Free Klaviyo alternatives
Klaviyo's free plan stops sending at 250 active profiles or 500 emails a month, whichever you hit first. For a store with any traction that's a demo rather than a plan.
Free tiers below, ranked by what you can actually ship on — with an honest note about which of them can replace an ecommerce data model and which can't.
The limit that bites first
Klaviyo's row is here for reference. Note that none of these free tiers include an ecommerce data model.
| Provider | Free tier | What stops you first | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sender | 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month, with automation included | Volume, eventually. Automation, landing pages and forms are all included | Permanent |
| Email Bump | 5,000 contacts and 5,000 emails a month | A 'Powered by Email Bump' badge on marketing footers. No daily cap; domains and seats unlimited | Permanent |
| Kit (formerly ConvertKit) | Up to 10,000 subscribers with one basic visual automation | One basic visual automation — sequences are the paid product | Permanent |
| EmailOctopus | 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month, with EmailOctopus branding | EmailOctopus branding on every send, 30-day reports, 1 user, 1 form | Permanent |
| Brevo | 300 emails a day, forever, with contact storage into the tens of thousands | 300 a day is a hard daily wall that doesn't roll over | Permanent |
| Zoho Campaigns | 2,000 contacts, 6,000 emails a month and 5 users | Volume — but 5 users, where most free plans allow one | Permanent |
| MailerLite | 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, 2 seats, 3 automations | 250 subscribers and 3 active automations | Permanent |
| Mailchimp | 250 contacts and 500 sends a month, capped at 250 a day, 1 seat | 250 a day, which bites before the 500-a-month limit does | Permanent |
| Omnisend | 250 contacts, 500 emails a month and 500 web push notifications | 250 contacts — an evaluation allowance, not a plan | Permanent |
| Benchmark Email | 500 contacts and 2,500 sends a month, 1 user, 1 domain | 500 contacts, 1 user and 1 sending domain | Permanent |
| EngageBay | 250 contacts, free for teams of up to 15 members | 250 contacts and 2 email sequences — but 15 team members | Permanent |
| Klaviyo | 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, plus $5 of mobile messages | Sending stops entirely past 250 profiles or 500 monthly sends | Permanent |
| Drip | None — a 14-day trial with no credit card | There isn't one — a 14-day trial with no card | None |
| listmonk, Mautic, Keila, Sendy | Free or one-time licence | The software costs nothing; your sending provider and your time still do | Self-hosted |
From each vendor's own pricing page. Free tiers change more often than paid ones — check before you commit a launch to one.
How to read these, as a store
Profiles versus subscribers. Klaviyo bills on active profiles, which includes people who never opted into marketing. Every alternative here counts subscribers instead, so the same audience is often a much smaller number before any rate is applied.
Whether sending stops or just bills. Klaviyo's free plan stops sending entirely past 250 profiles or 500 emails. Most alternatives here let you keep sending and simply move you up a tier, which matters if a campaign is mid-flight.
What the free tier does about orders. None of them model products or purchases. Omnisend's free plan at least shares Klaviyo's shape; the general-purpose tools give ten times the volume and none of the ecommerce logic.
No free tier replaces the ecommerce model
Klaviyo's value is orders, products, browsing and revenue attributed per flow. Nothing on a free plan gives you that — Omnisend's free tier is the closest in shape and it's capped at 250 contacts and 500 emails, the same as Klaviyo's.
So the useful question isn't which free plan is biggest. It's whether your flows actually branch on order data. Open your flow reports and count how many of your automations use products or purchases. If the answer is none, you're paying for an engine you never start and any free tier here will do.
If the answer is most of them, a free plan is not the comparison you want — Omnisend paid is, and it's materially cheaper than Klaviyo at the sizes most stores run at.
Klaviyo alternatives, asked and answered
What is the best free Klaviyo alternative?
For a store, Omnisend's free plan is the closest in shape — 250 contacts, 500 emails and 500 web push, so the same order of magnitude as Klaviyo's.
For a bigger free allowance and no ecommerce model, Sender gives 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 monthly emails with automation, and Email Bump gives 5,000 contacts and 5,000 emails with flows and a transactional API.
Why does Klaviyo's free plan stop sending?
Because it's capped at 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, and their documentation is explicit that the account can't send past those limits until you upgrade.
'Active profiles' is also broader than 'subscribers' — stores syncing every customer record hit the ceiling faster than they expect.
Can I run a store on a free email plan?
For a while, and not for long. Free tiers in this category top out between 250 and 2,500 contacts, and a store with traffic passes that quickly.
The realistic use is evaluating properly before paying, which is exactly what a 250-contact tier makes hard.
5,000 contacts and flows, free
Track your own product events, build live segments from them and run multi-step flows — with a transactional API on the same key. No ecommerce data model; that's the trade.