Klaviyo: Email Marketing & SMS

Update*

After our feedback, Klaviyo team reached out to us and solved our problem. Hope they solve this problem for everyone. Thank you Klaviyo team.

If giving this app 0 stars were possible, we would seriously consider it.

Seems like entire system built to rip you off.

We paused our use of Klaviyo for a while. When we returned, our paid plan had been deactivated, which was understandable. However, we then encountered a billing loop that made it impossible to clean up our account without first paying for profiles we do not intend to use.

Here is the issue:

1. Without an active plan, we cannot suppress profiles manually, in bulk, or through the API.
2. We also cannot reactivate the account on the free plan because the number of active profiles exceeds the free-tier limit.
3. The only option presented is to purchase a paid plan covering the entire existing profile count first, even though the purpose of reactivating the account is to suppress inactive profiles and reduce that count.
4. If we pay for the oversized plan, suppress the profiles, and then downgrade, the initial payment is not refunded or credited toward future invoices.
5. We also tested bulk suppression through the API. The API accepted the request and marked the job as complete, but all profiles were skipped:

* Total count: 100
* Completed count: 0
* Skipped count: 100

6. We found similar reports in Klaviyo’s community forums, but we could not find a practical self-service solution.
7. Access to customer support is also restricted without an active paid plan, which makes resolving the issue even more difficult.

This creates a frustrating circular problem: we cannot suppress profiles without reactivating the account, and we cannot reactivate the account without first paying for profiles we specifically want to suppress.

Requiring customers to pay for an oversized plan before allowing them to remove inactive profiles feels unfair and unnecessarily restrictive. Businesses should not have to pay a substantial fee simply to regain access to basic account-cleanup tools.

Use it across all of our brands. Great tool - It is a commodity though.

Don't get too high on your horse Klayvio execs & board - there are other platforms. Their recent price increases have caused us to start looking at other email marketing vendors.

Remember your customers - Not your share price.

good

ogni tanto hai i suoi bug, ma per il resto è TOP

Strong marketing capabilities and automation, but improvements in event tracking reliability, documentation, templates, and customer support would make the platform significantly better for growing ecommerce brands.

Klaviyo offers a ton of great features and powerful tools, especially for building flows and creating segments. The in-app designer is stable, intuitive, and easy to work with, and the documentation is clear and helpful when you need guidance. I’ve found the platform overall very easy to use, and I really enjoy the classes — they’re informative and well done. The CSM reps I’ve worked with have also been very helpful.

No complaints aside from the mismatch between the cost and my ability to use it. At $80/month it shouldn't be hard to recoup that investment, but it will involve extra work. I haven't had time to put it to real use. After months of paying for a plan I wasn't using I canceled 2 days after the renewal, and had to jump through minor hoops to get a refund. I think such cases should be automatic and unquestioned by ALL companies, but thank you anyway, Klaviyo.

Klaviyo is likely the best email-focused CRM available today. If you aren't tech-savvy then you will struggle to use it. It is a deeply complex, and deeply powerful, software. Your business will benefit massively, but only if you dedicate an employee time to understand and use it well. They do, sadly, use generative AI. If they committed to ditching generative AI, as all companies should, then they would get 5 stars.

Klaviyo is great and easy to use. The only thing I will say is when they do updates, really helpful features tend to disappear, which is slightly annoying. Thats the only reason its not 5 star

Once you get it set up it's fantastic. If you're setting up your email marketing for the FIRST time, it will be much easier for you. If your technical experience is more limited and/or you're migrating from another ESP (mailchimp, etc.) just be forewarned, that things are NOT as plug-and-play as the Klaviyo sales people would like you to believe.

PROS: There is extensive klaviyo documentation on everything (but it's also a bit overwhelming).

Once you're on a paid plan you have 24/7 chat support which has mostly been really helpful.

There's an app/integration for almost everything - from reviews to rewards, etc. We were able to drop a couple of our paid apps and put those funds towards klaviyo which was great.

On the surface, the Email builder looks a lot like Mailchimp's, so I didn't expect to be too impressed. HOWEVER, it actually works SO. MUCH. BETTER. It really shines when it comes to customizing between desktop and mobile emails. (huzzah!)

CONS: If you (or your client) hasn't been SUPER organized about their email automations (flows), tags, etc., it can be a lot of work to organize all that in preparation to migrate.

Also, I don't think the onboarding instructions are a great as they could be. They try and get you all synced and integrated right away, but that can lead to missteps.

There are also quite a few technical steps to go through. While they try and make it as painless as possible, if you're new to this or thinking you're gonna get it all done in a day, you may find yourself a bit overwhelmed.

FINAL WORDS / PSA:

1) DO NOT SYNC YOUR CURRENT ESP (mailchimp, etc) with Klaviyo until AFTER you've done your list hygeine!! Lol -

2) Unless you have a simple list and minimal flows, don't expect to get this all done in a day. Give yourself time and grace, especially if this isn't your wheelhouse.

I've worked in at least a dozen ESP's over the past decade and I found this to be more of a challenge than I expected. That said, i'm SO GLAD we've made the move!