Klaviyo vs Drip 2026: Cost at 2,500 and 10,000 Contacts

Drip is cheaper than Klaviyo for a small ecommerce list and the two cost the same once the list reaches 10,000 contacts. At 2,500 contacts, Drip is $39/mo against Klaviyo's $60/mo for email, a $252 gap over a year. At 10,000 contacts Drip is $154/mo and Klaviyo $150/mo, with Klaviyo capping sends and Drip not. Prices were read on both vendors' pricing pages on 26 October 2026.

The decision is about meters, not features. Both bill by list size, but Klaviyo also caps monthly email sends per band and sells SMS as credits, while Drip includes unlimited sends up to 30,000 people and prices texting on a separate slider. A store that mails its list three times a week fits either; a store that mails daily, or runs flows on every browse, hits Klaviyo's send cap before it hits Drip's.

Product	Best for	Price at 2,500 contacts	Catch
Klaviyo	A store that wants email, SMS, reviews and AI under one roof, with a free plan to start	$60/mo for email, $85/mo with 2,500 SMS credits	Sends capped at 10 times the profile band; every contactable profile counts
Drip	A store that mails often and wants one price with every feature on it	$39/mo for email, unlimited sends	No free plan, SMS is a second slider, and the calculator shows chat support only above 5,000 people

Toolradar data: Toolradar, the software directory we run, tracks 109 email marketing tools as of 25 October 2026, and Klaviyo is the second most-listed alternative in that category. Across the 54 of those tools with a flat published price, the median entry paid plan is $19/mo, so Klaviyo's $20 entry tier sits at the median and Drip's entry floor is about double it (our arithmetic). The directory records are Klaviyo on Toolradar and Drip on Toolradar, and the wider counts are on the email marketing statistics page. Dupple sends MarketingShot and its other newsletters on beehiiv, which competes with neither product priced here. MarketingShot data: this list has 35,000+ active subscribers as of November 1, 2026, with an open rate of 32%.

How each bill is built

Klaviyo meters active profiles, which its pricing page defines as any contact in your database that can receive marketing. The email plan steps through narrow bands: $20/mo for 251 to 500 profiles, $30 to 1,000, $45 to 1,500, the 2,500 band in the table below, $70 to 3,000, $80 to 3,500, $100 to 5,000, then $110, $130 and $140 in 500-profile steps to 6,500, and one flat band from 6,501 to 10,000 at the price in the table below. Each band carries a send limit of roughly ten times its top profile count, 25,000 sends at 2,500 profiles and 100,000 at 10,000. SMS is a credit pack on top, and Composer, Klaviyo's AI assistant, is $20/mo beyond the $5 of usage every plan includes.

Drip meters active people and nothing else below 30,000. The slider starts at its entry price for 1 to 2,500 people, then adds $10 per 500 people to 5,000, $10 per 1,000 to 7,000, $15 per 1,000 to 10,000, $15 for the band to 12,500, and $40 per 2,500 from there. Email sends are unlimited until 30,000 people, after which a cap of 12 times the list size applies. Every size gets dynamic segments, onsite campaigns, up to 50 workflows, unlimited sub-accounts, API access and the MCP connector; free migration and personalized onboarding are listed from 17,500 people.

Neither pricing page shows an annual-billing discount, so both figures are monthly rates with no cheaper yearly card to chase. Klaviyo's page does carry a limited-time banner of $19 off the first month of email at 500 profiles only, which is a one-month promotion rather than a price.

What the same list costs at four sizes

The table prices email only, on monthly billing, for the band each list size falls into. Klaviyo's figures come from its US price table on the pricing page, Drip's from the price slider on its pricing page, both read on 26 October 2026.

Contacts	Klaviyo email	Klaviyo send cap	Drip email	Drip send cap	Cheaper
2,500	$60/mo	25,000 a month	$39/mo	Unlimited	Drip by $21
5,000	$100/mo	50,000 a month	$89/mo	Unlimited	Drip by $11
10,000	$150/mo	100,000 a month	$154/mo	Unlimited	Klaviyo by $4
25,000	$400/mo	250,000 a month	$369/mo	Unlimited	Drip by $31

The crossover around 10,000 is a quirk of band shapes, not a trend. Klaviyo's 6,501-to-10,000 band is wide and flat, so a 7,000-contact store pays the same as a 10,000-contact store, while Drip steps every 1,000 people through that range. One contact past 10,000 moves Klaviyo to $175/mo and Drip to $169/mo, and Drip is cheaper again. Over a year the differences are $252 at 2,500 contacts and $372 at 25,000 in Drip's favor, against $48 in Klaviyo's at exactly 10,000 (our arithmetic, 12 times the monthly gap).

The send cap matters more than the $4. A 10,000-contact store with a twice-weekly campaign uses about 87,000 sends a month before any flow fires (our arithmetic, 10,000 contacts times 8.7 sends), which leaves 13,000 for welcome, cart and browse flows on Klaviyo. Klaviyo's FAQ says it notifies you before you exceed limits and offers upgrade options rather than surprise overage fees, so the practical result is a nudge to a higher band. Drip has no such ceiling at that size.

What texting adds

Klaviyo sells SMS as monthly credit packs beside the email plan: $15/mo for 1,250 credits, $25/mo for 2,500, $45/mo for 5,000 and $90/mo for 10,000, with 150 free credits on every plan. A 2,500-contact store that texts its whole list once a month pays $85/mo for email plus 2,500 credits, and a 10,000-contact store that does the same pays $240/mo (our arithmetic from the two tables). Carrier fees sit on top, and Klaviyo's page points to a separate explanation of how mobile pricing works.

Drip prices SMS on its own slider by text subscribers and sends, starting at the same rate as its email floor for up to 1,500 text subscribers and about 3,500 sends, then stepping by people and sends together. A store with the same 2,500 email contacts and a smaller SMS opt-in list pays the email price plus whatever its text subscriber count lands on, so the comparison depends on how many people opted into texts rather than on the email list size. For a store where SMS is the main channel, our SMS marketing cost guide and best SMS marketing software ranking price the dedicated tools.

Free plan, trial and support

Klaviyo has a free plan and Drip does not, which decides the first month for a store with no list yet. Klaviyo's free plan covers up to 250 active profiles, 500 email sends a month, $5 of mobile messages and $5 of Composer usage, with email support for the first 60 days only. The pricing page says a store can stay on it indefinitely as long as it stays under both the profile and send thresholds.

Drip's trial is 14 days with no credit card, and the pricing FAQ says unlimited emails are not available during the trial; after 14 days you are prompted to upgrade and enter a card, and an account that does not upgrade becomes inactive. Every customer, including trials, gets email and live chat support Monday to Friday, with a median chat reply under 2 minutes according to Drip's own FAQ. The price calculator on the same page labels support as email-only up to 5,000 people and chat above that, so Drip's page disagrees with itself on when chat starts; ask before you count on it.

The contact definitions also differ in a way that changes the bill. Klaviyo counts every contactable profile and its FAQ recommends suppressing profiles that no longer provide value so you are not paying for them, which means a list hygiene routine is part of the price. Drip's FAQ says cost is based on active people in the account and the volume of email sent, so the same cleanup logic applies, but its bands are wider at the bottom and the first one covers 2,500 people for one price.

Where Klaviyo wins and where Drip wins

Klaviyo wins on breadth. The email plan includes unified customer profiles with all-time data, more than 350 integrations, predictive analytics and AI-generated segments, content and images, and the same account can add reviews, Customer Hub, a helpdesk and Composer. A store that wants one vendor for marketing and service, or that already runs on Shopify with Klaviyo's data model, gets more platform for the money at 10,000 contacts and above. Our Klaviyo review covers that platform, and Klaviyo pricing walks every add-on.

Drip wins on simplicity and sends. One price buys every feature at every size, there is no send cap until 30,000 people, and the entry floor undercuts Klaviyo by a third for a small list. The trade-off is a narrower product: email, onsite campaigns, segments and workflows, with SMS as a second slider and no free plan to start on. The product itself is in our Drip review, and the full slider is in Drip pricing.

For a store choosing between them on price alone, the rule is short: under 10,000 contacts, Drip; at 10,000 to about 13,000, roughly a tie that the send cap breaks toward Drip for heavy mailers; above that, Drip again by a growing margin, unless the store is buying Klaviyo's wider platform rather than its email plan. Stores that find both expensive should read cheaper Klaviyo alternatives, and the broader shelf is in best email marketing for ecommerce. How Klaviyo prices against a generalist tool is in Mailchimp vs Klaviyo.

How we priced it

Klaviyo's email bands, send limits, SMS credit packs, free plan limits, Composer price, the active-profile definition and the limited-time banner were read on Klaviyo's pricing page on 26 October 2026, the band figures from the US price table that page's calculator renders from. Drip's entry price, the included features, the trial terms and the support promise were read on Drip's pricing page the same day, and the prices at 5,000, 10,000 and 25,000 people come from the plan data that page's slider renders from, read the same day. Yearly gaps, the 10,000-contact send estimate and the email-plus-SMS totals are our arithmetic, not invoices either vendor sent us.

Toolradar's tool count, Klaviyo's alternative rank and the $19 median come from Toolradar's email marketing statistics on 25 October 2026. Louis Corneloup, founder of Toolradar and Dupple, wrote this page. Ranking method is on how we rate, corrections are on the editorial policy, and the author note is on about. Both calculators move with your real list size, so run yours through each before you migrate.

FAQ

Is Drip cheaper than Klaviyo in 2026?

For email at 2,500 contacts, yes: $39/mo against $60/mo, a $252 difference over a year. At 10,000 contacts Klaviyo is $4/mo cheaper, and from 10,001 contacts Drip is cheaper again. Klaviyo's bands also cap monthly sends at about ten times the profile count, while Drip's sends are unlimited below 30,000 people.

How much does Klaviyo cost for 10,000 contacts?

$150/mo for email, covering 6,501 to 10,000 active profiles with 100,000 sends a month. Adding 10,000 SMS credits takes it to $240/mo before carrier fees. One profile past 10,000 moves the email plan to $175/mo.

How much does Drip cost for 10,000 contacts?

$154/mo, with unlimited email sends, every feature included and no annual discount shown on the pricing page. The band from 10,001 to 12,500 people is $169/mo, and the price then rises $40 per 2,500 people.

Does Drip have a free plan?

No. Drip offers a 14-day trial with no credit card, without unlimited sends, and then asks for a card to continue. Klaviyo is the one with a free plan, limited to 250 active profiles and 500 sends a month, with email support for the first 60 days.

Which is better for SMS marketing?

Klaviyo bundles SMS as credit packs on the same bill, from $15/mo for 1,250 credits, and every plan includes 150 free credits. Drip prices texting on a separate slider, from the same rate as its email floor for up to about 1,500 text subscribers. A store with a large email list and a small SMS list pays less for texting on Klaviyo; a store texting most of its list should price both sliders at its real opt-in count.

What counts as a contact on each platform?

Klaviyo bills every active profile, meaning any contact that can receive marketing, and advises suppressing profiles that no longer provide value. Drip bills the active people in the account. On both, unsubscribed or dormant contacts you have not cleaned can push the list into a higher band, so clean before you import.

Cite this: MarketingShot, "Klaviyo vs Drip 2026: Cost at 2,500 and 10,000 Contacts", November 2026.

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