Your Klaviyo bill is mostly contacts you never email

At 10,000 profiles Klaviyo runs about 150 dollars a month, but if you only email 6,000 of them the other 4,000 cost you about 720 dollars a year for nothing. Since 2025 Klaviyo bills on profiles, not sends.

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Most people think a Klaviyo bill tracks how much email they send. It does not. Since February 2025 Klaviyo bills on active profiles, which means every contact you are storing and not suppressing costs money whether you email them or not. The list you forgot about is on the invoice.

What the tiers actually are

The email plan is free up to 250 profiles, then about 20 dollars a month at 500, 30 at 1,000, 100 at 5,000, 150 at 10,000, 400 at 25,000 and 720 at 50,000, before any SMS. The price steps with your profile count, full stop. Sending more email to the same list does not move it; growing the list does.

The part you are paying for nothing

Take a 10,000 profile account at about 150 dollars a month. If you only actually email 6,000 of them and the other 4,000 are one-time buyers and dead signups, roughly 40% of that bill, about 60 dollars a month or 720 dollars a year, is for contacts you never message. That is not a discount you can negotiate. It is list weight.

The fix is hygiene, not sending less

Because the meter is profiles, the fastest way to cut a Klaviyo bill is to suppress or delete the profiles you will never email again, which can drop you a whole tier without losing a single engaged subscriber. Cutting send volume does nothing; cutting dead weight does.

Growth upgrades you automatically; cleanup does not fully reverse it

Because the meter is profiles, your plan is not a one-time choice. Since the February 2025 change Klaviyo auto-upgrades you: when your active-profile count crosses a tier threshold, it moves you to the next plan at the start of your following billing cycle, with no opt-out. A single campaign that pulls in a few thousand new signups can push you up a tier on its own, and the higher bill lands the next cycle whether or not you meant to grow the list. There is no matching auto-downgrade, so the bill only comes back down when you actively suppress or delete profiles.

There is a catch to the cleanup fix for older accounts. When Klaviyo moved to profile-based billing on 18 February 2025 it gave the accounts already on the old model an appreciation discount that caps any email-plan price increase at 25 percent, so the total cannot rise above 125 percent of the prior price; it applies automatically and, until Klaviyo says otherwise, continues indefinitely while the account stays on an eligible plan. But that discount is a fixed dollar amount, and Klaviyo shrinks it by the size of any downgrade until it reaches zero, and it does not grow back on a later upgrade. So if your account carries the discount, suppressing dead profiles still lowers your list price, but part of the saving is offset as the discount erodes, and you cannot rebuild it later. Newer accounts never had the discount, so for them a cleanup is a straightforward win.

SMS rides a different meter

The tiers above are the email bill. SMS is billed separately, on credits, and the two meters do not move together. A US text segment costs one credit, a picture message (MMS) costs three, and a message longer than 160 characters, or 70 once it contains an emoji, splits into more segments that each cost a credit. Klaviyo includes a small monthly credit allowance, credits do not roll over, and above a few thousand the US rate settles near a cent per credit. That figure is list pricing that moves and it varies by country, so confirm your own. The point of shape is that SMS cost tracks how many messages you send and how long they are, not how many profiles you store.

This changes the fix. Suppressing dead profiles drops your email tier, but it does nothing to the SMS line, because the contacts you suppressed were not costing you credits anyway. If your bill is high and you send SMS, read it as two invoices in one: trim profiles to cut the email meter, and cut segment count, with shorter copy, fewer emojis and tighter audiences, to cut the credit meter. A 10,000 profile account that also texts can owe well beyond the 150 dollars the email tier alone suggests.

How it differs from Mailchimp and Brevo

This is also why a flat Klaviyo-versus-the-rest price comparison misleads. Mailchimp bills by total contacts and Brevo by monthly send volume with unlimited stored contacts, so for a large list that sends rarely Brevo can be far cheaper, while for heavy senders the gap narrows. The right comparison uses your real profile count and send frequency, which is what the estimator is for.

See your own number

Put your active-profile count and the share you actually email into the tool and it shows your monthly cost from the verified tiers and what your dormant profiles are costing you. The tier prices are verified list pricing; SMS is an editable estimate, so confirm against your own account before you plan around it.

Frequently asked questions

Does Klaviyo charge by emails sent or by contacts?

By active profiles, not sends. Since February 2025 Klaviyo bills on the contacts you store and do not suppress, so sending more email to the same list does not raise the bill; growing the list does.

Why am I paying for contacts I never email?

Because billing is per active profile. A 10,000-profile account is about 150 dollars a month; if you only email 6,000, the other 4,000 dead signups are roughly 40% of the bill, about 60 dollars a month or 720 dollars a year, for nothing. Suppressing or cleaning them lowers the bill.

How do I lower my Klaviyo bill?

Suppress or delete profiles you never email, since the price steps with profile count (free to 250, about 100 dollars at 5,000, about 150 at 10,000). Trimming dead contacts drops you into a lower tier. The calculator shows what your dormant contacts cost.

Does Klaviyo charge separately for SMS?

Yes. SMS runs on its own credit meter, billed on top of the per-profile email plan rather than folded into it. A US text segment costs one credit, an MMS costs three, and a message past 160 characters (70 once it has an emoji) splits into more segments that each cost a credit. So your SMS cost tracks messages sent and their length, not the profiles you store.

Does cleaning my contact list lower my Klaviyo SMS cost?

No. Suppressing or deleting profiles drops your email tier because email is priced per profile, but SMS is priced per message credit, so a smaller list does not cut the SMS line on its own. To lower SMS cost you send fewer segments: shorter copy, fewer emojis (an emoji drops the per-segment limit from 160 to 70 characters), and tighter audiences.

Does Klaviyo upgrade my plan automatically when my list grows?

Yes. Since the February 2025 change, when your active-profile count crosses a tier threshold Klaviyo moves you to the next plan at the start of your next billing cycle, with no opt-out. There is no automatic downgrade, so the bill only comes back down when you actively suppress or delete profiles.

Will cleaning my list always lower my Klaviyo bill?

For newer accounts, yes, because the price steps down with the profile count. Accounts that carried over from the old billing model got an appreciation discount that caps price increases at 25 percent of their prior price; that discount is a fixed dollar amount which shrinks with any downgrade and does not grow back, so a cleanup still lowers the list price but part of the saving is offset and cannot be rebuilt. Check whether your account carries the discount before planning a big cleanup.

Run the numbers for your own case

Every figure above comes from a free tool you can use in your browser, with no signup.

Estimate your own Klaviyo bill