Klaviyo agency pricing is hard to compare because most agencies do not publish it, and the ones that do describe different things with the same word. "Retainer" can mean four emails a month or a full lifecycle team. This guide collects the prices US agencies actually published in 2026, links every source, adds the Klaviyo platform fees that sit on top, and works through ROI on contribution margin rather than revenue, which is where most pricing guides go wrong.
Disclosure: we are a Klaviyo agency. Our own prices are listed as one data point among the others, in the same format, and we say where our published plans bundle other services.
Short answer: what a Klaviyo agency costs
| What you buy | Typical published price | Where the number comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Account audit | About $1,000 one time | Netalico, via Finger Lakes 1 |
| Fixed-price flow build | $2,500 to $6,000 one time | Netalico, via Finger Lakes 1 |
| Setup or migration project | $3,000 to $15,000 one time | Top Growth Marketing FAQ |
| Campaign-only retainer | $1,200 to $5,000 a month | Netalico, via Finger Lakes 1 |
| Ongoing management retainer | $2,500 to $8,000 a month | Top Growth Marketing FAQ |
| Full program with SMS and testing | $5,000 to $10,000+ a month | Darkroom |
| Top-end agencies | $8,000 to $18,000+ a month | MarketerHire |
Retainers under about $2,500 a month are usually template-based work, according to Top Growth Marketing's own guide. That is not automatically bad. It just means you are buying execution, not strategy, and you should know which one you are paying for.
What changes the price
Two brands with the same revenue can get quotes $5,000 a month apart. These are the reasons:
List size and profile count
A bigger list means more segments to maintain, more deliverability risk, and a bigger Klaviyo bill, which some agencies price against. It rarely changes the work as much as it changes the stakes.
SMS
SMS is a second channel with its own calendar, consent rules and per-message costs. Many agencies keep it out of their entry tier. Darkroom's published Starter tier, for example, has no SMS program; it starts at the $5,000 to $8,000 tier.
Campaigns per week
This is the biggest single driver of a retainer. The published Netalico ladder shows it clearly: 4 emails a month for $1,200, 8 emails and 2 texts for $2,500, 16 emails and 4 texts for $5,000. Roughly, each extra weekly campaign adds a fixed amount of copy, design, build and QA time.
Design depth
Modular templates are cheap to reuse. Fully custom design on every send is not. Darkroom lists template design at $2,000 to $5,000 one time, or $500 to $2,000 a month ongoing.
Number of flows and their complexity
Three core flows is a different job from a 12-flow library with branch logic for buyers and non-buyers, product-specific replenishment timing and suppression between flows.
Stores, languages and currencies
Every extra storefront or locale multiplies templates, flows and QA.
Seniority and strategy
A strategist planning the calendar and reading tests costs more than a builder executing a brief. Ask who is actually on your account, and how many hours a month they spend on it.
Retainer vs project vs per email
| Pricing model | How it works | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | Fixed fee for a written monthly scope | Ongoing campaigns, flow optimization, reporting | Scope that is vague, so you cannot tell what you got |
| Fixed project | One price for a defined build: audit, flows, migration, BFCM | Fixing the foundation, seasonal peaks | Nobody owns the account after handover |
| Per email | Price per campaign or per template | Brands with an in-house strategist | Paying more per send as volume rises |
| Percent of revenue | A share of Klaviyo-attributed revenue | Rarely a good deal for the brand | Paying for sales that would have happened anyway |
| Dedicated specialist | A named person, full time, for a monthly fee | Brands or agencies with steady volume | You still need someone to set strategy |
Published prices by agency
These are the only Klaviyo agency prices we could find published in 2026, either by the agency itself or in a dated third-party guide. Where a guide gives an estimate rather than a rate card, we say so.
| Agency | Published price | What it covers | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Netalico | $1,000 | Account audit with a walkthrough call | Finger Lakes 1, Sep 2026 |
| Netalico | $2,500 / $5,500 / $6,000 | Starter core flows / expanded core flows / retention flows, fixed price | Finger Lakes 1, Sep 2026 |
| Netalico | $1,200 / $2,500 / $5,000 a month | 4 emails / 8 emails and 2 texts / 16 emails and 4 texts | Finger Lakes 1, Sep 2026 |
| Top Growth Marketing | $3,000 to $5,000 a month | Its own starting price, as listed in its own guide | TGM, updated Oct 2026 |
| Underground Ecom | About $8,000 a month | Starting price, as listed by TGM | TGM, updated Oct 2026 |
| Growth Gurus | About $3,500 a month | Starting price, as listed by TGM | TGM, updated Oct 2026 |
| Hustler Marketing | About $3,000 a month | Starting price, as listed by TGM | TGM, updated Oct 2026 |
| Forge Digital Marketing | About $2,500 a month | Starting price, as listed by TGM | TGM, updated Oct 2026 |
| Flowium | $8,000 to $18,000 a month | Estimate by MarketerHire | MarketerHire, Jul 2026 |
| Avex | $15,000+ a month | Estimate by MarketerHire | MarketerHire, Jul 2026 |
| Growth Sekai | $3,000 to $6,000 a month | Estimate by MarketerHire | MarketerHire, Jul 2026 |
| Darkroom (tiers) | $3,000 to $5,000 / $5,000 to $8,000 / $8,000 to $10,000+ | Its published market tiers for $1M to $5M, $5M to $15M and $15M+ brands | Darkroom, 2026 |
| Sorted (Launch) | $1,500 a month | Klaviyo setup and 3 core flows, bundled with 1 ad channel | sorted.agency/services |
| Sorted (Scale) | $3,500 a month | Full 12-flow Klaviyo library, bundled with Meta, Google and CRO | sorted.agency/services |
| Sorted (BFCM Starter) | $599 one time | BFCM 2026 build, offer price until Oct 31 (list $1,198) | sorted.agency/bfcm |
| Sorted (BFCM Growth) | $1,299 one time | BFCM 2026 build, offer price until Oct 31 (list $2,598) | sorted.agency/bfcm |
| Sorted (BFCM Full Funnel) | $1,899 one time | BFCM 2026 build, offer price until Oct 31 (list $3,798) | sorted.agency/bfcm |
Three things stand out once the numbers are side by side:
- Third-party figures disagree.Top Growth Marketing's own guide gives Flowium "about $4K a month" in its quick-reference table, while MarketerHire estimates $8,000 to $18,000. Treat any figure you did not get from the agency as a range, not a quote.
- The cheapest published number buys the least. $1,200 a month is four emails. It is a good price for four emails, not for an email program.
- Most agencies still publish nothing. In the most-cited 2026 lists, more agencies had no price at all than had one.
Klaviyo platform fees on top
The agency fee is only part of the cost. Klaviyo bills the brand directly, and it prices by active profiles. Darkroom's 2026 guide publishes these bands:
| Active profiles | Klaviyo cost a month | A year |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 500 | Free | $0 |
| 1,001 to 5,000 | $45 to $100 | $540 to $1,200 |
| 5,001 to 15,000 | $100 to $250 | $1,200 to $3,000 |
| 15,001 to 50,000 | $250 to $720 | $3,000 to $8,640 |
| 50,001 to 100,000 | $720 to $1,380 | $8,640 to $16,560 |
| 100,001 to 250,000 | $1,380 to $2,500+ | $16,560 to $30,000+ |
SMS is charged per message on top. Darkroom estimates $0.01 to $0.015 per text and $0.03 to $0.05 per picture message, plus $0.0025 to $0.005 in carrier fees, which works out to $500 to $750 a month at 50,000 messages. Confirm current rates on Klaviyo's pricing page. Two practical points: a sunset flow that removes dead profiles lowers this bill, and Q4 sending volume raises it, so budget for November separately.
Total monthly cost for a $5M brand
Here is a realistic all-in budget for a Shopify brand doing $5M a year, with about 60,000 active profiles and an SMS program, using the mid-market numbers above:
| Line item | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Agency retainer (mid-tier, email and SMS) | $5,000 | $60,000 |
| Klaviyo email, about 60,000 active profiles | $720 to $1,380 | $8,640 to $16,560 |
| SMS sending, about 50,000 messages | $500 to $750 | $6,000 to $9,000 |
| Total | $6,220 to $7,130 | $74,640 to $85,560 |
That total is the number to put against the return, not the retainer on its own.
ROI on margin: a worked example for a $5M brand
Most ROI math in agency guides divides email revenue by the agency fee. That flatters everyone. Revenue is not profit, and not all Klaviyo-attributed revenue is new revenue: some of those buyers would have ordered anyway. A useful ROI calculation uses incremental revenue and contribution margin.
Assumptions
- Annual revenue: $5,000,000.
- Email and SMS today: 20% of revenue, $1,000,000 attributed.
- Contribution margin: 45%, after product cost, shipping, payment fees and discounts.
- Incrementality: 50%. Half of any new attributed revenue is truly new. Use your own holdout test if you have one.
- Added cost: $5,000 a month retainer plus $500 a month in extra Klaviyo and SMS fees. $66,000 a year.
| Email share reaches | Added attributed revenue | Incremental revenue (50%) | Contribution (45%) | Net after $66,000 cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25% | $250,000 | $125,000 | $56,250 | -$9,750 |
| 30% | $500,000 | $250,000 | $112,500 | +$46,500 |
| 35% | $750,000 | $375,000 | $168,750 | +$102,750 |
What the table says:
- Break-even is about 5.9 points of revenue share. $66,000 of cost needs $146,667 of incremental revenue at 45% margin, which at 50% incrementality is $293,333 of attributed revenue: email moving from 20% to about 25.9% of a $5M business.
- The revenue view would call the 30% case 7.6x. $500,000 attributed divided by $66,000. On margin and incrementality it is a $46,500 gain, a 70% return on the money spent. Still good. Just not 7.6x.
- A cheaper retainer moves break-even, not the ceiling. At $3,000 a month, total cost is $42,000 and break-even drops to about 3.7 points of revenue share.
For context, we see email at 35 to 40% of revenue for our top clients. That is the top of the range, after the flows, segments and deliverability are all in place, not a starting point. To model your own numbers, our LTV predictor and ROAS calculator are free.
Red flags in a Klaviyo agency proposal
- A percentage of revenue fee. It pays the agency for orders you would have got anyway and rewards sending volume over results.
- Long lock-ins. Six or twelve months with no exit protects the agency. A good agency is confident in a short notice period.
- The agency owns the Klaviyo account. The account, the list and the flows should be in your name from day one.
- A setup fee for templates. Ask exactly what the setup fee buys. If it is a template pack, you can buy one for much less.
- One blended revenue number. Ask for revenue by flow and by campaign, and for the attribution window used. Klaviyo lets you set this, and a long window inflates results.
- No deliverability plan. If the proposal never mentions DMARC, engagement-based sending or a sunset flow, the campaigns will slowly land in fewer inboxes.
- No named people. You should know who writes, designs and builds, and how many accounts each of them carries.
Agency vs in-house: the cost comparison
| Option | Annual cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| In-house email manager, plus freelance design, platform, SMS and tools | $102,000 to $167,000 | One person, full attention, design bought separately |
| Mid-tier agency retainer, plus platform and SMS | $75,000 to $144,000 | Strategy, copy, design and build from a team |
| Dedicated Sorted specialist | $21,600 a year, plus platform | One specialist from a 100% US-trained team working US hours, full time, in your tools |
The comparison we use with agencies is the same one brands should run: it is $21,600 a year for one Sorted specialist against $110k+ for a US hire. The specialist comes from a 100% US-trained team working US hours, so the cheaper option does not mean working across a time gap. A specialist still needs direction, so this suits brands or agencies that already have someone setting strategy.
White-label wholesale pricing for agencies
If you are an agency reselling Klaviyo, the number that matters is your wholesale cost against the retail price above. Our published wholesale rates:
| Model | Wholesale price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Per-service white-label Klaviyo | From $1,200 a month per client account | Billed per client, on or off monthly |
| Dedicated specialist | From $1,800 a month | 40 hours a week, your Slack, your brand |
| Full pod | Custom | For 6+ accounts across retention, paid and creative |
At a $4,000 retail retainer on a scope that fits the starting rate, the agency keeps $2,800 a month, 70% gross margin. The process, SLAs and contract terms are on white-label Klaviyo for agencies.
How to get an accurate quote from any agency
Send every agency the same brief, so the quotes are comparable:
- Annual revenue, and the share from email and SMS today.
- Active profile count and SMS subscriber count.
- Which flows are live, and when they were last changed.
- How many campaigns a week you want, by email and SMS.
- Design expectation: modular templates or custom every send.
- Number of stores, languages and currencies.
- Who on your side approves work, and how fast.
Then ask each agency to price the same scope as a monthly retainer, list what is excluded, and name the people on the account. Peak season changes the math, so if you are pricing a Black Friday build, read our BFCM email and SMS agency page first.
Who this guide is not for
- Brands under about $500K a year. At that size, the Klaviyo free or entry plan plus a fixed-price flow build usually beats any retainer.
- Brands looking for an enterprise CRM or customer data platform project. Those are priced as software implementations, not agency retainers.
- Readers outside US-dollar markets. The prices here are US published prices; local rates differ.
Want a number for your own account? Get the free audit and we will quote a fixed monthly price against a written scope. If you would rather see how we run accounts first, start with our Klaviyo agency service or the results on our work page.
Sources, read October 19, 2026: Finger Lakes 1, What a Klaviyo agency costs in 2026; Top Growth Marketing, Best Klaviyo agencies for ecommerce; MarketerHire, Best Klaviyo email marketing agencies; Darkroom, Retention marketing cost: email and SMS 2026; Klaviyo pricing.