Klaviyo wins โ it drives revenue, Gorgias manages it. If your biggest headache is keeping customers happy after they buy rather than getting them to buy in the first place, Gorgias is what you need.
Our Pick: Klaviyo
Why: It turns your customer data into repeat purchases through email and SMS โ and does it better than anything else at this price point.
Choose Gorgias if: Your support inbox is drowning your team and you need order data and customer replies in the same screen.
Quick Comparison
| Klaviyo | Gorgias | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $0/month | $10/month |
| Free plan | Yes (up to 250 contacts) | No |
| Best for | DTC brands, subscription boxes, email-driven stores | High-volume Shopify merchants, support-heavy operations |
| Ease of setup | Moderate โ requires a week to configure properly | Fast โ Shopify connection takes under an hour |
| Integrations | 350+ apps, deep Shopify and WooCommerce sync | 100+ apps, exceptional Shopify depth |
| ToolWise Score | 9.2/10 | 9.0/10 |
Where Klaviyo Wins
Revenue attribution you can trust. Klaviyo tracks which email or SMS drove a purchase and ties it to a real dollar amount. After a week of sending, you know exactly which flows earn their keep and which ones to cut. Most email platforms give you open rates โ Klaviyo gives you numbers with dollar signs.
AI product recommendations that work. The predictive product recommendation engine pulls from your actual order history and surfaces the right product to the right customer. For a Shopify store with 500-plus SKUs, it removes the guesswork from cross-sell campaigns and typically lifts email revenue within the first month.
SMS and email in one place without the markup. Running email through one tool and SMS through another means split data, split reporting, and twice the monthly invoices. Klaviyo handles both from a single dashboard at competitive rates, and because it shares the same contact profiles, your segments stay clean. That saves most teams two to three hours a week in admin.
Where Gorgias Wins
Shopify order data lives inside every support ticket. When a customer emails asking where their order is, your agent sees the order status, tracking number, and purchase history right alongside the message โ without switching tabs. For stores getting more than 50 support tickets a day, this is the difference between a two-minute reply and a five-minute one.
AI macros that write responses. Gorgias reads the incoming message, pulls the relevant order data, and drafts a reply. Your agent reviews and sends. On repetitive tickets โ shipping delays, return requests, "where is my order" โ this cuts response time significantly and lets a two-person support team handle the volume that would otherwise need four people.
Multi-channel support without the chaos. Email, Instagram DMs, Facebook comments, live chat, and SMS all route into a single queue. Gorgias keeps the conversation thread intact regardless of where it started, so your team isn't stitching together customer history from three different inboxes. For DTC brands running active social channels, that centralisation matters.
Pricing: What You Actually Pay
Klaviyo's free plan covers up to 250 contacts and 500 email sends, which tests functionality but won't run a real business. Once you cross that threshold, pricing scales with your contact list โ expect $45 per month at 1,000 contacts and roughly $100 per month at 5,000. SMS credits are billed separately, which catches people off guard.
Gorgias starts at $10 per month for 50 tickets, which sounds cheap until you realize most small e-commerce stores burn through that in a day. The Starter plan at $50 per month covers 300 tickets monthly, and Basic at $60 covers 350. The per-ticket pricing model means your bill spikes during peak season โ Black Friday becomes an expensive month for your helpdesk and your ad spend. Budget accordingly.
At $100 per month, Klaviyo gives you a sophisticated marketing engine for a list around 5,000 contacts. At $100 per month, Gorgias gives you around 700 tickets. Neither is bad value โ they just solve different problems.
Who Should Choose Klaviyo
You run a Shopify store doing more than $10k per month and email isn't your primary revenue driver yet โ you're leaving money on the table. You sell subscription boxes and want to reduce churn with automated win-back flows โ Klaviyo is built for exactly that. You're running SMS campaigns through a separate tool and paying twice for the privilege โ consolidating into Klaviyo pays for itself quickly. You want to send personalized product recommendations without building segments manually โ the AI layer here does the heavy lifting.
Who Should Choose Gorgias
Your support team spends more than three hours a day copying order numbers from Shopify into email replies โ Gorgias fixes that immediately. You sell a product that generates lots of post-purchase questions โ sizing, installation, returns โ the AI macro system will cut your handle time meaningfully. You manage customer conversations across email, Instagram, and live chat and your team juggles three tabs to keep up โ a single unified inbox changes the daily experience significantly. You're scaling toward a high-volume operation and can't afford to hire a third support agent yet โ Gorgias gives you the needed bandwidth.
The Final Word
Klaviyo wins for most e-commerce businesses because most e-commerce businesses need more revenue before they need better support infrastructure. It's more sophisticated, more flexible, and has a free entry point that lets you test before you commit. For a deeper comparison of marketing automation options, see our best marketing automation tools roundup.
Gorgias is excellent but solves a problem you scale into rather than one you start with. If you're already doing solid volume and your support queue is the bottleneck, switch to Gorgias without hesitation. For more customer service options, check our guide to the best customer service tools for small business. Otherwise, start with Klaviyo and treat Gorgias as the logical next hire.