What email tool is used the most on ecom stores?

If you build or run a Shopify store, the email and SMS platform is one of the first big choices you make. Here is what we found on the stores we index, how the two tools whose docs we read work with Shopify, and how to choose between them. It is a sample of the stores we index, not the whole market.

As of 2026-10-28. Features, integrations and prices are as each vendor’s own site showed them on that date; prices change, so check the vendor’s site before you buy. This is a factual comparison, not a ranking.

What these tools do and who uses what

Email and SMS platforms are where you turn a visitor into a repeat customer. They hold your subscriber lists, send welcome and abandoned cart messages, and use order data to segment who hears what. On Shopify, Klaviyo's own docs say its integration brings customer profile and order data into Klaviyo for targeted messaging, and that customers who accept marketing at checkout can be added to a list automatically. That is why the choice matters: the tool sits close to your customer data, and switching later means moving lists and consent with it.

Roughly two in three of the stores we scanned have a tool we can detect, 65% of 731. Klaviyo leads by a wide margin at 57% of stores, with 396 of its 419 on Shopify. Attentive comes next at 17%, and Postscript is far smaller at 3%, all of it on Shopify. Looking at the tools found rather than the stores, Klaviyo is 67% of them and Attentive 20%. Postscript is 4%, and everything else together is 9%. Many stores run more than one tool, typically an email platform plus a separate SMS one, so those shares are not a head count of stores. The three also differ in focus. Klaviyo's free plan covers email and text messages, while Postscript's pricing page describes a plan ladder starting with a Starter plan at $0/mo with a $49 monthly minimum spend. If you're building for a store that mostly wants SMS, that pricing shape is worth comparing against its expected send volume.

Sector and platform shifts are bigger than you might expect. Beauty is the most covered sector at 78% of stores, with Klaviyo on 80 of 114, while sports and outdoor sits at 54%. Shopify stands out at 81% of stores with a tool, against 50% on Adobe Commerce (Magento), where Dotdigital is the most used, and 25% on Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Part of that gap is likely about how we detect tools. Shopify apps tend to load a visible script, while enterprise stacks often send email from a back end we can't see. Our advice here is reasoning, not a measured result: if you're on Shopify, start with the tool that has a maintained app and a documented integration, and check consent settings early. Klaviyo's docs note that onsite tracking may not record events for visitors in the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland without consent.

Klaviyo: what it does and how it connects to Shopify

Klaviyo is the most common email and SMS tool we found: 419 of the indexed stores use it, and 396 of those are on Shopify. On the Shopify App Store it is listed as free to install, with a 4.7 rating from 3,417 reviews. Per Klaviyo's own docs, the Shopify integration pulls customer profile and order data into Klaviyo so you can send targeted messages. That order data is what lets you segment by what people bought, not just who they are.

List syncing is one tick box. Klaviyo's Shopify setup guide says to check "Sync your Shopify email subscribers to Klaviyo" to automatically add customers who accept email marketing at checkout, or sign up through any Shopify sign-up form, to the list you choose. SMS can sync too, but you have to set up text messaging in Klaviyo first. Klaviyo also recommends separate lists for email and SMS subscribers. Tip: name the lists clearly from day one, so the team knows which one a campaign should go to.

Tracking has caveats. Klaviyo says it may not track onsite events for visitors in the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland unless they have given consent, based on your Shopify Customer Privacy settings. Viewed Collection, Submitted Search and Added to Cart events from Shopify's server-side pixel need Shopify Network Intelligence enabled under Settings > Customer privacy. Klaviyo sign-up forms also need onsite tracking switched on. So check your privacy settings before you build flows that depend on browse or cart events.

If you're migrating, disconnect your old email provider from Shopify before you integrate Klaviyo. Klaviyo warns that failing to do so could send double opt-in emails to your existing subscribers. This tends to be the step people skip because it feels like housekeeping. Do it first, then connect Klaviyo and sync your lists.

Klaviyo's published plans

Klaviyo's pricing page lists a free plan, and it is more than a trial. It covers email sends, text messages, Customer Hub and built-in reporting. You also get the drag-and-drop email and SMS editors, plus segmentation and automations. Klaviyo says the free plan supports its standard library of integrations, with Shopify named alongside WooCommerce and Wix.

The limits are what matter. Klaviyo's page says up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month. It adds $5 of mobile messages a month, depending on region and provider, and $5 of Composer usage. Email support only runs for the first 60 days after sign-up.

The detail to plan around is what happens at the cap. Klaviyo says that once you pass the profile or send limit, the account can't send more emails or messages until the next billing cycle or until you upgrade. This tends to matter more than the headline price, because a list that grows or a busy sales week can hit the ceiling at the worst moment. Before launch, check your current profile count and estimate your busiest month of sends. Then you can decide whether the free plan is a real fit or just a place to build and test flows.

Postscript: SMS-first, built for Shopify

Postscript is built around SMS first, with email added alongside it. Its Shopify App Store listing describes it as AI-powered SMS, RCS and email, and it is free to install. It has 1,204 reviews there. If your main goal is texting shoppers, it is worth a look. If you mainly want email with SMS bolted on, compare it with the broader tools in this guide.

Its footprint in our sample is small and entirely on Shopify. We found it on 22 stores, about 3% of those scanned, and all 22 run on Shopify. That fits a tool made for one platform. For developers, it means you can expect the Shopify app route, with no custom integration work on other platforms to plan for.

Postscript publishes its pricing. The Starter plan is $0/mo with a $49 monthly minimum spend, and Growth is $100/mo. Professional is $500/mo and is marked Most Popular, the Postscript AI Plan is $699/mo, and Enterprise is custom pricing via Contact Sales. Starter SMS costs $0.009 per SMS and $0.045 per MMS, plus carrier fees. Plans are billed monthly, with no contract required, and there is a $100 trial credit for the first 30 days. A practical tip: before you commit, estimate your monthly send volume. Per-message costs tend to matter more than the plan fee as your list grows.

Everyone else in the sample

Past Klaviyo, the field thins out fast. Attentive is the clear second, on 124 stores, and 111 of those run on Shopify. It is mostly an SMS-led tool, so it often sits beside or instead of an email platform rather than replacing it. Mailchimp turns up on 13 stores, 11 of them on Shopify. Omnisend is on just 4, even though its Shopify App Store listing shows a free plan and 3,193 reviews. Review counts tell you an app is well known in the App Store, not how many of the stores we scanned have it installed.

The smaller names lean towards larger or non-Shopify set-ups. Listrak is on 8 stores, only 3 on Shopify. Wunderkind is on 9, 6 on Shopify. Braze is on 6, 3 on Shopify. Dotdigital is on 4, and none of those are Shopify. It is also the most used tool on Adobe Commerce (Magento) stores in the sample, where it appears on 4 of 8 stores with any tool. These platforms tend to suit enterprise stacks with custom data feeds, which may be why Shopify's app-first model leaves them less visible there. That is our reasoning, not something we measured.

Sector and platform tell a similar story. Beauty has the highest adoption among the sectors, at 78%, and sports and outdoor the lowest at 54%. Big retailers are a different case again: only 1 of 14 has a tool we detect, which suggests they send through systems we can't see from public pages. On Shopify, 81% of stores have a tool, against 25% on Salesforce Commerce Cloud. If you're choosing a tool, start from your platform's integration route and your sector's habits, then check that the data you need syncs cleanly. Shortlisting one SMS-first tool and one email-first tool is a sensible way to compare like with like.

How to choose

Start with the channel and the list you already have. If email is the main job, Klaviyo's free plan lets you try it before committing, and it includes email, text messages, segmentation and automation. Its docs say that once you pass the free limits, the account can't send until the next billing cycle or an upgrade, so check your profile and send counts before a big campaign. If SMS is the main job, Postscript's pricing page shows monthly plans with no contract required, plus a per-message rate and carrier fees on top. Work out your likely message volume first, because that is what drives the bill.

Plan consent and migration before you install anything. Klaviyo's docs say onsite tracking may not record events for visitors in the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland unless they have consented, based on your Shopify Customer Privacy settings. So don't judge a tool by its dashboards until you've tested with consent both given and refused. Klaviyo also recommends separate lists for email and SMS subscribers, which tends to keep consent records easier to reason about. If you're switching, disconnect the old email platform from Shopify first. Klaviyo warns that skipping this could send double opt-in emails to existing subscribers.

Then think about page weight. Klaviyo's sign-up forms need onsite tracking turned on, so the forms and the tracking script arrive together. That tends to matter because every extra script competes with your product page for loading time. As a developer, test the store before and after install, load popups only where they earn their place, and remove the old tool's code once the migration is done. Set a short checklist: consent tested, lists mapped, old integration disconnected, page speed rechecked.

How we measured this

Of 731 stores we index that we could scan, not the whole market.

Features and tools are read from each store’s public HTML, so anything added only by JavaScript after the page loads may be missed: treat these as lower bounds.

Tools are recognised by our detection rules; a tool we have no rule for isn’t counted.

Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we’ll correct it.