What is the best email marketing software for an online store in 2026?

Klaviyo is where most Shopify brands end up. It reads everything that happens in your store: products viewed, items added to cart, orders, refunds. You can build a segment like "bought twice, nothing in 90 days, average order above $60" in a few clicks and send it its own flow.

The free plan covers 250 active profiles and 500 emails a month, with Klaviyo branding in your emails. At profile 251 nothing upgrades on its own: your sends stop until you pick a paid plan. Paid email starts at $20 a month for up to 500 active profiles.

The thing to understand before you sign is the active profile. Klaviyo counts every profile you can reach by email or SMS, whatever its consent status. A customer who unsubscribed from your newsletter but can still get order emails may count. The check runs at the end of each billing cycle: go over your tier and you're moved up automatically. To move down, you have to request it more than 24 hours before the next cycle. Profiles you delete leave the count within 72 hours.

Its weak spot is the surprise bill. Merchants describe a list jumping from about 16,000 to 65,000 profiles overnight because bots were filling in the signup form. Others complain about paying for dormant profiles. Human support is for paid plans only. And a tip that keeps coming up in Shopify Community: predictive segments (like expected next order date) only become useful at around 500 customers with orders and 180 days of history.

Tip: turn on double opt-in or a captcha on your signup form from day one. Then each month, delete profiles with no opens in six months, more than 24 hours before your cycle ends.

Omnisend goes after the same merchant as Klaviyo, with gentler pricing. The ecommerce flows come ready to use: welcome, abandoned cart, product viewed, post-purchase. The company focuses on online stores and doesn't try to serve everyone.

Pricing is easy to read. The free plan gives you 250 contacts and 500 emails a month. Standard is $16 a month for 500 contacts and 6,000 emails. Pro is $59 a month for 2,500 contacts with unlimited emails under fair use. Prepay three months and you get 30% off: $11.20 instead of $16, $41.30 instead of $59. The team also offers to migrate your account from another tool, in about five days.

SMS changed in 2026: for new paid accounts, it's only on Pro, and messages are bought separately, from $0.007 per text at high US volumes.

Its weak spot is account checks. One-star reviews describe accounts blocked at signup with no clear reason, deliverability falling apart after a big list import or a DNS change (your domain settings), and cancellation routed through a retention chat. On a dropshipping subreddit, though, two users call it very cost-effective, and one agency sums it up: the setup matters more than the app.

Tip: don't import your whole list on day one. Mail your recent customers first, then widen in batches. You protect deliverability and avoid an automatic block.

Shopify Messaging (formerly Shopify Email) is already in your Shopify admin. Nothing to install, nothing to sync: your products, customers and orders are already there. You can send a campaign featuring your products in three clicks and turn on abandoned cart reminders from a template.

On price, it's hard to beat at the start. Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus include 10,000 emails a month. Beyond that you pay $1 per 1,000 emails on your Shopify bill. Abandoned cart emails are free and don't touch your quota. A store with 2,000 customers sending four campaigns a month pays nothing extra.

Its limit is depth. Segmentation is simpler than in Klaviyo or Omnisend, there are fewer flows, and it only works on Shopify. The day you want a flow per product category with three branches, you'll move on.

Still, it's the advice merchants who overspent early give most often: get your welcome, abandoned cart and post-purchase emails right with the free tool, then pay for an expensive one once your list justifies it.

Tip: start collecting birthdays and preferences in Shopify's native customer fields now. That data follows you the day you move to Klaviyo or Omnisend.

Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) bills sends, not contacts. That's its big difference. The free plan stores up to 100,000 contacts and sends 300 emails a day. If your list is large but you only mail it once a month, it's by far the cheapest option here.

Paid plans start at $9 a month (Starter) and $18 a month (Standard), each for 5,000 emails. Since 2025, Starter at $9 only stores 500 contacts, so check your volume before you pick. Paying yearly takes 10% off.

On the store side, Brevo has an official PrestaShop module that pushes your customers and orders into Brevo. The sync runs one way, from PrestaShop to Brevo: an unsubscribe in Brevo doesn't flow back to your store. On Shopify, the Brevo app is no longer listed in the App Store. Don't pick Brevo for a Shopify store.

Its weak spot is suspension. Merchants describe accounts suspended right after the first campaign, sent to an old or purchased list. In Shopify Community, one merchant recommends Brevo for budget email plus SMS, with a warning: warm up your sending domain first. Our full Brevo review covers each plan.

Tip: before your first campaign, remove addresses with no opens in a year and start with your 500 best customers.

MailPoet is a WordPress plugin built for WooCommerce. You manage your emails from your site's admin, next to your products and orders. No connector to set up, no data shuttling between two tools.

The Starter plan is free up to 500 subscribers and 5,000 emails a month. That's enough for a small store sending one campaign a week. Beyond that you move to the Business or Agency plans.

Automations cover the ecommerce basics: abandoned cart, first purchase, purchase of a specific product or category. MailPoet also lets you restyle WooCommerce's transactional emails (order confirmation, shipping) with the same editor as your campaigns, so your order emails finally look like your brand.

Its limit: it only works with WordPress and WooCommerce, and it doesn't do SMS. Segmentation stays simpler than Klaviyo's. If your store grows fast, you'll hit its ceiling before Omnisend's.

Tip: if you restyle your order confirmation, don't drop a promo block into it. Under EU rules, a transactional email that pushes an offer becomes marketing, with the consent rules that come with it.

Mailchimp is the best-known email tool, and plenty of stores started their newsletter there. The editor is pleasant, templates are plentiful, and it connects to most commerce platforms.

The catch is the pricing ladder. The free plan gives 250 contacts and 500 emails a month. Essentials starts at $13 a month, but its flows are capped at four steps. Worse, abandoned cart is reserved for Standard, which starts at $20 for 500 contacts and rises with your list. Premium is $350 a month.

Mailchimp does give solid advice on abandoned carts: a first email about an hour after the abandon, in a series of three. You can apply it in any tool on this list.

Its limit: for a store, you pay generalist-tool money at specialist-tool prices. For the same list, Omnisend gives you more ecommerce flows for a similar price. If you're leaving, our switching from Mailchimp guide walks through the options.

Tip: before upgrading to Standard just for abandoned cart, check whether your platform does it for free. On Shopify, Shopify Messaging's cart reminders cost nothing.

Drip is built for direct-to-consumer brands. Its flow builder is one of the clearest around: every branch, delay and condition on one screen. Sends are unlimited however often you mail.

There's no free plan, just a 14-day trial. Price follows your contact count: $39 a month up to 2,500, $154 at 10,000, $699 at 50,000. On a small list it's the priciest tool here. At high send volumes, unlimited emails make up for it.

Its limit is the slope. Between 10,000 and 50,000 contacts, the bill more than quadruples. And it has fewer recent reviews than Klaviyo or Omnisend. Our full Drip review details each tier.

Tip: use the 14-day trial to rebuild your abandoned cart and post-purchase flows. If you haven't used conditional branches after two weeks, Drip isn't for you.