The cost drivers, in order of impact
| Driver | How it moves the bill |
|---|---|
| Total profile count | Pricing tiers are generally based on total profiles, not just actively engaged ones - unsubscribed and suppressed profiles frequently still count toward tier thresholds unless deleted |
| SMS volume | Priced separately from email, typically on a credit/message basis - a distinct usage-based cost, not a bundled extra |
| Channel mix (email-only vs. email+SMS) | Adding SMS moves the account to a different plan structure entirely, not just an add-on line item |
| Duplicate profiles | Every duplicate is a profile you're paying for twice, functionally - dedup work (see our segmentation guide) can move an account down a tier |
| Wasted sends from bad data | SMS sent to invalid or stale numbers due to integration gaps burns credits without producing revenue |
Because these tiers and rates are actively maintained by Klaviyo and change periodically, check Klaviyo's own pricing page for current numbers rather than trusting a cached figure from any third-party article, including this one.
Where engineering work has a bill-size side effect
We don't negotiate Klaviyo contracts or advise on plan selection as a commercial exercise. But two things we do routinely change the bill as a side effect: profile deduplication (see segmentation data quality) can drop an account to a lower profile-count tier, and fixing integration gaps that send SMS to invalid numbers (see integration wiring) reduces wasted credit spend. Neither is why you'd hire us, but both are worth knowing about.
Klaviyo pricing vs. klaviyo cost
These searches point at the same question. The distinction people are often actually asking about is total cost of ownership - the platform fee plus the cost of getting the data layer right, which is where an engineering-first partner like us fits versus a full-service agency retainer. See our agency vs. engineering partner page for that comparison.