Braze vs Klaviyo: an enterprise engagement contract against a calculator you can read today

Braze does not publish prices. You choose an edition, estimate active users and negotiate credits for messages, so the cost is pricing on request (quote-based). Klaviyo publishes a profile-based calculator: $30 at 1,000, $100 at 5,000, $150 at 10,000 and $400 at 25,000, plus a free plan for up to 250 profiles. The practical split is scale and channels: Braze for multichannel programs with mobile at their center, Klaviyo for web-first teams that want to see the price first.

By Julian Pryor · Updated 7 Oct 2026

Short answer

If you are asking which to buy and your list is under 25,000 profiles, Klaviyo is the one you can evaluate today, from a $0 plan upward. If you run a mobile app with push and in-app messaging, expect millions of monthly active users, or need a central team to orchestrate many channels, ask Braze for a quote and compare it with Klaviyo's $400 at 25,000 profiles as your baseline.

What you can see on each pricing page

Everything below was read on 7 October 2026. The Braze column is deliberately empty of numbers because the page does not contain any.

Item	Braze	Klaviyo
Published price	None. Pricing on request (quote-based)	$20 at 500 profiles, $30 at 1,000, $60 at 2,500, $100 at 5,000, $150 at 10,000, $400 at 25,000
What the bill scales with	Platform edition, monthly active users, credits for messages and AI features; no seat licensing	Active profiles
Free option	Free-trial call to action; no self-serve free tier on the page	Free plan: 250 active profiles, 500 emails a month, $5 of mobile messages
Tiers	Braze Go, Select, Pro, Enterprise	One email plan scaled by profiles, plus SMS and service products
Included emails	Set by the contract	10 times your profile count: 5,000 at 500, 100,000 at 10,000, 250,000 at 25,000

Sources: braze.com/pricing, Braze's pricing article and klaviyo.com/pricing.

Braze pricing page, captured Oct 2026 — Braze pricing page as of 7 Oct 2026: four Platform Editions and a "Get pricing" button, with no dollar amounts. A cookie dialog covers the lower left. Source: braze.com/pricing

Klaviyo pricing page, captured Oct 2026 — Klaviyo pricing page as of 7 Oct 2026, free plan view. The paid email prices in the table come from its calculator. Source: klaviyo.com/pricing

Klaviyo's cost per thousand falls as you grow

Because Klaviyo prints its curve, you can work out its unit economics. $30 for 1,000 profiles is $30 per 1,000. At 5,000 it is $100 ÷ 5 = $20 per 1,000, at 10,000 it is $150 ÷ 10 = $15 per 1,000, and at 25,000 it is $400 ÷ 25 = $16 per 1,000. So the sweet spot on the published list is around 10,000 profiles. A year at 10,000 costs 12 × $150 = $1,800, and at 25,000 it costs 12 × $400 = $4,800. That is your yardstick when Braze's quote arrives: ask what it would be at the same active-user count and edition.

What the Braze quote depends on

Braze's pricing article lists the dimensions: platform edition, active users and credits for messaging and AI features. A monthly active user is defined on the pricing page as a unique person who records a session on your Braze-connected app or website in a calendar month, and you decide who counts, whether every visitor or only logged-in users. Each MAU includes an allotment of profiles. Currents, Braze's event stream out to other systems, is described in its docs as an optional add-on or part of some packages, so ask about it too.

Ask how many MAUs your contract counts and what happens above that number.
Ask which edition has the features you need: Select adds orchestration and security, Pro adds predictive AI and message prioritization, Enterprise adds governance and an AI agent console.
Ask how many credits your channel mix would consume, because push, SMS and email use them differently.
Ask what a trial or pilot includes before you sign.

Sending product and billing events

Braze. The /users/track endpoint records custom events and purchases and updates attributes, with up to 75 objects combined per request; users are matched on external_id, user_alias, braze_id, email or phone (Braze docs). A Canvas can enter users on a custom event or through an API-triggered entry using /canvas/trigger/send, with entry limits that can be hourly, daily or lifetime. Two documented hazards matter for billing flows: do not use the entry event as an audience filter, which can cause a race where the user is not yet in the audience, and send timestamps with the current time, since a backdated event can make delay steps count as already elapsed.

Klaviyo. POST /api/events takes a metric, a profile and properties, with an optional unique ID and a backfill flag, and a flow can start from the metric. Its Stripe integration is charge- and invoice-based, with triggers for failed payments, issued invoices, refunds and successful payments. Subscription lifecycle events such as started, updated and canceled are described in Klaviyo's developer guide as custom events your server sends (Klaviyo Events API).

Either way, send the Stripe or Paddle failed-payment signal from your own server once, and decide whether Stripe's own customer emails stay on, so a customer never gets the same warning twice.

Moving off one of them

Export profiles with every attribute and the consent status of each channel. Treat email, push and SMS consent as separate records.
On Braze, keep your external IDs stable; on Klaviyo, plan for email or phone as the key.
Recreate journeys by outcome and set exit criteria to match each entry event, then run old and new on a limited cohort.
Authenticate the email sending domain on the new platform before the first send.

Choosing for a SaaS team

For most SaaS companies under 25,000 profiles, Klaviyo is the pragmatic baseline: a known price, a free tier and an events API that takes your billing and product signals. Braze enters the picture when mobile engagement is central, user counts are in the millions and a dedicated team will run multichannel journeys. The right procedure is to price Klaviyo yourself, request a Braze quote for the same user count, and pilot one lifecycle journey on whichever survives.

Braze vs Klaviyo: common questions

How much does Braze cost?

Braze does not publish dollar prices. Its pricing page shows four editions (Go, Select, Pro and Enterprise) and a "Get pricing" button, and its pricing article says billing rests on the volume of users engaging with your brand, platform edition and credits for messages and AI features. Pricing on request (quote-based). Klaviyo, by contrast, lists a calculator: $30 at 1,000 profiles, $150 at 10,000 and $400 at 25,000.

Is Klaviyo a realistic alternative to Braze for a SaaS product?

For a web product with email and some SMS as the main channels, yes. Klaviyo accepts product events through its Events API, builds flows from them and publishes its prices. If your product has a mobile app that depends on push notifications and in-app messages coordinated across many channels by a central team, Braze is built around that, and it is the one to request a quote from.

Which handles a "trial ending" event more safely?

Both need care with timestamps and duplicates. Braze's Canvas documentation says to send custom event timestamps with the current time, because a backdated event can make delay steps count as already elapsed and send immediately. Klaviyo's Events API takes a unique ID for deduplication and a backfill flag that stops flows firing on historical events.

Does Braze have a free plan?

Not a self-serve one on its pricing page, which offers a free-trial call to action and a request for pricing. Klaviyo has a free plan for up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, with $5 of mobile messages.