If you're already using Flodesk, you've probably heard that Klaviyo is the gold standard for ecommerce email marketing. And you've probably wondered whether it's worth the switch.

You may have picked Flodesk because it was beautiful, it made sense, and it didn't make you want to break your laptop. Choose a template, drop in your brand styles, hit send. Honestly? Smart call. For a lot of small service-based businesses, Flodesk is a great email platform.

But something has probably shifted, or you wouldn't be here. Maybe you're selling more products now. Maybe you're on Shopify and you keep hearing that you "should be on Klaviyo." Maybe your emails look gorgeous but aren't actually making you much money.

I've used both systems in my business. I genuinely like Flodesk, but since I started specializing in ecommerce, I also set up and manage Klaviyo accounts. So I've seen both sides, and I'll tell you exactly where each one wins.  

The short answer

For ecommerce, Klaviyo is the better tool. For design-first creators and service businesses, Flodesk is often the better fit. 

I know you’ve heard the advice “it depends on your business” a lot, and it’s true. I say this after using Flodesk for my service-based business in the past, and also driving hundreds of thousands in revenue for brands on Shopify. 

If your email exists mainly to look pretty and stay in touch – with a few course or membership launches or digital products built in – Flodesk is plenty. 

If your email is supposed to drive sales — recover abandoned carts, bring back past buyers, segment by what people actually purchased — Klaviyo will almost always make you more money than it costs.

That's the whole verdict. The rest of this post explains why, and helps you figure out which camp you're actually in.

Where Flodesk genuinely wins

Flodesk was made for service-based businesses, and at this point, that’s still who it serves best.

The templates are beautiful. Flodesk emails look professionally designed with almost no effort. They have pretty script fonts, stylish headers, and basic building blocks. Klaviyo can’t match this out of the box. 

The pricing is refreshingly simple. One flat fee, unlimited subscribers, unlimited sends. You're never punished for growing your list, which is wonderful when you're building an audience and watching every dollar. Flodesk also has landing pages and checkout, though these are for single products and are more central to service-based brands.

It's genuinely easy. You don't need a course, a consultant, or a "PhD in email marketing" to send a great-looking campaign. For a creator, a coach, a service provider, or someone selling a few digital products, that simplicity is the entire point.

If that's you, you can stop reading. Flodesk is the right tool. Keep it.

Where Klaviyo wins for stores

Here's where things change once you're running an ecommerce business.

The automated flows make money while you sleep. This is the big one. Klaviyo's abandoned cart, browse abandonment, and post-purchase flows are built specifically to recover lost sales and bring buyers back. These aren't "newsletters" and nurture-focused series like you may be used to sending — they're strategic revenue engines that run automatically, where each email’s goal is to make a sale. Flodesk's automations are basic by comparison.

Segmentation by what people actually do. Klaviyo lets you target customers based on purchase history, total spend, how recently they bought, what they browsed. You can email your VIPs differently than your one-time buyers. That kind of targeting is where ecommerce email revenue actually comes from, and it's something Flodesk simply isn't for.

Native Shopify integration. Klaviyo and Shopify are closely integrated partners, so the two are designed to work together. Klaviyo pulls in your store data including orders, browsing behavior, abandoned carts, automatically and in real time. This data becomes key as you learn to use their powerful reports and adjust your flow and campaign strategies over time.

SMS in the same place. Even if you don’t start with SMS, you may want to add it in later for launches, restocks, limited drops. Klaviyo will let you layer in text messages alongside email without juggling a second platform. 

You can see what's making money. Klaviyo shows revenue attribution per email and per flow. You stop guessing which emails work and start learning how to improve your own efforts.

"But Flodesk is so much cheaper..."

This is the objection I hear most, and I understand it completely. Flodesk's flat ~$38/month feels safe and predictable. Klaviyo's price climbs as your list grows. But what this doesn’t measure is how much more Klaviyo can make you.

Flodesk looks cheaper until you count what you’re missing out on. 

For ecommerce brands with their flows properly set up, email routinely drives somewhere in the range of 25–35% of total revenue, and the large majority of that comes from the automated flows Flodesk can't really do. Or do well.

Put it this way: a single well-built abandoned-cart sequence can recover more in a month than the entire price difference between the two platforms for the year. When email is a revenue channel, "cheaper" and "more expensive" stop being about the subscription line. 

When Klaviyo can increase your revenue exponentially month over month, the benefits will far outweigh the costs. The automation and segmentation features, the blocks, the data that integrates with all your other ecommerce apps and tools — there’s a reason that 7- and 8-figure brands are on Klaviyo, not Flodesk.

Yes, Flodesk has released automations, but after working in the backend of Klaviyo, I can tell you it will be a long time if Flodesk ever catches up. Also, keep in mind that Klaviyo offers SMS marketing, which many brands tack on to keep in touch with customers or push sales.

“What if you’re already using Flodesk?”

If you’re already using Flodesk for your service-based biz or a new store, you may not want to switch yet. But you may have already outgrown the platform. If most of these are true, it may be time to switch email platforms:

• You're selling physical or digital products on Shopify

• You have repeat customers (or you want them)

• You sell more than one product, with different buyers for different things

• You've never recovered an abandoned cart with an automated email

• You suspect your emails look great but aren't really driving sales

• You want to actually see which emails make money

The issue was never that Flodesk is bad. It's that you've grown into a different set of needs. Honestly, an ecommerce business runs by a whole different set of rules than a service-based business, so you’ll need a new set of tools to tackle it.

"Isn't Klaviyo complicated to set up?"

Compared to Flodesk, yes, Klaviyo can be more complicated to set up. But once you get the hang of it, it’s manageable.

Klaviyo is more powerful, and if you’re switching, it’s best to make sure you’re taking advantage of all the features that can help you grow. The flows, the segments, the Shopify connection, the deliverability details — this is genuinely more involved than Flodesk's easy onboarding. That's the real tradeoff, and it's why a lot of store owners know they should be on Klaviyo but never quite get around to it.

The good news is that you don't have to learn everything to see results. Setup is a one-time job, and once your core flows are built correctly, they keep making sales automatically in the background.

Yes, there’s much more to Klaviyo than just the automations, but you can start out with basic flows and campaigns, then grow from there. 

After setup, managing your email on any platform will take a lot of work. But with the right tools, email is one of the most powerful ways to increase revenue and keep your customers coming back.

Let's make Klaviyo make you money

Setting up Klaviyo the right way — the flows, the segments, the Shopify data, the deliverability — is exactly what I do for ecommerce brands. You don't have to figure it out on your own, and you don't have to leave Flodesk's simplicity behind only to land in something overwhelming.

If you've read this far, you probably already know which camp you're in. If you're an ecommerce store and you're ready to turn email into a real revenue channel, see how I can help you get started with Klaviyo.