Written 2026-09-24 · prices read 24 September 2026
Klaviyo vs HubSpot: the $3,000 line in the footnote
HubSpot's Professional tier carries a required one-time onboarding fee of $3,000 before the $800 a month begins. Why that settles the comparison for most stores, and the case where it does not.
Paid links on this page. Links that begin /go/ are partner links: follow one, subscribe, and the platform sends Reorderly a share of what you pay. Omnisend, Sender and Moosend are the only three that can. Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Brevo and Shopify pay this site nothing and are linked plainly wherever they are the right answer — which, on several pages here, they are. The full arrangement is written down.
For an online store, Klaviyo is almost always the right answer of these two, and the deciding figure is not a monthly rate. HubSpot's Marketing Hub Professional tier carries a required one-time onboarding fee of $3,000, stated in HubSpot's own pricing footnote, before the $800 a month the plan itself costs.
Neither company pays this site anything. HubSpot runs a publisher programme, but this site's lane holds no HubSpot key, so it is linked plainly here like Klaviyo. Both are assessed with nothing riding on the outcome.
They are not really the same kind of product
Klaviyo is a customer-data platform for stores that sends email and mobile messages, priced on how many people engaged with you recently. HubSpot is a CRM with marketing, sales, service and content software attached, priced per seat plus a marketing-contact allowance.
That difference is why the comparison is usually short. A store wants to trigger messages off browsing and purchase behaviour. A business with a sales team wants a shared record of every deal and conversation. If you genuinely need both, HubSpot is the platform being considered for the second reason and the email is a by-product.
What each one costs
| Klaviyo | HubSpot Marketing Hub | |
|---|---|---|
| Meter | Active profiles | Seats, plus a marketing-contact allowance |
| Free tier | 250 profiles, 500 emails/mo | $0/mo, up to 2 users |
| Entry paid | $20/mo Email plan at 500 profiles | From $7/mo/seat Starter, against a $20/mo/seat list rate |
| Contacts at entry | 500 active profiles | 1,000 marketing contacts |
| Mid tier | $78/mo Marketing plan at 500 profiles | $800/mo Professional (or $890 paying monthly), 3 seats, 2,000 contacts |
| Required onboarding | None published | $3,000 one-time on Professional; $7,000 on Enterprise |
| Top tier | $544/mo Marketing at 25,000 profiles | $3,600/mo Enterprise, 10,000 marketing contacts |
| Extra seats | Not tiered on the plans read | From $45/mo (Professional), $75/mo (Enterprise) |
Klaviyo and HubSpot Marketing Hub, read at klaviyo.com/pricing and hubspot.com/pricing/marketing on 24 September 2026, in US dollars. HubSpot's onboarding fees are one-time and required, per its own footnotes.
Klaviyo Marketing at 500 profiles is $78 × 12 = $936. HubSpot Professional is $800 × 12 = $9,600 plus the required $3,000 onboarding = $12,600. Arithmetic on the published figures above; HubSpot's is for three seats and 2,000 marketing contacts.
That is a thirteen-fold difference in the first year, and it is not a like-for-like comparison — HubSpot is selling a CRM with a sales and service platform attached, not an email tool. It is, however, the comparison a store owner is actually making when both names end up on the shortlist.
The Starter discount is a limited-time offer
HubSpot's Starter tier shows "Starts at $7/mo/seat" against $20/mo/seat, and a banner across the top of the pricing page explains it: "Save up to 65% on Starter … New customers only. Select offers available for a limited time." Sixty-five per cent off $20 is $7, which matches.
So the $7 is a promotional rate for new customers rather than simply an annual-billing rate, and $20 per seat per month is the figure to budget against. The page does not state when the offer ends.
Professional's two figures work differently: $800 against $890, with the toggle labelled Pay Annually against Pay Monthly. That is an ordinary annual discount of about ten per cent, not a promotion.
The free tiers are not comparable either
HubSpot's free tier is unusually substantial for this category: $0 a month for up to two users, with free marketing, sales, service, content and data tools, and no card required. It is a working product rather than a trial, which is a real part of why HubSpot ends up on shortlists it is otherwise priced out of.
Klaviyo's free tier is 250 active profiles and 500 emails a month, with support for the first sixty days and Klaviyo branding on outgoing email. That is a look at the interface, not a way to run anything.
For a store with no budget, though, neither is the answer — Sender's free plan covers 2,500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month with automation included, and a Shopify store gets 10,000 emails a month free from Shopify's own tool. Both of those beat either of these two on the one axis a free tier is judged on.
What HubSpot has that Klaviyo does not
- A real CRM, with the sales and service software attached rather than bolted on. For a business that sells to people as well as through a storefront, that is the reason to be there at all.
- A free tier that is a usable product, not a trial — $0 a month for up to two users, with free marketing, sales, service, content and data tools.
- Seats as a first-class concept. Professional includes three Core Seats; Klaviyo's plans read here do not tier seats at all, which cuts in Klaviyo's favour for small teams and HubSpot's for structured ones.
What Klaviyo has that HubSpot does not
- Store-native triggering. Browse abandonment, purchase history and replenishment timing are what the product is built around, rather than being campaign features.
- Predictive analytics and onsite personalisation, on a $78-a-month plan at 500 profiles.
- A price a small store can start at. $20 a month against a Professional tier that begins with a $3,000 cheque.
- No onboarding fee of any kind published on the pricing page read.
Marketing contacts are a second meter, and they are tight
HubSpot's tiers carry a marketing-contact allowance alongside the seat count, and for a store the allowances are the binding constraint rather than the seats.
Starter includes 1,000 marketing contacts. Professional, at $800 a month, includes 2,000. Enterprise, at $3,600, includes 10,000. Put that beside the store comparison on this site: 10,000 people is a mid-sized list that costs $150 a month on Klaviyo's Email plan, $132 on Omnisend Standard and $69 on Sender Standard. On HubSpot it is the contact allowance of the $3,600 tier.
HubSpot does sell additional marketing contacts beyond those allowances, and the price of doing so is not shown on the pricing page read here, so no figure for it appears on this site. That gap matters: for a store, the contact allowance is the number most likely to force the upgrade, and it is the one the page prices least clearly.
If the real question is which store platform to use rather than whether to buy a CRM, the seven-platform comparison is the place to start, and Klaviyo has a full assessment of its own.
Questions this page gets asked
Is HubSpot good for ecommerce email marketing?
It is capable, and it is priced for a different buyer. HubSpot Marketing Hub is part of a CRM platform charged per seat plus a marketing-contact allowance: Starter from $7 per seat per month as a limited-time new-customer rate against a $20 list rate, Professional at $800 a month with three seats and 2,000 marketing contacts, plus a required one-time onboarding fee of $3,000. For a store whose need is cart, browse and post-purchase flows, a store-native platform at $20 to $100 a month does that job without the CRM underneath it.
How much does HubSpot Marketing Hub cost?
Free for up to two users. Starter starts at $7 per seat per month against a $20 per seat list rate — the lower figure is a limited-time offer for new customers, per HubSpot's own banner — and includes 1,000 marketing contacts. Professional is $800 a month paid annually or $890 paid monthly, includes three Core Seats and 2,000 marketing contacts, with additional seats from $45. Enterprise is $3,600 a month with 10,000 marketing contacts. Professional and Enterprise carry required one-time onboarding fees of $3,000 and $7,000. All read at hubspot.com/pricing/marketing on 24 September 2026.
Which is cheaper, Klaviyo or HubSpot?
Klaviyo, by a wide margin, at the sizes a store cares about. Klaviyo's Email plan is $20 a month at 500 active profiles and its Marketing plan $78; HubSpot Professional is $800 a month plus a required $3,000 one-time onboarding fee. First year for a small store: $936 on Klaviyo Marketing against $12,600 on HubSpot Professional. HubSpot's Starter tier is genuinely cheap at $7 to $20 per seat per month, but caps marketing contacts at 1,000 and is not a store-flow tool.
Can you use HubSpot and Klaviyo together?
Businesses do, with HubSpot holding the customer record and Klaviyo running the store's messaging, and Klaviyo's published feature set includes 350+ integrations. Whether the two are worth paying for at once depends on whether the CRM is earning its own keep — you would be paying HubSpot's seat pricing for the CRM and Klaviyo's profile pricing for the sending. This site has not run that combination and so describes no setup process for it.
Next along the shelf
Abandoned cart email: the flow is free, the one before it is not
Every platform here sends a cart email and two do it free. The upgrade you are actually paying for is browse abandonment — and what each of the four store flows requires.
Shopify email apps: what is worth paying for, and when
Shopify Email gives 10,000 emails a month free, then $1 per 1,000. Two paid platforms undercut it at 60,000 emails — and one feature is the real reason to switch.
Klaviyo alternatives: work out the ratio first
Six credible replacements, priced at 5,000 people. But the decision turns on one number most comparisons skip: how much of your customer file is actually active.