Maropost Blog: Marketing Automation & Ecommerce Insights

The hidden costs of Klaviyo and why Maropost Marketing Cloud wins on ROI

Written by Helen de Souza, Marketing Manager at Maropost | Nov 13, 2025 5:42:27 AM

If you’re using Klaviyo to drive your ecommerce marketing, you might already feel the friction — high costs, manual management, and data that never seems to line up.  

What starts as a powerful tool for email automation often becomes a costly tangle of bloated lists and inconsistent deliverability. 

Maropost Marketing Cloud was built to change that — helping brands grow smarter, not smaller, by aligning cost with engagement, not contact volume. 

Paying for “ghosts”: The Klaviyo cost problem 

Klaviyo bills you for every contact in your database — even the ones who never open, click, or buy. That means you’re paying for ghosts — inactive, bounced, or suppressed profiles that don’t generate a cent of revenue. 

Maropost charges based on what you send with clear, predictable pricing and no fees for unengaged users. You scale profitably, not painfully. 

This engagement-based pricing helps retailers keep budgets tight and ROI high, ensuring every dollar spent drives real outcomes — not database bloat. 

Surprise price spikes vs predictable ROI 

Klaviyo users often experience unexpected price jumps of up to 25% when their list grows — even slightly. These auto-upgrades can happen mid-cycle, eating into profit margins without warning. 

Maropost takes the opposite approach: 

  • Transparent billing — one platform, one predictable price. 
  • Send-based model — you pay for what you send, keeping costs aligned with performance. 
  • Scalable plans — designed for growing brands, not penalizing them for success. 

When you know your costs, you can plan your growth with confidence. 

Deliverability that hurts revenue 

Klaviyo’s “99% delivery rate” doesn’t always tell the full story. Many users report inbox placement plummeting from 40% to 15%, meaning their “delivered” emails land in spam or promotions tabs. 

Maropost is built on enterprise-grade deliverability infrastructure — the kind used by top global retailers. That means: 

  • Higher inbox placement. 
  • More opens that convert. 
  • Real revenue, not vanity metrics. 

Because an email in spam is just as bad as one never sent. 

Less maintenance, more marketing 

Klaviyo’s complexity often demands constant monitoring — list cleaning, segmentation management, and campaign tuning. For lean teams, that can feel like a full-time job. 

Maropost streamlines the process: 

  • Drag-and-drop workflows for instant automation. 
  • Built-in analytics — no dev team required. 
  • Real-time insights that track revenue, not just opens. 

You get simplicity without sacrificing sophistication. 

ROI that grows with you 

Klaviyo’s costs grow faster than its returns — you pay for potential, not performance. 
Maropost’s model flips that script, rewarding brands for engagement and retention, not just reach. 

That’s why DTC and retail brands across Australia are making the switch. They’re choosing platforms that: 

  • Deliver predictability
  • Prioritise inbox placement
  • Automate smarter
  • Scale profitably 

The bottom line: 

You’re not in business to pay for contacts — you’re in business to make money. 
Klaviyo gives you cost creep and complexity. 

Maropost Marketing Cloud gives you clarity, simplicity, and ROI that scales. 

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Ready to see the difference for yourself? 

Book a demo and discover how Maropost’s engagement-based pricing and enterprise-grade deliverability can turn your marketing spend into measurable profit.