Klaviyo SMS Pricing 2026: Rates, Credits and MMS Costs
Klaviyo SMS pricing, October 2026: $15 a month for 1,000 US texts and $125 for 10,000, carrier fees included. Credits are gone. Rates by country, MMS, extras.
Table of contents
- How much does Klaviyo SMS cost?
- Klaviyo SMS cost by volume and country
- Add it to your email plan
- Credits are gone: the July 2026 change
- Legacy credit costs, for reference
- How Klaviyo calculates the cost of a send
- Segments
- MMS
- Which messages are billable
- The hidden costs in Klaviyo SMS pricing
- Klaviyo SMS vs Postscript and Attentive on price
- Is Klaviyo SMS worth it, or should you use a specialist?
- How to keep your Klaviyo SMS bill under control
- Want SMS that earns more than it costs?
- Sources
Klaviyo SMS costs $15 a month for 1,000 US texts from a toll-free number, $70 for 5,000, $125 for 10,000 and $240 for 20,000, carrier fees included (USD, Klaviyo’s calculator on 10 October 2026). It’s a monthly plan added on top of your email plan, and texts to other countries cost more.
Those are dollar rates, not credits. Klaviyo replaced its credit system in July 2026, so if you’re budgeting from an older article that talks about credits, your numbers are probably off.
This guide uses Klaviyo’s own pricing calculator and help centre, checked in September 2026, on 1 October 2026 and, for the US toll-free rates, again on 10 October 2026. We run Klaviyo SMS for ecommerce brands, so we’ll also cover the practical side: what actually drives your bill.
How much does Klaviyo SMS cost?
In the US, roughly $0.012 to $0.015 a message all-in, as of October 2026: from $15 a month for 1,000 toll-free texts to $240 for 20,000, carrier fees included. Short-code message rates are lower but a short code adds its own monthly fee, and international rates are higher (1,000 texts to Australia cost $30 a month). The free plan includes $5 of messaging a month.
Your plan is a dollar amount of monthly spend. Each message deducts its rate, which depends on channel, destination country and, in the US and Canada, whether you send from a toll-free number or a short code. In the US those are the only two options: Klaviyo doesn’t offer long codes there.
Klaviyo SMS cost by volume and country
Monthly plan cost from Klaviyo’s pricing calculator, USD, checked on 1 October 2026; the US toll-free SMS prices were the same on 10 October. Per-message figures are all-in. The calculator shows US rates as a per-send price ”+ provider fees” (about $0.004 per SMS and $0.008 per MMS); the monthly plan price includes those fees, and so do the figures below. The rate falls as the plan gets bigger.
| Monthly messages | US SMS (toll-free) | US SMS (short code) | Australia SMS | US MMS (toll-free) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $15 (~$0.015/msg) | $15 (~$0.013/msg) | $30 (~$0.029/msg) | $45 (~$0.044/msg) |
| 2,000 | $30 | |||
| 2,900 | $40 (~$0.014/msg) | |||
| 5,000 | $70 (~$0.013/msg) | $200 (~$0.039/msg) | ||
| 10,000 | $125 (~$0.012/msg) | $115 (~$0.011/msg) | $250 (~$0.025/msg) | $385 (~$0.037/msg) |
| 20,000 | $240 (~$0.012/msg) |
Blank cells: we only recorded the calculator at these points. Short-code plans exclude the short code’s own monthly fee (see below). Klaviyo’s calculator covers more countries (including the UK, Canada, New Zealand and much of Europe) and exact rates for your account are under Settings > Billing > Account Usage > View Text Message rates.
Klaviyo says its plans have volume discounts built in: the bigger your monthly plan, the less you pay per message.
Add it to your email plan
SMS sits on top of Klaviyo’s email plan, which is priced on active profiles: $20 a month at 500 profiles, $100 at 5,000, $150 at 10,000, $400 at 25,000 and $720 at 50,000 as of September 2026. A 10,000-profile store sending 10,000 US toll-free texts a month is looking at about $275 a month for both. Our Klaviyo pricing guide covers the email side and the February 2025 billing change.
Credits are gone: the July 2026 change
Klaviyo moved mobile messaging from credits to per-message dollar rates on July 13, 2026. New customers and free-plan accounts switched immediately. Existing paid mobile subscribers switched on their first billing cycle after August 13, 2026.
What changed, per Klaviyo’s billing FAQ:
- Dollars instead of credits everywhere: billing overview, usage and the estimated cost when you schedule a campaign or flow.
- Around 70 new plan tiers with smaller gaps. If your old tier was retired, Klaviyo moved you to the closest lower tier, never higher.
- Updated rates by channel and region, reflecting carrier cost changes since rates were last set in 2022. Some went up, some down.
- Separate toll-free and short-code pricing for US and Canadian SMS.
What didn’t change: you still buy a plan upfront, and carrier fees are still included in the rate.
Legacy credit costs, for reference
If your account hasn’t transitioned, or you’re comparing against an older quote, this is how many credits a single message segment used under the old system:
| Country | SMS credits | MMS credits |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 1 | 3 |
| Canada | 3 | 5 (toll-free) |
| United Kingdom | 5 | Not available |
| Australia | 4 | 15 |
| New Zealand | 10 | Not available |
| Ireland | 9 | Not available |
| France | 7 | 10 |
| Germany | 12 | 9 |
Source: Klaviyo, “Understand Klaviyo’s mobile messaging system”, legacy credit pricing table.
The spread is still a useful guide: under credits, a UK text cost five times a US text, which is why international SMS needs its own budget line.
How Klaviyo calculates the cost of a send
Klaviyo’s formula is:
Rate × recipients × message segments = total cost
Segments
An SMS holds up to 160 characters, or 70 if the message contains an emoji or special character. Longer messages are split into segments, and each segment costs a full message. Because each segment carries an invisible header of about seven characters, a split SMS holds about 153 characters per segment.
A 170-character text with no emoji is two segments and costs twice as much. Add one emoji and it’s three. The message editor shows your segment count before you send.
MMS
MMS costs more on every platform because it carries an image. Klaviyo’s MMS rate covers an image or GIF under 600 KB with up to 1,600 characters (that limit doesn’t change with emojis). If your MMS copy is long, it can still be cheaper than a four-segment SMS, so check both.
Which messages are billable
Per Klaviyo’s help centre:
| Message type | Billable? |
|---|---|
| Campaigns | Yes |
| Flow messages | Yes |
| Outbound conversation replies | Yes |
| Auto-response when no keyword is recognised | Yes |
| Failed deliveries (blocked, device disconnected) | Yes |
| Inbound messages from customers | No |
| Opt-in messages (double opt-in confirmation, one-time codes) | No |
| YES, HELP, STOP and START keyword responses | No |
| Skipped messages (Smart Sending, no SMS consent) | No |
| SMS preview messages | No |
Failed deliveries are billable, which is one more reason to keep your SMS list clean.
The hidden costs in Klaviyo SMS pricing
- Unused spend doesn’t roll over. Size your plan to your real volume, and downgrade ahead of quiet months.
- Overages depend on your billing preference. With Auto-upgrade switched on, Klaviyo moves you to the next tier when you consistently exceed your plan. Flex, for mobile plans of $490 a month or more, lets you exceed your plan temporarily and bills the difference to the next tier without a permanent upgrade. Contract customers follow their contract terms.
- Segments. Emojis and long copy multiply cost silently.
- International sends. Australian SMS cost roughly twice as much per message as US toll-free SMS at the same volume, all-in, as of October 2026.
- Short code fees. A short code is the only US sending number with its own monthly fee, and the amount varies by country; toll-free numbers are included free. A new US short code also takes 8 to 12 weeks to provision.
- Rates can change. Klaviyo says rates may be updated to reflect carrier cost changes, with notice in advance.
Klaviyo SMS vs Postscript and Attentive on price
| 10,000 US SMS a month | All-in monthly cost (September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Klaviyo, toll-free | $125 (carrier fees included) |
| Klaviyo, short code | $115 (carrier fees included), plus the short code’s monthly fee |
| Postscript Starter | ~$123 ($90 in messages + ~$33 average carrier fees) |
| Postscript Growth | ~$213 (includes $100 platform fee) |
| Attentive | Not published; quote only |
At this volume, Klaviyo’s toll-free plan and Postscript Starter cost almost the same. A dedicated short code costs extra on both: Postscript lists $750 a month, and Klaviyo charges a separate monthly fee that varies by country and isn’t published in its help centre. See our Postscript pricing and Attentive pricing breakdowns for the detail.
Is Klaviyo SMS worth it, or should you use a specialist?
A specialist SMS platform can make sense when SMS is your dominant channel, you’re on Shopify, you want advanced two-way conversational selling, and you have the team to run two platforms well. Our Klaviyo vs Postscript comparison covers that case honestly, and our best SMS marketing platforms guide compares the full shortlist.
Klaviyo SMS usually pays for itself when:
- Email and SMS share a flow. “Send the abandoned cart email; if it isn’t opened in four hours, send a text” is one flow in Klaviyo. Across two platforms it’s two systems guessing about each other.
- You want one attribution model. Two platforms each claim the same order. One platform reports it once.
- Your volume is moderate. Under about 20,000 texts a month, the price difference between Klaviyo and a specialist is small, so the second platform has to earn its keep on features.
- You sell in several countries. Klaviyo prices SMS by country in the same plan.
For how to set up SMS in Klaviyo, from sending numbers to consent and quiet hours, see our Klaviyo SMS marketing guide.
How to keep your Klaviyo SMS bill under control
- Write to 160 characters, and think twice about emojis. One emoji can halve your characters per segment.
- Use Smart Sending and suppress unengaged SMS subscribers. Skipped messages aren’t billed; failed ones are.
- Right-size your plan monthly. Unused spend doesn’t roll over.
- Do the short code maths first. The per-message rate is lower, but the short code has its own monthly fee and takes 8 to 12 weeks to provision. Klaviyo recommends one once you text more than 95,000 people a month.
- Budget international SMS separately. Rates vary widely by country.
Want SMS that earns more than it costs?
Our SMS marketing service builds Klaviyo SMS programmes that pay back: consent capture, flows that coordinate with email, and reporting on revenue per message, not just clicks. If you’d like a view on your current SMS spend first, get a free audit.
Sources
- Klaviyo Pricing (mobile messaging calculator, provider fees, short code FAQ and email plans, September, 1 October and 10 October 2026)
- Understand Klaviyo’s mobile messaging system (rates, segments, billable messages, legacy credits)
- Klaviyo Billing Updates FAQ: 7/13 Mobile Messaging Update (dates, tiers, overages, Auto-upgrade and Flex)
- Understanding SMS sending numbers (US toll-free and short code only, short code monthly fee)
- Short code application reference (8 to 12 weeks for a new US short code)
- Postscript Pricing
/ Frequently Asked Questions
Q.01 How much does Klaviyo cost for SMS? +
/ Answer
As of October 2026, Klaviyo's pricing calculator shows US toll-free SMS plans at $15 a month for 1,000 messages, $70 for 5,000, $125 for 10,000 and $240 for 20,000, with carrier fees included. Short-code messages cost less each ($115 for 10,000), but a short code carries its own monthly fee. Klaviyo's free plan includes $5 of mobile messaging a month. SMS is added on top of your email plan.
Q.02 How do Klaviyo SMS credits work now? +
/ Answer
They don't, for most accounts. From July 13, 2026, Klaviyo replaced credits with dollar-based rates: you buy a monthly mobile plan denominated in dollars and each message deducts its rate. Existing paid customers moved on their first billing cycle after August 13, 2026. The old model charged credits per segment, such as 1 for a US SMS and 5 for a UK SMS.
Q.03 How much does an SMS message cost on Klaviyo? +
/ Answer
It depends on country, channel and number type. All-in, including the provider fee Klaviyo adds to US texts (about $0.004 per SMS), a US toll-free SMS cost about $0.012 to $0.015 as of October 2026 depending on plan size, a US short code SMS about $0.011 to $0.013 plus the short code's monthly fee, and an Australian SMS about $0.025 to $0.029. Long messages are billed per segment: 160 characters, or 70 with an emoji.
Q.04 Why does MMS cost more than SMS on Klaviyo? +
/ Answer
MMS carries an image or GIF, which needs more data and sending infrastructure, so carriers charge more to deliver it. Klaviyo's MMS rate covers an image or GIF under 600 KB with up to 1,600 characters. As of September 2026, the calculator priced US toll-free MMS at $45 a month for 1,000 messages and $385 for 10,000.
Q.05 Do unused Klaviyo SMS funds roll over? +
/ Answer
No. Your mobile plan gives you a set amount of spend each month, and unused spend doesn't roll over to the next cycle, per Klaviyo's help centre as of September 2026. If you regularly finish the month with spend left, Klaviyo suggests downgrading, and you can move down ahead of a quiet month so you're not paying for capacity you won't use.
Q.06 Is Klaviyo SMS cheaper than Postscript? +
/ Answer
At typical ecommerce volumes they are close. As of September 2026, 10,000 US SMS a month cost $125 on Klaviyo's toll-free plan with carrier fees included, against about $123 on Postscript Starter once you add Postscript's published average carrier fee. Klaviyo's short-code plan was $115, before the separate monthly short code fee. The larger difference is running one platform instead of two.
Q.07 Is there a free version of Klaviyo with SMS? +
/ Answer
Yes. Klaviyo's free plan covers up to 250 active profiles and 500 email sends a month, and includes $5 of mobile messages a month, as of September 2026. At US toll-free rates that is a few hundred test texts, enough to try SMS flows and consent collection before you commit to a paid mobile plan.
Q.08 Which platform is best for bulk SMS? +
/ Answer
For an ecommerce brand texting opted-in subscribers, the one that shares a profile with your email, which is Klaviyo if you already use it. At high US volume, Postscript's Professional plan drops to $0.007 per SMS plus carrier fees, and Attentive quotes enterprise contracts. For developer-built sending, Twilio charges $0.0083 per segment before carrier fees (all as of 10 October 2026). Every option needs prior consent.
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