentive.

Klaviyo has 350+ native integrations in multiple ecommerce platforms. We’re talking about order tracking, post-purchase, advertising, reviews, and support tools. Some popular ones include Gorgias for support, TrustWILL for reviews, loyalty, and referrals, and Meta Ads for advertising.

Attentive lets you connect to 100+ apps directly. But if you want to extend that integration to over 2500 more apps, you can use Zapier or Make.

Verdict: Klaviyo has more direct integrations. Its “native” ecosystem is wider and perfect for brands that want to do more with their tool.

6. Reporting, Attribution, and Frequency Controls

Besides the SMS and email features that we talked about earlier, you also have to know how each platform controls message frequency: 

Suppression and Frequency Controls

Sending too many messages is the most effective way to lose your subscribers. But you can prevent that with Smart Sending features, which both platforms have.

Attentive’s default window is eight hours for marketing messages… but transactional messages can bypass this limit. 

Klaviyo manages Smart Sending separately per channel. It comes with a default of 16 hours (for email) and 24 hours (for SMS). The good news is that you can adjust or disable it on these two platforms.

Email and SMS Performance Metrics

Klaviyo can track multiple data points, like:

• clicks
• conversions
• unsubscribes
• revenue per campaign
• and flow revenue.

On top of that, it offers industry benchmark reports.

Attentive tracks revenue by channel and message type, with side-by-side period comparisons and customer journey-level reporting.

Verdict: Both platforms give you “enough” data to guide channel optimization, but Klaviyo has a more detailed reporting feature.

7. Pricing and Scalability

Of course, you also have to check if the platform you like can match your budget and also support your growth.

Klaviyo’s Pricing

Klaviyo offers public pricing that’s arranged by solutions.

You pay separately for Marketing, Data and Analytics, and Service. Email marketing comes standard with every paid plan, and mobile messaging costs are calculated based on volume and destination.

Attentive’s Pricing

Attentive offers custom, usage-based pricing, so you won’t find standard plan tiers or a public price calculator on its website. Your subscription costs will be based on your message volume, subscriber list size, number of channels, and the AI features you decide to add.

It’s great because it gives more flexibility to ecommerce brands, but it’s hard to estimate costs because you have to speak with their team first to know anything.

Cost Considerations

Klaviyo and Attentive are both scalable options for your brands, but they offer different pricing structures, as mentioned. 

We suggest that when comparing costs, consider more than just the “initial” pricing. You should also factor in list growth, sending volume, required channels, implementation needs, and additional support (or services) your team may need.

8. Ease of Use and Team Workflow

Let’s now see how “easy” it is to set up these two platforms for your day-to-day process and marketing strategy:

Setup and Onboarding

Klaviyo allows you to create an account and then launch your first-ever campaign… in just a few hours. If you don’t know what to do, there’s a “get started” tab with a checklist of the best steps to take.

For Attentive, you have to go through their demo first. So, it might take some time (maybe a day or two) to create your first campaign. Luckily, Attentive’s “onboarding” support is included in their paid plans.

Campaign Management

Klaviyo has a “step-by-step” wizard for campaign creation. And it guides you on audience selection, content design, and scheduling.

Its flows are more technical (you have to work on the triggers, filters, and time delays manually), so expect a learning curve for advanced automation.

Attentive’s Campaign Composer lets you see and modify the campaign name, audience, send time, and message content.

Its automation templates also come with branching logic. So, you spend less time on setup and more time on the actual SMS messages.

Support and Deliverability Services

Klaviyo’s paid plans include 24/7 email support and live chat on weekdays. But it offers additional support packages if you want to enjoy better response time, exclusive training sessions, extended live chat, and a deliverability strategy (this is available upon request).

Attentive offers more support. Each paid user gets their support team for strategic planning, onboarding, and deliverability monitoring. But the catch is that it provides 24/5 services.

One Platform vs Best-of-Breed Stack

One of the bigger decisions for growing e-commerce brands is whether to go for an all-in-one platform… or build your own set of apps.

If you have a small team that manages email and SMS, one platform keeps things simpler. That allows them to stay in one tool, access organized data, and also have one app to check reporting and other analysis.

But if your email and SMS teams work separately (or if you need advanced capabilities per channel), a “best-of-breed” approach gives you that. Keep in mind that the “trade-off” will be complexity. You’ll have to manage data sharing, attribution, and integrations within 3-5 tools (or maybe more). That works if you have a larger team or solid resources.

Don’t forget to consider your data needs and also your channel maturity. If you’re running high SMS volume and need advanced segmentation, a specialized tool like Attentive may serve those needs better than an all-in-one platform.

How to Evaluate Before Choosing Between Klaviyo and Attentive

Before you even choose which platform to go for, we suggest you try their free plans/trial and do these three things:

Test A Cart Abandonment Recovery Flow

Cart abandonment is a great flow to check first because it targets “high-intent” buyers. 

What you can do is run one email and SMS flow on each platform and compare their conversion rates, revenue generated, and opt-outs. The result here will show which platform has a better “workflow” for this specific moment.

Experiment with Email and SMS Sequence Order

Next, you can try to experiment with your channel and messages:

• SMS first, then email follow-up
• Email first, then SMS reminder
• Change the time delays between each message
• Suppression rules (so you can avoid messaging customers who’ve already bought)
• Subscriber preferences (to identify which channel gets more engagement)

The sequence you choose affects both the customer experience and your overall revenue, so it’s important to see how these two platforms will work… and which approach will stick.

Compare Revenue, Engagement, and Cost

Don’t just look at the revenue each platform generates. You also have to factor in engagement quality, unsubscribe rates, churn, and monthly costs. 

Because a platform that looks good on revenue but has high opt-out rates or takes too much of your team’s time to manage may not be “sustainable.”

Which Platform Should Shopify Merchants Choose?

If you still can’t decide whether to go for Attentive or Klaviyo, here are our two cents:

Choose Attentive If You Want to Improve Your SMS and Mobile Campaigns

Attentive is made for mobile engagement. If your business belongs to the “mid-size or enterprise” groups and you do high-volume SMS campaigns or need advanced tools (RCS, AI for text messages, etc.), we suggest you go with this platform.

Besides those, it also offers a hands-on support team. You can get 24/5 customer support and a team to help you with onboarding and deliverability.

Choose Klaviyo If You Want a CRM, Email, and SMS Tools In One App

But if you want more of a “multi-channel” approach, where you can manage email, SMS, and push notifications while also collecting customer data, Klaviyo is the real deal.

Its integration with Shopify (and other apps) also allows you to connect your fave tools and build better workflows for your brand.

Klaviyo is also a better choice for lifecycle marketing… as it provides predictive analytics and multi-step flows. It’s much easier to run retention campaigns.

When Should You Use Both

If you want to get the “best of both worlds” on CRM and communication channels, you can connect these platforms. But that comes with double subscription and dashboard management.

Still comparing platforms? Read our Omnisend vs. Klaviyo comparison next. 

FAQs About Attentive vs Klaviyo

Is Attentive better than Klaviyo for SMS marketing?

The “better” platform depends on your needs. Attentive supports more text message formats (SMS, MMS, RCS, and conversational with AI) and has some advanced mobile-focused features. So, if that’s your focus, then Attentive is better. But if you want to integrate SMS with email and other channels, Klaviyo can handle that better.

Is Klaviyo better than Attentive for Shopify stores?

Whether Klaviyo is better than Attentive also depends on your main marketing channel and the depth of customer data. Klaviyo connects deeply with Shopify, so your store data becomes useful for building segments and setting up automated workflows (both for email and SMS). Attentive also offers enough integration with Shopify, but it’s still way better for mobile engagement.

Can you use Attentive and Klaviyo together?

Yes, especially if you want to use the SMS marketing capabilities of Attentive and handle email through Klaviyo. With an API key, Attentive allows you to connect both platforms and sync some data (such as subscriber data, segments, and subscription statuses). Just make sure to set up the right attribution rules for each channel.

Does Klaviyo or Attentive have better pricing?

Klaviyo and Attentive both offer flexible pricing, but which is better depends on what you prefer. Klaviyo has public, tier-based pricing that goes up with your active profiles and send volume. It’s great because you can see right away how much you’ll have to pay.

Attentive offers custom pricing and calculates yours based on your list size, message volume, and channels. You’ll get a more “pay-per-usage” type, but you’ll need to contact their team for a quote.