Looking for the best marketing automation platform? Compare Braze vs Klaviyo in 2025 across features, pricing, email & SMS, omnichannel flows, integrations, and more. Find out which platform suits your business best!
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: Choosing the Best E‑Commerce Marketing Platform
After comparing Braze and Klaviyo, we found that each platform excels in different areas and serves specific e-commerce needs:
Braze—Best for: Large or rapidly scaling brands (often with mobile apps) that need a powerful cross-channel messaging platform and have the technical resources to manage integrations and data. Braze offers robust customer journey orchestration across many channels, but it doesn’t include e-commerce-specific loyalty or on-site personalization features, so you’d need additional tools for those. Its pricing is enterprise-grade (no free plan), which reflects its focus on mature marketing teams.
Klaviyo—Best for: Small to mid-sized online businesses (especially Shopify stores) seeking an easy-to-use email and SMS marketing solution with deep e-commerce integrations. Klaviyo’s strength is in email/SMS automation and segmentation tied to store data. However, Klaviyo is less comprehensive when it comes to omnichannel reach (limited support for push or on-site experiences) and lacks built-in loyalty/rewards features. As your marketing needs grow beyond email and SMS, you might find yourself adding other tools to cover personalization, push, or loyalty programs.
Neither Braze nor Klaviyo provides a built-in customer data platform or native loyalty capabilities, which means personalized omnichannel marketing and consolidated data management can be challenging on those tools. They also offer dedicated account managers only on their highest tiers, so smaller teams often rely on general support and self-serve resources. These limitations can lead to a fragmented marketing stack (and higher total costs) once you start needing more advanced capabilities.
Maestra—Best for: Mid-market e-commerce brands with an established marketing team and steady traffic, looking for a unified platform to drive growth through hyper-personalized promotions across all channels. Maestra is an all-in-one marketing solution that combines real-time customer data, omnichannel automation, loyalty/rewards, and personalization in a single platform. Instead of piecing together multiple tools, Maestra lets you run everything—email, SMS, website personalization, mobile/web push, product recommendations, loyalty programs, ad retargeting—in one place.
Key features include:
- Real-time CDP with granular segmentation—a built-in customer data platform that unifies online and offline data for precise targeting.
- Email and SMS marketing—with a proprietary drag-and-drop editor and advanced personalization.
- Real-time site personalization—ability to tailor web content for each user in-session.
- Product recommendations & merchandising—AI-driven suggestions on site and in emails.
- Loyalty programs and promotions—flexible points, tiers, referrals, and dynamic offers.
- Ad audience integration—syncing segments to Facebook, Google, etc., for optimized ads.
- Push notifications—in-app and web push messaging.
- …and more, all supported by white-glove customer support (every Maestra client gets a dedicated Success Manager).
If that sounds like what you need, you can book a demo to see how Maestra can elevate your e-commerce marketing.
In this detailed comparison, we’ll evaluate Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra on key areas. For each category, we provide an overview and rate each platform.
Content:
Comparison Summary: Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra
Feature
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
Omnichannel Flow
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Robust multi-channel messaging across email, SMS, mobile push, in-app, etc. Great journey builder (Canvas), but no built-in CDP or loyalty features, so true 1:1 cross-channel personalization is limited without external tools.
⭐⭐⭐
Email & SMS-centric automation with some support for mobile push. Easy to use for those channels, but limited channel diversity—lacks native support for web push or in-app messaging, making cohesive omnichannel campaigns harder to execute across all touchpoints.
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
True omnichannel flows connecting email, SMS, website, mobile app, offline, and ads in unified journeys. Real-time CDP ensures all channels react to customer behavior in sync, delivering consistent messages everywhere. Handles complex, multi-step flows at scale (+50 flows running seamlessly).
Customer Data Management & Segmentation
⭐⭐⭐
Stores customer profiles and event data for targeting, but not a full CDP (relies on third-party CDPs for unified data). Segmentation is possible by behaviors, but data from other sources (offline, POS) requires integration. Limited out-of-the-box analytics on customer lifetime value or product interactions.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rich e-commerce data integration—auto-syncs purchase history, site activity, etc. into profiles. Strong segmentation engine (e.g. by behavior, purchase history) and even predictive scores. Recently launched CDP features for enterprise (Klaviyo One) to unify more data. Not real-time across all channels, but very effective within email/SMS context.
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Real-time unified customer data—acts as a single source of truth combining online and offline data. Advanced segmentation (RFM, product-based, predictive) updates instantly based on behavior. You can target extremely granular segments (e.g. high-value shoppers in NYC who viewed a specific product) and all campaigns pull from the same up-to-date data.
Site Personalization
⭐
Very limited on-site personalization. Braze can trigger in-app messages or content cards in mobile/web apps, but it doesn’t natively alter your website’s content for different users. Any web personalization (like dynamic banners or UI changes) requires custom development or another tool.
⭐
Minimal site personalization. Klaviyo primarily personalizes communications (emails/SMS). On-site, it offers basic pop-ups and a new beta “Customer Hub” for product recommendations, but no built-in ability to dynamically change the website experience per visitor. For tailored on-site content, you’d need an add-on.
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
In-session website personalization. Maestra can change website content (banners, images, product displays) in real time based on visitor segments or behavior. This is driven by its real-time segmentation and creates a truly individualized browsing experience.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Enterprise-grade email capabilities with high scalability. Braze includes a visual email editor and supports advanced personalization via Liquid/JSON. It excels at triggered emails within multi-step journeys. However, it’s not e-commerce-specific—you may need to manually incorporate product feeds or loyalty data. Deliverability tools (e.g. inbox testing, send-time optimization) are strong.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
E-commerce email marketing powerhouse. Klaviyo offers a drag-and-drop email builder with many templates and deep store integration. It automatically uses product and order data for personalization (e.g. abandoned cart items, recommended products). Automation flows (welcome series, post-purchase, etc.) are easy to set up. One limitation is beyond basic merge tags, advanced personalization may require workarounds since there’s no integrated CDP.
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Advanced email with hyper-personalization. Maestra’s proprietary email composer generates clean HTML (no clipping in Gmail). You can personalize content using any customer attribute or behavior from the built-in CDP—far beyond basic merge fields. It supports A/B testing, AMP emails, and dynamic content blocks that auto-populate for each segment. All essential email marketing features are included (unlimited sends, deliverability analytics, etc.), integrated with loyalty and product data out of the box.
SMS
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Integrated SMS messaging with support for global carriers. Braze can send transactional or promotional texts and even coordinate SMS with other channels in its Canvas flows. Personalization is available (e.g. insert customer name or product info), but advanced SMS features like two-way conversations might require integration.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Built-in SMS marketing well-suited for online stores. Klaviyo SMS (available for many regions) ties directly into the same platform—you can create flows that combine email and text seamlessly. It’s great for cart abandonment texts, shipping updates, and flash sale alerts. While it covers the basics (opt-in management, link tracking), it doesn’t have the multi-channel AI optimization that Braze offers (Braze’s AI can choose best channel/time).
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Omnichannel SMS fully connected to other channels. In Maestra, SMS is one part of a unified conversation—e.g. a campaign can shift from email to SMS to push based on user actions. It supports bulk SMS sends with fast throughput, short URLs, and A/B testing of messages. Because Maestra recognizes users across devices, it can avoid messaging a customer via SMS if they already converted on another channel, for example.
Website & Email Product Recommendations
⭐
No native recommendation engine. Braze has no built-in product recommendation feature—you’d need to integrate a third-party AI or manually curate recommendations. Emails or in-app messages can include dynamic content via API (Connected Content), but this requires you to supply the logic.
⭐⭐
Basic product recommendations for e-commerce. Klaviyo can display simple recommendations like “Customers who bought X also bought Y” or popular items, using rules and your product feed. It’s useful but not as algorithmically sophisticated as dedicated recommendation systems.
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
AI-powered recommendations on both site and email. Maestra predicts what each shopper is likely to buy next using machine learning, updating recommendations in real time. It supports cross-sell, upsell, and new arrivals suggestions based on each customer’s behavior and product attributes. There are 14 AI models available (e.g. “Trending products”, “Similar items”) which you can use out-of-the-box or fine-tune with custom rules.
Promotions & Referrals
⭐⭐
No built-in referral or promo campaign module. Braze can deliver promo codes or referral links via messages, but it doesn’t manage referral programs or track incentives natively. You’d have to integrate a referral platform or manually track codes. In short, Braze handles the messaging part of promotions well, but not the program mechanics.
⭐⭐
Basic promotions, no native referral program. Klaviyo can send discount codes in emails/SMS and has integration with Shopify for coupon codes. You can set up flows to encourage referrals (e.g. “Give $10, Get $10” emails) but Klaviyo doesn’t manage the referral tracking or reward logic itself. Dedicated apps (or Shopify’s own features) are needed to run the actual loyalty/referral program.
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Flexible promotions and referrals built-in. Maestra includes full loyalty and referral capabilities, so you can create referral campaigns and promotional offers without another tool. You can set up one-off promos (like “Referral reward: $15 credit for each friend”) and target them by segment. Promotions can also be chained or combined—for example, an offer that triggers a bonus reward if not redeemed in 7 days. All these incentives sync across email, SMS, and on-site banners automatically.
Loyalty Programs
⭐
No native loyalty program features. Braze doesn’t provide points, tiers, or rewards tracking out of the box. Retailers would need a separate loyalty system (Smile.io, LoyaltyLion, etc.) and then send data into Braze for messaging. This means extra integration work to do things like targeting high-tier members or sending point balance updates.
⭐
No native loyalty program. Klaviyo lacks built-in points or VIP tier functionality. Merchants often integrate an external loyalty app and then use Klaviyo to send loyalty emails (since Klaviyo can store custom properties like point balance via integration). Without an add-on, Klaviyo can’t automatically reward actions or let customers redeem points.
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Comprehensive loyalty program engine. Maestra lets you create loyalty programs with points, VIP tier levels, and rewards, fully integrated into your marketing. You define how points are earned (purchases, reviews, referrals, etc.) and spent (discounts, freebies). It supports tiered perks and expiration of points. Loyalty data is live across all channels—emails can automatically include the customer’s point balance.
Mobile & Web Push Notifications
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Strong push notification support. Braze excels in mobile channels—it was originally built as a mobile messaging platform (formerly Appboy) focusing on push and in-app messaging. It supports iOS, Android, and web push notifications with rich media. Braze’s push can be highly personalized and is tightly integrated into its journey builder, making it easy to include push as steps in campaigns.
⭐⭐⭐
Supports mobile push (with app). Klaviyo recently added mobile push notifications, allowing you to reach users of your mobile app through the same platform. However, Klaviyo does not natively support web browser push notifications, and its push capabilities are still growing.
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Native mobile & web push as part of the omnichannel toolkit. Maestra can send push notifications to your mobile app users and web push to browser subscribers, all triggered by the same events as emails/SMS. You can design push messages with images, emojis, and action buttons to drive engagement. Advanced scheduling and frequency capping ensure push messages complement other channels (for example, sending a push if the customer ignores an email).
User-Generated Content (UGC)
⭐⭐
No UGC management, only promotion. Braze doesn’t collect or display reviews, photos, or other UGC. What you can do is use Braze to solicit UGC—for instance, send an email or push asking a customer to review their recent purchase.
⭐⭐
No UGC module, only integration. Klaviyo similarly doesn’t host product reviews or ratings. It can send automated review request emails after purchase and ingest review data as custom attributes if provided by a review app.
⭐⭐⭐
No UGC module, but advanced incentivization. Maestra doesn’t have a review platform built in, but it ties UGC into its loyalty program. You can reward customers with bonus points for writing reviews or sharing content, encouraging more UGC. Maestra can automatically issue rewards for those actions or send follow-up messages.
Ad Optimization
⭐⭐
Basic ad integrations. Braze itself is not an ad management tool. You can export or sync segments from Braze into ad platforms (Facebook, Google) using APIs or partner connectors, but it’s a manual setup. There are no built-in lookalike or retargeting campaign features in Braze; you would use your ad platform’s interface for that.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Audience syncing for ads. Klaviyo integrates with Facebook and Google Ads to automatically sync your email list or segments to those platforms. This makes it easy to run retargeting or lookalike campaigns using your Klaviyo segments (e.g. a “high spenders” segment syncs to Facebook Custom Audience). It leverages your customer data to improve ad targeting.
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Built-in ad audience optimization. Maestra can dynamically update audience segments for Facebook, Instagram, Google, etc. based on customer behavior, ensuring your ads always target the most relevant users. For example, if a customer just purchased, Maestra can automatically remove them from your “prospect” audience. This reduces wasted ad spend and improves ROI.
Reporting & Attribution
⭐⭐⭐
Good campaign analytics. Braze provides dashboards for campaign performance (sends, opens, clicks, conversions) and can do holdout tests to measure uplift. It’s strong in real-time analytics for engagement. However, multi-touch attribution (crediting each channel for a sale) isn’t a core feature—you might need an external BI tool to deeply analyze how channels contribute to revenue.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Solid e-commerce reporting. Klaviyo’s analytics show revenue attributed to each email or flow (using last-touch attribution for purchases). Marketers can easily see which campaigns drive sales. It also tracks metrics like customer lifetime value and predicted churn for segments. For attribution, Klaviyo focuses on its own channels (email/SMS). It recently improved the dashboard UI for clearer insight into segment performance and campaign ROI.
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Advanced analytics. Maestra offers multiple dashboards to monitor everything from campaign engagement to loyalty program results. You can attribute revenue to a flow (not just an email) since all channels funnel into Maestra. It supports control groups and A/B tests to measure incremental lift. If you need custom analysis, all data can be exported.
Customer Support
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Enterprise-level support. Braze is known to provide a dedicated customer success manager for larger clients and thorough onboarding help. Its support team is knowledgeable, though smaller customers may primarily use Braze’s extensive documentation and ticketing system. Overall support quality is high, but it comes at a premium. Braze does not typically offer 1-on-1 strategic consulting unless you’re a big account.
⭐⭐⭐
Standard support with paid tiers. Klaviyo offers email support to all customers (and a live chat for paid plans). They have an onboarding team, but a dedicated CSM is only for top-tier “Enterprise” clients. The self-help resources (guides, community) fill a lot of gaps for smaller users. Day-to-day, most Klaviyo users rely on the Help Center or community forum, with support tickets for technical issues. Response times are generally good, but hands-on guidance is limited unless you’re a high-paying customer.
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
White-glove support for everyone. All Maestra clients receive end-to-end support and a named Customer Success Manager, regardless of plan. The Maestra team assists with everything from strategy roadmap, migration, technical implementation, to ongoing optimizations. They often schedule weekly check-ins to help you get the most value. Support is very fast (under 5 minute responses in live chat). Essentially, Maestra acts like an extension of your marketing team.
Integration Capabilities
⭐⭐⭐⭐
API-first and partner friendly. Braze integrates with many other systems through APIs and an extensive network of technology partners. For example, it works well with customer data platforms, analytics tools, and data warehouses. You will likely need a developer to set up and maintain some integrations (e.g. feeding offline sales into Braze). There isn’t a huge “app marketplace” of one-click installs, but anything is possible via API.
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rich library of pre-built integrations. Klaviyo connects with hundreds of tools popular in e-commerce—from Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce to Recharge (subscriptions), Gorgias (customer service), reviews apps, and more. Many are plug-and-play, just requiring API keys or one-click OAuth. This makes it easy to get data flowing (e.g. sync your Shopify store data in minutes). Klaviyo also has an open API and supports middleware like Zapier for custom connections.
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Seamless integrations plus custom solutions. Maestra comes with ready-to-use connectors for major e-commerce platforms and marketing tools (payment processors, review apps, etc.). If something isn’t already integrated, your Maestra Success Manager will help build it using Maestra’s API and webhooks. The platform monitors integrations to ensure data sync is always accurate. Essentially, Maestra ensures all your data sources (online and offline) can plug into its CDP, either through native integrations or bespoke ones they’ll help set up.
Educational Resources
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Braze offers extensive training materials and certification programs. Their Braze Learning portal includes courses for marketers and developers to get certified in using Braze. They also publish in-depth documentation and guides on customer engagement best practices. Braze’s community events (like Braze Forge) and blog provide thought leadership.
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Klaviyo is known for its user-friendly learning ecosystem. The Klaviyo Academy offers on-demand video courses, webinars, and live training. They host an annual user conference and have a massive community forum plus a help center with step-by-step articles. Whether you prefer self-service learning or hiring an expert, Klaviyo’s ecosystem makes education accessible.
🏆
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Maestra provides a comprehensive knowledge base and an account-specific onboarding program. You’ll find guides and playbooks on implementing omnichannel strategies using Maestra. Plus, the dedicated CSM means you get personalized training sessions — effectively, hands-on education tailored to your business. You won’t miss a topic — your CSM will coach you through any questions.
Pricing
💲💲💲
Quote-based pricing (no free tier). Braze does not publicly list prices—you have to contact sales. It’s generally more expensive than SMB tools, reflecting its enterprise focus. Costs typically scale by monthly active users and messaging volume.
💲💲
Transparent, pay-as-you-grow pricing. Klaviyo offers a free tier for up to 250 contacts (500 emails). Beyond that, pricing scales based on the number of contacts in your account (email) and monthly SMS sends. For instance, 2,500 contacts costs around $60/month for email, with SMS billed per message. As your list grows, Klaviyo can become one of the larger SaaS expenses for an e-commerce store.
💲💲💲
All-in-one pricing with premium support. Maestra’s pricing is based on the number of customer profiles (contacts) you have. It starts at $1,990/month for up to 80,000 profiles, and every plan includes all major features and a dedicated CSM. SMS is billed at a low pay-per-message rate. Maestra’s cost per profile becomes more economical as you scale, and it can replace several other tools (email, SMS, loyalty, etc.) that you’d otherwise pay for separately.
See Maestra’s most recent pricing
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: Omnichannel Flows
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
⭐⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Braze and Klaviyo both enable automated customer journeys, but differ greatly in scope. Braze’s strength is true cross-channel orchestration—it allows you to design journeys that span email, SMS, push notifications, in-app messages, and more within one Canvas Flow. Klaviyo, in contrast, focuses mainly on email and SMS flows for online stores. It’s excellent at those channels but doesn’t natively include others (you won’t manage push or in-app sequences in Klaviyo’s flow builder). Maestra takes omnichannel to the next level by combining all communication channels into unified, adaptive flows.
With Maestra, you aren’t juggling separate campaigns for each channel—you build a single flow that might start with an email, follow up with an SMS or site pop-up if needed, then a push notification, all coordinated based on real-time customer behavior. Every step is interconnected to ensure a cohesive experience.
Maestra’s platform can handle a large number of these complex flows running in parallel without performance issues (some brands run 50+ automated workflows simultaneously). This unified approach is possible because Maestra’s real-time CDP keeps all channels in sync—e.g. if a customer buys in store, they can immediately drop out of an online promo flow.
Maestra’s visual journey builder lets you drag-and-drop multi-step flows incorporating email, SMS, push, on-site actions, and more. Each decision node can check real-time customer data (e.g. Has this person purchased in the last 7 days?) and then branch into different channels or offers. This ensures customers receive relevant messages on the optimal channel at every step.
Maestra’s omnichannel flow builder
By comparison, Braze also offers a powerful journey builder (“Canvas”) with multi-channel steps, which is why it’s highly regarded for omnichannel marketing. You can set Braze to do things like: send an in-app message, then an email, then a push notification if the first two steps get no response. However, Braze lacks some of the e-commerce-specific triggers (like cart events or product browsing) unless you feed that data in. And crucially, Braze does not provide a built-in single customer view across systems—you often need to integrate a separate CDP for truly synchronized messaging.
Braze’s Canvas tool
Klaviyo, on the other hand, has a more limited scope. Its “Flows” feature is intuitive and great for scenarios like welcome series, abandoned cart reminders, and win-back campaigns, primarily via email and text. It can incorporate certain site events (viewed product, added to cart) directly if your store platform sends those to Klaviyo, which covers most basic e-commerce needs.
But Klaviyo doesn’t include channels like push in the same interface (mobile push was only added recently and isn’t widely used yet). Essentially, Klaviyo’s idea of “omnichannel” is email+SMS—which for many small brands is sufficient, but falls short of Braze and Maestra’s channel breadth.
Klaviyo flow builder
Omnichannel Flows Winner: Maestra
Maestra delivers true omnichannel automation by letting you orchestrate every channel in one place with unified data. Braze is a close second for its flexible Canvas and multi-channel support (excellent for those with the resources to use it fully). Klaviyo, while extremely user-friendly, is third here due to its channel limitations. If your goal is a seamless customer journey that might start on a website, continue via email, follow up on mobile, and even extend to paid ads—Maestra is built to handle that out of the box.
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: Customer Data Management & Segmentation
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Effective marketing depends on how well you manage and segment customer data.
Braze is a customer engagement platform but not a full customer data platform. It maintains a profile for each user with attributes and event history, and you can create segments (like “Opened app in last 30 days AND hasn’t purchased”).
Creating a segment in Braze
However, Braze lacks a native tool to easily unify data from external sources such as in-store purchases or a separate CRM. In fact, Braze doesn’t have a true CDP—many teams use an external solution to handle data unification and then pipe data into Braze. So while segmentation in Braze is real-time and fairly flexible, you might be limited by the data you have fed in. Without a CDP, keeping all customer info consistent (and sending truly personalized campaigns across channels) can be labor-intensive.
Klaviyo has its roots in e-commerce email, so it is very data-driven within that sphere. It automatically collects tons of data from your integrated store: every order, product viewed, cart abandoned, etc., is captured and attached to customer profiles. Klaviyo’s segmentation UI is very marketer-friendly—you can build segments using filters like “Placed Order at least 2 times in last 90 days AND Location = Texas” and it will update dynamically.
Klaviyo also introduced some CDP-like capabilities for their higher-end clients (branded as Klaviyo One, with a dedicated data feed and more flexible schema), acknowledging the need to unify data beyond just the online store. Even without that, for most small/mid businesses, Klaviyo serves as a de facto CDP for online customer data.
One gap is that if you have offline data or multiple brands, integrating those into Klaviyo might require custom work. But generally, Klaviyo’s segmentation is a strong point—you can target by behavior, predict customer lifetime value, and even use their pre-built segments (e.g. “Repeat Buyers”, “High VIP Customers”) as starting points.
Klaviyo’s segment builder
Maestra includes a full-fledged real-time Customer Data Platform (CDP) at its core. This means Maestra ingests data from all sources—your website, store, POS, email interactions, etc.—and keeps a unified profile for each customer. You’re not limited to pre-set e-commerce events; any custom event or attribute can be tracked.
The benefit is up-to-the-moment segmentation and personalization. For example, the moment a customer clicks a particular product, they could instantly fall into a “Interested in Category X” segment and get relevant follow-ups. Maestra supports extremely granular segment conditions (you can nest conditions, exclude certain criteria, combine filters) to isolate just the right audience.
Maestra: user segmentation
It also has built-in RFM-segmentation (recency, frequency, monetary analysis that labels customers as champions, loyal, at-risk, etc.) to help you target lifecycle stages automatically. In short, Maestra not only centralizes all your data, it makes it actionable in real time across all channels.
For example, imagine you want to target customers who bought shoes online, visited a store in the past month, and have over $500 in total purchases. In Maestra, that segment can be created in a few clicks, combining online and offline data points, and it will update continuously. In Braze or Klaviyo, you’d likely struggle to even have all that data together without extra systems.
Maestra’s automated RFM segmentation
Customer Data Management & Segmentation Winner: Maestra
To summarize data management & segmentation: Maestra wins with its integrated CDP and advanced, instant segmentation (tailor-made for commerce). Klaviyo comes second—it’s very strong within the e-commerce scope, though not truly an all-data solution, it covers a lot for its target market. Braze is powerful in handling data you feed it (and great for triggering in-the-moment segments like “added to cart then closed app”), but it assumes you have your broader data house in order elsewhere, which can be a drawback if you need a single source of truth.
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: Site Personalization
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
⭐⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Personalizing the on-site experience (your e-commerce storefront or app) is increasingly important for conversion, showing each customer the most relevant content. Here, the platforms differ significantly in capabilities.
Braze is not designed for direct website content personalization. It excels in messaging channels rather than modifying your site. Braze can display in-app messages or “Content Cards” within a mobile app or web app (like pop-up messages or message feeds).
But it offers very limited website and mobile app personalization beyond those overlays. For instance, Braze cannot natively swap out banners, change product sorting, or dynamically customize HTML on your site based on user segments. Achieving that would require your web developers to use Braze’s API or data to build custom logic on the site. In short, Braze will help you message the user on site (via a pop-up maybe), but it won’t redesign your site for the user.
Klaviyo also has historically focused on communications (email/SMS) rather than on-site personalization. It provides signup forms and pop-ups that you can target to certain segments (like a popup shown only to new visitors vs. returning customers, or showing a specific offer to a VIP segment).
Recently, Klaviyo introduced the Customer Hub (in beta) which can display a personalized “drawer” on your site with product recommendations for that specific customer. This is a step toward on-site personalization, leveraging Klaviyo’s data about the customer’s browsing and purchase history to recommend products.
However, outside of that beta feature, Klaviyo cannot, for example, automatically change your homepage content for different users or personalize beyond the confines of its forms/recommendations widget. Many Klaviyo users turn to their e-commerce platform or other apps for personalization. For instance, Shopify plus some personalization app might handle showing different homepage banners while Klaviyo just handles the emails that follow up.
Klaviyo’s lead form builder
Maestra was built with on-site personalization as a core feature. It enables real-time content personalization on your website using its in-session segmentation. Practically, this means when a shopper lands on your site, Maestra can instantly identify them (via cookies or login) and apply any number of personalization rules. Examples: change the hero banner to feature products in the category they’ve shown interest in; reorder product recommendations on the page to highlight items in their preferred size or style; show a special promo message bar if they are a loyalty member (“Welcome back, Jane! You have 200 points to spend.”).
Since Maestra’s CDP is tracking behavior, you can even personalize for anonymous visitors based on session activity (like if they browse several baby products, Maestra can show a “Baby Sale” banner dynamically). This level of personalization is achieved without needing custom coding—marketers set these rules in Maestra’s interface.
Maestra’s pop-up form templates
Furthermore, Maestra’s personalization isn’t limited to just swapping images or text; it can incorporate product recommendation blocks and dynamic content sections that tailor themselves to each user. And it works in tandem with Maestra’s other channels: for example, if Maestra’s flow decides to give a particular customer a 10% off promo, it can display that promo as a banner on the website for that user, while also emailing them and texting them the code, ensuring they see a consistent message on-site and off-site.
Site Personalization Winner: Maestra
In summary, Maestra provides the most robust site personalization—it’s like having personalization engine built into your marketing platform. Klaviyo is starting to tiptoe into this area with product recs and targeted forms, but it’s fairly limited. Braze largely stays out of on-site personalization except for messages. If on-site experience customization is a priority (e.g. for improving conversion rate or showcasing different content to different segments), Maestra stands out as the solution that can do it natively in real time.
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: Email
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
⭐⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
All three platforms can send marketing emails, but they vary in depth and e-commerce focus.
Braze offers robust email marketing capabilities as part of its cross-channel suite. It has a drag-and-drop email editor and supports complex personalization through its scripting (Liquid templating and Connected Content). Braze is built to send massive email volumes reliably and to embed emails in multi-step journeys. Brands often use Braze for sophisticated email triggers (like a series of onboarding emails that react to app behavior).
Braze’s drag-and-drop email editor with AI copywriting assistant
One notable aspect: since Braze is channel-agnostic, its email tool is powerful but not specialized for retail—you might need to manually set up product recommendation logic or integrate a product feed via API. Braze does include features like frequency capping (to avoid over-emailing), detailed engagement reports, and deliverability monitoring. In short, Braze’s email is enterprise-class—great for technical marketers who want full control and integration, possibly overkill for a small shop just looking to send newsletters.
Klaviyo is very well-known for email marketing in e-commerce, and for good reason. It provides an extremely user-friendly email builder with plenty of templates geared towards common store needs (welcome emails, holiday campaigns, product launches, etc.). Setting up automated email flows in Klaviyo is straightforward—for example, an abandoned cart flow, a browse abandonment email, a win-back series—they even have pre-built recipes you can use.
The key advantage of Klaviyo is how deeply it integrates with e-commerce data: you can easily include product images, prices, and names in your emails (for that customer’s abandoned cart or recent purchase) without custom coding, since Klaviyo already has that info from your store. Klaviyo’s segmentation means your campaigns can be targeted (like an email only to VIP customers with high spend). It also recently improved its reporting to attribute revenue to each email, so you know the ROI.
Klaviyo’s email composer
One limitation some advanced marketers find is in dynamic content—Klaviyo can personalize based on the data it has (say, show someone’s first name, or recommend items from their favorite category using its simple product rec algorithm), but it’s not as flexible as Braze or Maestra in pulling arbitrary data or doing conditional logic beyond what’s built in.
That said, for most SMBs Klaviyo’s email capabilities are more than sufficient and very effective. It excels in deliverability for e-commerce as well, and even provides features like automated sunset segments (to avoid emailing the truly unengaged).
Maestra combines ease of use with advanced personalization in email. It has a proprietary drag-and-drop email composer that ensures the code is optimized (for example, it avoids the infamous Gmail clipping issue by keeping emails lean). Marketers can design beautiful emails within Maestra similar to how they would in Klaviyo’s editor.
Maestra’s visual email composer
What sets it apart is the level of personalization: because Maestra knows so much about each customer (from its CDP), you can use that in your emails seamlessly. You can insert dynamic blocks that are tailored to each person—for example, a “Recommended for you” section that’s truly personalized (drawing on Maestra’s AI recommendations), or different hero images based on gender or location segments. Every email can essentially be unique per recipient, not just in text but in product content, offers, and even layout, based on rules you set.
Maestra also provides advanced controls like sending frequency management across channels (so email doesn’t clash with SMS), UTM parameter auto-tagging for tracking, and integration of loyalty info (like showing points balance or exclusive VIP offers directly in the email content). All the typical features are there too—A/B testing subject lines or content, scheduling, deliverability analytics, etc. The big difference is you’re not constrained by lack of data: if you want to personalize by something like “last product category viewed, ” that data is already in Maestra to use.
One more advantage: Maestra includes unlimited email sending in its pricing, so you don’t have to worry about hitting send limits or paying more for high volume.
Email Winner: Maestra
To compare: Klaviyo is often praised for email because it’s easy and built for e-com—that remains true. If you want quick results and standard best-practice flows, Klaviyo’s email will serve you well. Braze’s email is very powerful in the hands of a team that can script and integrate (for example, gaming or fintech companies love Braze for complex user journeys via email). But for a pure retailer, Braze might be more complex than necessary. Maestra’s email is like having the ease of Klaviyo plus the power of Braze’s personalization, with the addition of native product and loyalty integration—making it arguably the most capable for a growing e-commerce brand that wants to maximize personalization in email campaigns.
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: SMS
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
⭐⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
SMS marketing has become a staple for e-commerce engagement (for promotions, alerts, order updates). All three platforms support SMS, but with nuances:
Braze supports SMS as one of its many channels. You can send both transactional and promotional SMS through Braze by integrating with SMS providers (Braze acts as a frontend, and behind the scenes it uses providers like Twilio or others to deliver the text).
Braze’s SMS campaign builder
In Braze Canvas, SMS can be a step in a multi-channel flow, which is powerful—e.g., wait 1 day after email, then send SMS if user hasn’t opened email. Braze offers personalization in SMS (inserting user attributes, etc.), link tracking, and even MMS (picture messages) support. It doesn’t, by itself, manage two-way SMS conversations (you’d need an integration if you want to handle replies). But for blasting out messages or timely triggers, Braze’s SMS is reliable.
Given Braze’s background in mobile engagement, its SMS component is quite mature—many large apps and brands use Braze to send verification codes, promo offers, and so on via text.
Klaviyo integrated SMS a few years ago and has rapidly improved it. If you’re a U.S.-based or international store, you can activate Klaviyo SMS and get a sending number or short code through Klaviyo. The beauty is Klaviyo SMS is built into the same interface as email—you can create an automated Flow that chooses email or SMS or both. For example, a cart abandonment flow might send an email, then an SMS reminder 2 hours later to those who haven’t purchased.
Klaviyo also makes it easy to capture SMS consent (through forms and at checkout for Shopify). It’s particularly good for things like back-in-stock alerts via SMS, limited-time sale announcements, or VIP customer texts. Klaviyo’s SMS can include dynamic fields (like first name, or even a product name someone abandoned). It provides basic reply management (you can set up auto-responses for common STOP/HELP keywords, and you can manually see replies if needed).
While Klaviyo SMS is great for marketing, if you needed very advanced two-way chat or using SMS for customer service, you might need another tool. But overall, for marketing SMS Klaviyo is top-notch and very easy to use alongside email.
Maestra includes SMS as an integral channel in its omnichannel platform. One advantage: since Maestra has that unified view, its approach to SMS isn’t just batch-and-blast. It’s about sending the right SMS at the right moment in context with other channels. You can set up automation like: if a customer clicks an email but doesn’t purchase, send an SMS with a slightly sweeter offer two days later. Or use SMS for urgent messages (like “Sale ends tonight!”) targeted to those who haven’t responded to email.
Maestra’s SMS tool allows personalization using any customer data (e.g., “Hi John, you have ${reward_points} points—use them on your next purchase!”). It supports URL shortening and click tracking within texts, so you can measure engagement. As for volume, Maestra can send bulk SMS quickly (important during big promos when timing matters). And like Klaviyo, it handles opt-out compliance and consent management built-in.
From a cost perspective, Klaviyo and Maestra charge per SMS sent (Braze typically passes through provider costs). Maestra’s SMS fee per message is lower than Klaviyo’s ($0.0045 vs around $0.007).
SMS Winner: Maestra
In terms of who wins in SMS: If we consider ease and integration with e-com flows, Klaviyo and Maestra both shine—Klaviyo is very approachable, Maestra is more advanced in tailoring SMS as part of multi-channel strategy. Braze certainly is capable, but for an e-com business, the SMS features of Klaviyo/Maestra are more directly aligned with typical use cases like abandoned cart texts, etc. Maestra gets the edge because it can orchestrate SMS with more channels and data-aware logic (e.g., sending different SMS content based on loyalty tier automatically, which Braze/Klaviyo would require manual segment setup to do).
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: Website & Email Product Recommendations
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Product recommendations drive upsells and repeat purchases by suggesting items a customer is likely to buy. Here’s how the platforms handle this:
Braze does not have a built-in product recommendation engine. If you want to include, say, “Recommended for you” products in an email or in-app message through Braze, you’d have to plug in an external service or pre-computed recommendations. Braze’s Connected Content feature would allow you to fetch recommendations from an API (for example, your own recommendation algorithm or a service like Nosto) and then insert those into an email. But out of the box, Braze cannot tell which products to recommend—it’s agnostic about content.
On your website, Braze doesn’t offer on-page rec blocks at all. So essentially, with Braze you rely on third-party tools for personalized product recs. Braze is the pipes, not the brains for recommendations.
Klaviyo has a basic recommendation feature primarily for email. It connects to your product catalog and can use simple logic like “Best Sellers” or “Trending Products” or “Products Related to X” to populate an email block. It also introduced some AI-driven elements like predicting what a customer might like based on past behavior, but these are relatively simple compared to dedicated recommendation engines. In practice, many Klaviyo users set up product feeds (e.g., a feed of new arrivals or popular items) and then insert those into emails as dynamic content.
Klaviyo can also do personalized recommendations by analyzing a customer’s past purchases and showing similar or complementary items—this is rules-based (e.g., same category or brand) rather than truly learning from each individual.
On the website side, Klaviyo’s new Customer Hub (beta) will display personalized recommendations in a slide-out panel. Essentially, when a logged-in customer opens the hub, Klaviyo will list products they might want, using its data. That’s promising, but it’s an add-on module and not yet widely available.
So, Klaviyo provides some level of product recommendations, mostly in emails, which cover common use cases but are not highly sophisticated AI algorithms. For many small stores, showing best-sellers or “customers also bought” might be enough.
Maestra includes an AI-powered recommendation system that works in real-time across both website and email. It uses machine learning models to analyze customer behavior (views, purchases, add-to-carts, etc.) and product data (categories, attributes, price points) to suggest products each customer is most likely interested in.
There are numerous algorithms at play (the platform offers 14 pre-built algorithms, such as “Similar items”, “Frequently Bought Together”, “Trending in category”, “New for you”, etc.). You can choose which strategy to use where. For example, on a product page, you might show “Related items” powered by an algorithm that finds similar products. In an email post-purchase, you might include a “Customers also bought” section for that purchased item.
Maestra: сreating a personalized recommendations block
Maestra’s advantage is that because it’s all in one system, the recommendations update instantly with user behavior—if I browsed tents yesterday, today’s email might feature camping gear. If I then start looking at hiking boots on the site, the on-site rec widgets and even triggered emails can adapt to emphasize boots. This level of cohesion is hard to achieve unless your marketing platform and recommendation engine are unified—which is Maestra’s case.
Also, Maestra allows manual override and merchandising rules: e.g., you can ensure recommendations exclude out-of-stock items, or always include one item from a specific category you’re pushing. These recommendations can be embedded in homepage sections (“Recommended for you”), product detail pages, cart page (“You might also like…”), and in email content as dynamic blocks.
In short, Maestra provides the most advanced solution for product recommendations. It can genuinely personalize suggestions to each user and keep them consistent across touchpoints (site and email). Klaviyo’s recommendation features are useful and easy to use but not nearly as advanced—they’re more like templated, generic recommendations with a bit of personalization. Braze doesn’t provide the recommendations itself at all.
Product Recommendations Winner: Maestra
For an e-commerce business aiming to maximize cross-sells, Maestra’s integrated AI recs can significantly boost average order value and conversion by showing the right products. Klaviyo can help automate some product highlights but might leave money on the table with less tailored suggestions. Braze users would need a separate recommendation engine to achieve similar results.
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: Promotions & Referrals
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This category covers things like running sales promotions (discounts, coupons) and customer referral programs (“Refer a friend”). These features often tie into loyalty programs but let’s see how each platform handles them specifically:
Braze does not manage promotion rules or referral tracking. What it can do is deliver promotion messages. For instance, if you have a coupon code for a holiday sale, you can certainly send it via Braze email or push.
Braze can also ingest promotional eligibility data (say, a flag that a user is eligible for a win-back coupon) and then trigger messages. But the actual creation of unique coupon codes, enforcement of one-time use, referral links, etc., is something you’d do outside Braze (like in your e-commerce platform or a dedicated app). Similarly, Braze can send “Invite a friend” emails, but it won’t generate or track referral credits—you’d need a referral system and just feed Braze the content to send.
Essentially, Braze is a messenger for promotions, not a promotions engine.
Klaviyo—Klaviyo itself also doesn’t create promotions or referral programs; it leverages what exists in your e-commerce platform. For example, in Shopify you might create a discount code and then use Klaviyo to email that code to a segment of customers.
Klaviyo can store coupon codes (they even have a feature to pull in a batch of unique codes and then distribute one code per customer in an email). This is great for one-time use codes or personal codes in campaigns. But Klaviyo doesn’t track whether a customer redeemed it—that happens in Shopify, and you’d need to feed that info back if you want to follow up.
For referrals, similarly, you’d use a tool like ReferralCandy or the Shopify Referred Friends app, then use Klaviyo’s integration to email referral invites or follow-ups. Klaviyo does integrate with popular loyalty/referral apps like Smile.io and Yotpo, meaning it can listen for events like “Referral link clicked” or “Reward earned” and then trigger flows. But again, the heavy lifting (providing referral links, applying discounts for referred purchases) is outside Klaviyo.
Summed up, Klaviyo supports promotions and referrals in a manual way—you handle the logic elsewhere, Klaviyo handles the messaging.
Maestra—Maestra includes a comprehensive Promotions and Referrals module as part of its loyalty system. That means you can set up referral programs within Maestra: for example, “Give $10, Get $10” where a customer has their own referral link or code, and when a friend uses it, both parties get a reward.
Maestra will generate the referral code/link, track who refers whom, and automatically credit the appropriate points or coupons to each party. This is integrated into its single customer view, so you can even segment and target “high referrers” or trigger a special thank-you message when someone refers 5 friends.
On the promotions side, Maestra lets you create all sorts of promotional rules: one-off coupon codes, scheduled sales, targeted discounts for segments, etc. For instance, you could create a promotion that gives all VIP tier members a 20% off coupon for use in their birthday month—Maestra can manage that (create the coupon, ensure it works only in that timeframe, distribute it, track redemption). Or a flash sale promotion that is active this weekend for a specific category—Maestra can generate the discount code, display a site banner to relevant users, and send out emails/SMS about it, then expire the code after the weekend.
Maestra’s promotions rule engine
One standout capability is combining promotions with behaviors. Because Maestra knows what customers are doing, you can set reactive offers. For example, if a customer hasn’t bought in 3 months, automatically issue a “10% off next purchase” incentive; if they still don’t convert in a week, escalate to 15%. You can also sequence promotions: like a campaign that first tries free shipping, then a week later tries 10% off if the first didn’t work. These kinds of flexible, conditional promotions are not something Braze or Klaviyo can do natively—you’d have to script it externally.
In referrals, Maestra similarly stands out by having it built-in, so you don’t need a separate referral software. You can generate referral links and codes and track the entire funnel of invites to conversions. And since it’s unified, referral activity can also feed into other parts of Maestra (like giving loyalty points for successful referrals, or triggering a welcome series to referred customers).
Promotions & Referrals Winner: Maestra
Overall, Maestra clearly leads in promotions and referrals because it actually provides the tools to create and manage these programs, not just communicate them. Businesses can run sophisticated promotional campaigns (with targeting and personalization) directly in Maestra. Klaviyo and Braze are largely limited to being the messenger for promotions that are set up elsewhere.
If your needs are simple (e.g., send a holiday coupon to everyone), any platform can do that via email. But if you want to do segmented promotions (like only for lapsed customers) or track referral rewards, Maestra will save you a lot of headache since it’s built to handle it end-to-end.
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: Loyalty Programs
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
⭐
⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Loyalty programs (points, rewards, VIP tiers) can greatly increase customer lifetime value. This is one area where Braze and Klaviyo have virtually no native features, whereas Maestra has it built-in.
Braze has no native loyalty program functionality. Braze does not manage points, track member status, or provide loyalty interfaces. If you have a loyalty program, what you can do is send loyalty-related messages through Braze. All the logic—earning rules, redemption, tier progression—would be outside Braze.
Many companies integrate Braze with a loyalty platform or a custom database; Braze then acts on events like “Reached Gold Tier” (trigger a congrats message) or “Points Expired” (send a reminder). Without integration, Braze alone doesn’t know anything about customer loyalty statuses. So, Braze itself can’t run a loyalty program; it’s just a conduit for messages about it.
Similarly, Klaviyo doesn’t run loyalty programs. E-commerce merchants often use apps like Smile.io, Yotpo Loyalty, LoyaltyLion, etc., which then connect to Klaviyo. Klaviyo can store a few loyalty-related data points (for instance, some loyalty apps push a customer’s point balance or tier into Klaviyo as a custom property). Marketers then use Klaviyo to segment (e.g., send an email to all customers with >500 points reminding them to redeem).
Klaviyo flows can be triggered by loyalty events sent from those apps (e.g., “Reward Redeemed” event triggers a thank-you email). But all of this requires that external loyalty system—Klaviyo cannot, by itself, let customers earn or spend points or track referrals.
So again, Klaviyo is an enabler for loyalty communications, but not a loyalty program solution on its own.
Maestra includes a full loyalty program system. This means you can define a program where customers earn points for certain actions (purchases, sign-ups, birthdays, social media shares, referrals, etc.), set up tiers/levels (Silver, Gold, etc.) with different benefits, and allow customers to redeem points for rewards or coupons—all within Maestra.
It provides the backend and, importantly, the frontend components: for example, you can have a loyalty widget on your site (to show the customer’s points and available rewards) powered by Maestra. Because it’s integrated, Maestra can use loyalty status in all its personalization—you can easily create segments like “Gold tier members in Los Angeles” or conditions in flows like “IF customer is VIP tier THEN...”.
Also, Maestra’s loyalty ties into its promotion engine. So you can create rewards like “$10 off” coupons or free products that the customer can redeem with points, and Maestra will handle generating the coupon and validating its use.
Having it built-in also means real-time updates: a customer makes a purchase, Maestra immediately updates their points balance and tier, and can even show them a personalized confirmation email stating the points earned from that purchase, without needing any batch file imports or third-party syncing.
Loyalty Programs Winner: Maestra
So, for Loyalty Programs, Maestra is the clear winner by virtue of having the capability at all. Braze and Klaviyo simply don’t have native loyalty program management. If a loyalty program is part of your strategy, with Braze or Klaviyo you’re looking at an additional app and integration effort, whereas Maestra gives you a unified solution.
Moreover, Maestra’s integration of loyalty with its CDP and channels allows some innovative tactics—like instantly offering a bonus reward to a high-tier customer if it detects they haven’t purchased in a while (combining loyalty data with behavior). That unified approach is hard to replicate when your loyalty system is separate.
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: Mobile & Web Push Notifications
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Push notifications (both mobile app and web browser push) can be powerful for engagement, delivering timely messages directly to the user’s device or screen. Here’s how each platform handles push:
Push notifications are one of Braze’s core strengths. Braze was built with mobile engagement in mind, and it supports mobile push for iOS and Android apps extensively. If your brand has a mobile app, Braze can manage the whole lifecycle of push—registration tokens, sending segmented push campaigns, rich notifications with images/actions, etc.
Braze’s push notification editor
It also supports web push (notifications that users opt-in to via their browser). Implementing Braze push does require integrating the Braze SDK into your app or site, but once that’s done, it’s very powerful. You can trigger push messages based on in-app events (e.g. viewing a product or abandoning a cart in-app can trigger a push later).
Braze offers features like Intelligent Timing for push (finding the best time to send for each user) and A/B testing variants of push messages. For web push, Braze provides tools to prompt users to allow notifications and then send messages that appear in the browser even when the user is off-site. Notably, Braze’s push can include personalized content, deep links (to open a specific app screen), and even Action Buttons that let users tap on different options from the notification.
Summarily, Braze excels in push—if you have strong mobile presence, Braze leverages that extremely well.
For a long time, Klaviyo did not offer push. In 2022, they introduced mobile push notifications for Klaviyo. This means if you have an iOS/Android app and integrate Klaviyo’s SDK, you can send push notifications to your app users via Klaviyo.
This addition is part of Klaviyo’s push to expand beyond email/SMS. They tout the ability to manage push alongside your emails and texts, so you have a single workflow for all three channels. It’s relatively new, so the features might not be as rich as Braze’s (for instance, Braze’s Canvas has more complex multi-channel conditional logic than Klaviyo’s flows historically had, but Klaviyo is improving).
As of now, Klaviyo does not support web push notifications natively. If you want web push, you’d still need a third-party tool or integration (some have used Zapier with PushAlert or other hacks).
So, Klaviyo’s push capabilities are currently centered on mobile app scenarios and are a welcome addition for brands that have an app and want to coordinate messaging in one platform.
Maestra includes both mobile push and web push as part of its omnichannel suite.
For mobile push, similar to Braze/Klaviyo, you’d integrate Maestra’s SDK into your app, and then you can create push campaigns and triggers from Maestra’s interface. It supports rich push content (images, emojis, etc.) and targeting by any data (like sending a push about “Item back in stock” to a user who favorited that item).
Maestra’s push notification editor
For web push, Maestra can prompt visitors on your site to allow notifications; once subscribed, Maestra can send them push notifications through their browser even when they’re not on your site (this is great for reaching customers who haven’t signed up for email). These web push messages can be personalized and segmented just like emails or SMS in Maestra. For example, if a customer leaves your site with items in cart and has web push enabled, Maestra could send a push notification 30 minutes later saying “You left something in your cart!”—an additional nudge beyond email.
One advantage: Maestra’s push is tied into its CDP and triggers, so you can do things like trigger a push in real-time when a certain event happens (e.g., a price drop on a product in a user’s wishlist triggers an immediate push notification to that user). And you manage it all in the same flow builder alongside emails/SMS.
Mobile & Web Push Notifications Winner: Braze and Maestra
To compare, Braze and Maestra are both top-tier for push. Braze has a longer track record and some very advanced features, whereas Maestra’s benefit is the seamless integration with all your other data and channels (Braze can integrate too, but if you were just using Klaviyo + a separate push system, it’s not as unified). Klaviyo is catching up for mobile push but lacks web push, so it’s currently the weakest in push offerings among the three.
If a brand has no mobile app and doesn’t plan to use push, this category might not matter as much. But many direct-to-consumer brands eventually release an app or at least could utilize web push (which is underutilized by many). In those cases, Maestra provides an immediate capability and Braze too, while Klaviyo might force you to add another tool or wait for them to expand features.
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: User-Generated Content
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐
User-Generated Content (UGC) typically refers to customer reviews, ratings, photos, Q&A, and any content created by users that a brand can leverage. Managing UGC often involves collecting it (via review requests), moderating it, and showcasing it (on site or in marketing). None of these three platforms is primarily a UGC platform (compared to something like Yotpo or Bazaarvoice which specialize in reviews and UGC), but let’s see their roles:
Braze doesn’t manage or display UGC. What Braze can do is help incentivize or request UGC. For example, many brands use Braze (or any engagement platform) to send post-purchase emails or messages asking for a product review or a photo submission. Braze can be configured to send an email X days after purchase with a link to review the product on your site or on a third-party.
If you have a loyalty program that rewards reviews, Braze could send “Review this product to earn 50 points” communications. But the actual review submission form, moderation, and display on your site is outside Braze. You’d integrate with a review service (or native platform reviews) for that.
Essentially, Braze’s relationship with UGC is as a facilitator for the actions around UGC, not handling UGC content itself. It cannot, for instance, aggregate customer star ratings and show an average or choose a review to feature in an email (unless you manually pass that content to Braze).
Similar to Braze, Klaviyo doesn’t collect or display UGC on its own. It integrates with Yotpo, Okendo, Stamped, and other review apps common in e-commerce. Through these integrations, Klaviyo can know who submitted a review or what the review content is. Some brands use that to segment (e.g., a flow: if someone leaves a 5-star review, trigger an email asking them to share on social; if 1-star, trigger an apology or service email).
Klaviyo can also include UGC content in emails in a basic way—for example, you could insert a snippet of a review into an email, but you’d have to get that data via the integration (some review apps can push a recent review to Klaviyo’s template via custom code or API). It’s not a built-in feature to just “insert top 3 reviews” or such.
So like Braze, Klaviyo is more of a messenger regarding UGC: sending review request emails, or using review data (like star rating given) for segmentation. It doesn’t replace a Yotpo/Stamped which actually handle UGC content.
One thing Klaviyo can do is manage a form or preference center, but that’s usually for collecting customer info, not things like photo uploads or testimonials—you’d use dedicated tools for that.
Maestra, while it integrates loyalty and promotions tightly, does not have a full reviews/UGC management system built in either. It takes a similar stance: incentivize and leverage UGC via other channels.
As part of Maestra’s loyalty program, you can reward customers for UGC actions (like submitting a review or sharing a photo on social). Maestra can track these actions if it’s integrated with your review system or if you feed those events into it. For example, if using Judge.me or Trustpilot for reviews, those can send a webhook to Maestra when a review is submitted; Maestra can then grant points for that action and trigger an automated thank-you or next-step message.
Maestra can also incorporate UGC indirectly in personalization—say you want to target customers who gave you a high rating with a special promo, you could do that with Maestra’s segmentation if you have that rating data. But when it comes to showing UGC content in marketing, you’d likely still rely on that specialized platform (some of which have widgets to display customer photos, etc.).
One difference: Because Maestra’s focus is holistic, if they know a customer submitted UGC (like a review), they can include that fact in the single customer view and then use it in campaigns (like maybe treat those who leave reviews as brand advocates in your targeting). Braze or Klaviyo can do similarly with the right data, but Maestra’s loyalty integration streamlines it (e.g., awarding points for reviews is out-of-the-box in Maestra, whereas Braze/Klaviyo would need custom work to tie into a points system for that).
User-Generated Content Winner: None
So, while none “wins” at UGC content management, Maestra provides a more integrated way to drive and reward UGC contributions, whereas Braze and Klaviyo would lean on external tools entirely for that integration.
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: Ad Optimization
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Ad optimization in this context likely means how the platforms help you utilize your customer data to improve paid advertising (Facebook, Google Ads, etc.) and possibly how they measure ad performance. None of these platforms is an ad management tool per se (they don’t run your Facebook ads), but they can influence ads by creating/syncing audiences or leveraging data.
Braze itself doesn’t have features to directly manage or optimize ads on Facebook/Google. It does have an ecosystem where it can pass audiences to certain partners. For example, Braze can export lists of users or trigger events to systems like Facebook Custom Audiences if you set up the integration (often via Braze’s Currents or data export to an ad platform’s API). But this is typically a custom setup or through a partner middleware (like using Segment to sync Braze segments to ad platforms).
Braze doesn’t have a UI where you say “Sync this segment to Facebook” natively. So, if you want to do ad targeting with Braze data, you’d likely either export a CSV or use an API connection to update an audience on FB/Google. Also, Braze can ingest attribution data if you feed it (to know if a campaign led to a purchase that came via an ad, etc., but that’s more analytics).
So Braze’s role in ad optimization is mainly as a data source—using Braze’s rich data to inform your ad targeting elsewhere. Some advanced teams might connect Braze with Google Ads Customer Match or Facebook via custom work, but out-of-the-box, Braze is not aimed at controlling ad campaigns or spend.
Klaviyo has fairly direct and user-friendly integrations with Facebook and Google Ads for audience syncing.
In Klaviyo, you can create a segment (say “Category A Browsers—no purchase” or “VIP Customers”) and then push that segment to Facebook Custom Audiences or Google Customer Match with a few clicks. Klaviyo uses the customer email/phone to match on those platforms. It means your Facebook ads can automatically target (or exclude) people based on live Klaviyo segments (e.g., exclude existing customers from prospecting campaigns).
Klaviyo basically helps optimize your ads by ensuring the right people are in the campaigns. It leverages your first-party data to reduce waste (no need to advertise a product to someone who just bought it—Klaviyo can pull them out of that audience immediately after purchase). It also provides metrics like how much revenue was influenced by people in a certain Facebook audience (since it tracks if someone in a synced audience later purchased, attributing some credit to that integration).
Overall, Klaviyo makes it easy for marketers to use their customer data for better ad targeting without manual file uploads.
Maestra also emphasizes using its data for paid media. It integrates with ad platforms to automate audience segmentation and syncing.
Since Maestra has real-time segments, it can maintain audiences like “Active customers” or “Churn-risk customers” and continuously sync those to Facebook, Google, Instagram, etc. Maestra’s approach is very similar to Klaviyo’s in terms of syncing, but more real-time and flexible because of the CDP aspect. For example, if someone’s behavior changes (they go from engaged to dormant), Maestra can move them from one ad audience to another on the fly, which can optimize your ad spend (stopping ads to those who became active via other channels, for instance).
Maestra’s audience automated segmentation for ads in real-time
Additionally, Maestra can capture lead information from paid social (like via Facebook Lead Ads) and immediately funnel that into segments and flows—bridging that gap quickly improves ROAS (return on ad spend) because you follow up faster and more relevantly.
Ad Optimization Winner: Maestra
However, focusing on feature comparison: Both Klaviyo and Maestra directly integrate with ad networks for audience sync—a key ad optimization feature. They both help you spend smarter by targeting the right users. Braze does not have this as a turnkey feature.
So, Maestra wins in ad optimization by a small margin due to its automation and breadth, Klaviyo is very close (and certainly far better than not using such data at all), and Braze lags mainly because it doesn’t focus on this use case out-of-the-box.
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: Reporting & Attribution
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Good reporting and attribution tell you what’s working in your marketing—which campaigns drive revenue, how channels compare, etc.
Braze provides robust reporting on campaign engagement. You can see metrics for each campaign/canvas: deliveries, open rates, click rates, conversion events (if you define what a conversion is, e.g., purchase).
Braze can even do control groups to measure lift—for instance, send to 90% of an audience and hold out 10%, then compare purchase rates; Braze will report the incremental lift caused by the campaign. Where Braze is not as straightforward is multi-touch attribution or combining across channels. Braze can attribute if a user engages with a message and then does something (Braze has a concept of attribution windows for conversion events), but it’s mostly within Braze’s ecosystem—it knows if its messages led to an event you track.
If you’re looking for a holistic marketing attribution (including ad clicks, etc.), Braze expects you to use an external analytics tool or export data to a warehouse. Braze does offer integrations to feed data to BI tools for custom reporting.
Braze’s email performance panel
In summary, Braze’s reporting is great for engagement metrics and testing within Braze channels, and it can give you a sense of campaign ROI if set up, but it’s not a full marketing attribution platform out-of-the-box.
Klaviyo gives very marketer-friendly reports geared to e-commerce. In Klaviyo, every campaign and flow shows not just opens/clicks but also how much revenue it generated (by tracking if recipients bought something within X days of receiving the message). For example, an abandoned cart flow might show it brought in $5,000 in recovered sales this month. Klaviyo’s dashboards include useful summaries: total revenue from Klaviyo-driven campaigns, your top performing campaigns, average order values from each segment, etc.
Fragment of Klaviyo’s business review dashboard
They recently enhanced the analytics UI to be more insightful. Attribution-wise, Klaviyo typically uses a last-touch model for its own emails/SMS—if someone clicked an email and purchased within the default window, that sale is attributed to that email. You can adjust settings or look at first-touch if needed. It’s not a multi-channel attribution tool beyond email/SMS, but since those are the channels it serves, it does a good job showing their impact.
It also has cohort analysis for customers (how often customers repeat purchase over time) and CLV predictions. Many small businesses rely on Klaviyo’s reporting to understand their repeat purchase rate, email revenue share, etc., without needing a data analyst.
So Klaviyo’s reporting is quite comprehensive for email/SMS performance and customer value metrics.
Maestra offers advanced reporting because it touches everything: campaigns across all channels, loyalty program performance, and potentially even in-store if connected. You get dashboards for omnichannel campaign performance—you can see how an integrated flow did in terms of conversions, not just per email or SMS in isolation.
Maestra’s campaigns report
It also tracks loyalty program metrics like points issued vs. redeemed, top loyalty customers, and the ROI of those rewards.
You can configure control groups in Maestra as well to truly measure lift (e.g., 5% of users get no flow—how do their purchase rates compare to the 95% who did?). They also provide A/B testing analysis built in, so you can test different offers or sequences and see statistically which drives more revenue or engagement.
Additionally, Maestra’s email health reports let you see deliverability stats compared to industry benchmarks (so you know if you’re performing above/below average).
One powerful aspect is goal tracking. In Maestra, you might set a goal for a campaign (say, increase average order value or convert X% of dormant users), and the dashboard will track progress toward that goal. Few marketing platforms offer that kind of outcome-oriented reporting.
Reporting & Attribution Winner: Maestra
So, Maestra provides the most holistic reporting and attribution because it spans all channels and the loyalty/revenue side, giving you one place to measure marketing impact across the board. Klaviyo provides excellent and straightforward e-commerce attribution for email/SMS (but doesn’t cover channels it doesn’t send, obviously). Braze can certainly report on its channel metrics thoroughly and integrate with external analytics, but out-of-the-box it might require more setup to tie things to revenue.
For a brand that doesn’t want to assemble data from many sources to see what’s going on, Maestra’s all-in-one dashboards are very compelling. You could log in and see total sales this week, how much came from campaigns vs. loyalty redemptions vs. organic, etc. With Klaviyo, you’d see how much Klaviyo influenced, but not know if some sales came from elsewhere unless you combine with Shopify or Google Analytics data. With Braze, similar story—you’d likely combine with other data to get the full picture.
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: Customer Support
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Customer support quality can significantly impact your success with a marketing platform, especially if you need help with strategy or technical setup.
Braze is an enterprise-oriented platform, and accordingly, its support model is geared toward larger clients. Typically, Braze offers a dedicated Customer Success Manager (CSM) or team for enterprise contracts, who assists with onboarding, strategy sessions, and acts as a point of contact. They also have Braze professional services if you pay for them.
For smaller clients, Braze has a support ticket system and a detailed documentation site (Braze has extensive docs and developer guides which often answer questions). They also run a community forum and learning programs (Braze has an academy called Braze Learning).
However, the UX complexity of Braze means many users might need guidance to utilize all features—Braze’s support will help if asked, but you need to know what to ask for.
On the plus side, Braze’s support is knowledgeable on technical issues, and for critical issues they have escalation paths. But if you’re a small client on Braze, you might not get proactive strategic help unless you invest in it. Braze does have periodic check-ins for customers to make sure they’re using features, etc., particularly for those under contract.
Klaviyo is built for self-service at scale.
For free users, Klaviyo offers email support for the first 60 days only, which encourages you to become a paying customer for continued support. On paid plans, Klaviyo offers email support and live chat support during business hours. Their support team is generally well-versed in common e-commerce marketing questions, and because Klaviyo’s user base is huge (100,000+ businesses), they’ve seen a lot of scenarios.
They also lean heavily on their help center articles, Klaviyo Academy videos, and community forum. Many answers can be found in those resources, and the community (including Klaviyo staff moderators) is active.
For larger accounts (enterprise level), Klaviyo can assign a Customer Success Manager or onboarding specialist, but this is relatively new and typically for brands bringing huge lists or complex setups. In most cases, a small brand on Klaviyo won’t have an assigned rep; they’ll use chat or email when an issue arises, and they’ll get a prompt response (in my experience, Klaviyo chat support is pretty quick and helpful for straightforward queries).
Where Klaviyo support might be limited is in strategy consulting—they can tell you how to use the feature, but they may not devise your segmentation strategy for you (though their blog/academy provides best practices). The availability of many Klaviyo agency partners also means if you need extra help, you might work with a consultant rather than Klaviyo’s core support.
Maestra takes a high-touch approach. Every Maestra client, regardless of size, gets a dedicated Customer Success Manager from day one. This CSM is not just a support agent but more of a strategic partner, helping plan out your use of the platform. They assist with migrating data from previous systems, setting up initial campaigns, and creating a roadmap tailored to your business goals.
Maestra also offers “white-glove” support, meaning they’ll go quite far to ensure you’re successfully using the platform—including technical implementation help, QA testing, and even custom integration support. The support team is available via live chat with very fast response times (claiming under 5 minutes on average), and via email, common Slack channel, and calls as needed.
They also proactively monitor your account to suggest improvements (like noticing if an email template has an issue or if a certain segment could be refined). Essentially, Maestra’s support model is more aligned with a premium enterprise software, but they extend that level of service to all their clients, not just the very top tier. That can be invaluable if your team is small or not deeply experienced in areas like segmentation or automation—Maestra’s team will guide you or even do some of it for you alongside you.
Client’s feedback on Maestra’s customer support
Customer Support Winner: Maestra
In summary, for Customer Support: Maestra clearly offers the most hands-on, personalized support for all customers. They treat you like a high-value client with dedicated help regardless of your size. Klaviyo’s support is solid and very accessible, especially via chat and their self-serve resources, but it’s more of a scaled model (they empower you to help yourself a lot, with backup when needed). Braze’s support is excellent for those with big accounts and the budget for success services, but smaller clients might not get as much attention beyond basic ticketing—plus the complexity of Braze can make support queries more technical.
For a mid-sized e-commerce business that doesn’t have an in-house expert for every feature, Maestra’s approach means you have essentially a consultant on call. With Klaviyo, you have help when you encounter an issue, but you’re mostly driving the strategy yourself (with lots of tips from Klaviyo’s content). With Braze, you’d likely need your own team of experts to fully leverage it, using Braze support for troubleshooting rather than strategic planning.
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: Integration Capabilities
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
⭐⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Integration capabilities refer to how well the platform connects with other tools in your tech stack—e.g., your e-commerce platform, CRM, analytics, customer service software, etc.
Braze is built API-first and has a robust set of integration partnerships. Braze’s website lists many tech partners (CDPs, data warehouses, attribution tools, etc.). However, Braze integrations often require developer work to implement. For example, Braze can integrate with Segment (a popular data pipeline) so that data flows into Braze easily. It also has webhooks and API endpoints to send data out (like to your backend or other apps when events happen). If you have engineering resources, Braze can fit nicely into a microservices architecture, pulling in data from anywhere and pushing out events.
But what Braze lacks is a plug-and-play app marketplace for non-technical users. You won’t find one-click connectors for Shopify or Magento, for instance. To integrate e-commerce, you’d usually instrument Braze’s SDK or API to send purchase events. That said, Braze has pre-built SDKs for various platforms (web, iOS, Android) and good documentation, so developer teams find it straightforward to integrate.
Braze also supports importing/exporting data in CSV for simpler needs and has an integration with Snowflake (data warehouse) for bi-directional data exchange. In summary, Braze can integrate with almost anything, but it often needs custom setup. For many common tools, Braze provides guidance, but it’s not as “no-code” as some marketing platforms.
Klaviyo shines in easy integrations, especially in the e-commerce realm. It has a directory of built-in integrations (Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Stripe, PayPal, Recharge, Re: amaze, Zendesk, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, etc.). Setting up something like Shopify + Klaviyo is literally a matter of pasting your API key or clicking an “Add Integration” button—then all your Shopify data (customers, orders, products) syncs over to Klaviyo automatically.
Klaviyo boasts more than 170 native integrations with various marketing, CRM, and analytics tools, which cover most needs of an e-commerce brand. For anything not covered, Klaviyo also has a well-documented API and many clients use Zapier or similar to connect other apps. There is a Klaviyo API that developers can use to push custom events or pull data out. For instance, if you have a custom-built website, you can still integrate by sending events to Klaviyo’s API.
Additionally, since Klaviyo is widely used, many third-party apps themselves build Klaviyo integrations (for example, a loyalty app might have a setting “Integrate with Klaviyo” which then automatically syncs loyalty data into Klaviyo). That network effect is strong. So, Klaviyo’s integration capabilities are excellent, especially for a marketer who wants quick connections without coding. It covers e-commerce platforms and many peripherals like review apps, helpdesks, subscription services, etc.
Maestra provides ready-to-use integrations with common e-commerce and marketing systems. Maestra covers the essentials: main platforms (Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce), major CRMs, ad platforms, and other marketing tools.
The key point with Maestra is that because they offer custom integration assistance, if you need an integration that isn’t built-in, Maestra’s team will help create it using their API/webhooks. So nothing is truly off-limits—they will not say “we don’t integrate with X,” they will say “we can integrate with X, let’s work together to set it up.” This is part of the service you get.
Also, given Maestra is an all-in-one, you might need fewer integrations (for example, if you switch to Maestra’s loyalty, you don’t need to integrate a separate loyalty app).
Maestra’s API allows you to push or fetch data, similar to Braze and Klaviyo’s APIs. They also can ingest data from CSV or other formats as needed (often guided by the success manager). They monitor integrations so if something breaks (say an API auth expires), they’ll help resolve it—a nice touch.
Integration Capabilities Winner: Klaviyo and Maestra
In short, Klaviyo wins on sheer number of easy pre-built integrations—it’s unlikely you’ll find a popular e-com tool that Klaviyo doesn’t already have a connector for. Maestra matches on critical integrations and compensates any gap with personalized support to integrate anything else, which is arguably even better if you have a unique or custom tool. Braze is super flexible but more technical in integration—better if you have dev resources and possibly a dedicated data pipeline to feed data in.
If you’re a non-technical user who just wants things to plug together, Klaviyo is very appealing. Maestra handles integrations for you if needed. Braze might require involving your engineering team for a while during setup.
Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra: Educational Resources
Braze
Klaviyo
Maestra
⭐⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
By educational resources, we mean documentation, tutorials, community, and training materials that help users learn and get the most out of the platform.
Braze offers extensive documentation and a Braze Academy (Braze Learning) for users. Their documentation site covers everything from quick-start guides to detailed API references. It’s quite technical but thorough. Braze also has a community forum (Braze Bonfire) where users and Braze employees discuss use cases and issues.
For more formal training, Braze provides online courses and even certification programs for Braze users. They host an annual conference (Braze LIFT) and often publish whitepapers and case studies. Essentially, if you’re willing to dig into docs, Braze has a lot of material. However, much of it is geared toward technical implementation and enterprise use cases, which can be a bit daunting for a less technical marketer. Braze’s blog and resources tend to discuss high-level strategy as well (their content marketing is strong but often aimed at enterprise scenarios).
Overall, Braze has rich educational content, but it might be like drinking from a firehose—very detailed and broad, requiring some self-initiative to go through.
Klaviyo invests heavily in customer education for marketers at all levels. They have the Klaviyo Help Center with hundreds of how-to articles (with screenshots and step by step instructions for every feature). They also have Klaviyo Academy which is a series of on-demand videos and courses covering both how to use Klaviyo and general email/SMS marketing best practices. Topics range from basic (building your first flow) to advanced (using data science in Klaviyo).
Additionally, Klaviyo has a very active community forum and they run live training webinars frequently (and office hours where you can ask questions). There are also Klaviyo meetups and an annual conference (Klaviyo:BOS, etc.). Klaviyo’s blog is one of the go-to e-commerce marketing blogs, full of strategy tips, benchmark data, and customer success stories. They also have partnered content like guides in the Shopify community, etc.
In short, Klaviyo’s educational resources are excellent and accessible—perfect for a marketer who might not be an expert yet and wants to learn both the tool and general strategy. Because they serve many SMBs, they emphasize clear, jargon-free guidance.
Maestra a younger platform, Maestra has a growing library of educational content. But what’s more important—Maestra provides one-on-one training as a primary educational resource (through the success manager)—so instead of just articles, you get actual training sessions tailored to you.
Still, they have a blog and offer documentation and user guides—they can even create custom guides for your use case as part of onboarding. Being comprehensive (covering many marketing functions), there’s a lot to teach, and Maestra addresses that by guiding customers personally.
Educational Resources Winners: Klaviyo and Maestra
For an unbiased comparison: Klaviyo provides the most extensive self-serve educational resources (articles, videos, community)—you can become quite proficient just by following their materials. Braze has a wealth of documentation and formal training but is more technical and might be overwhelming for some—it’s great if you have the time/skill to delve into it. Maestra focuses on educating you through direct support.
Final Verdict: Braze vs Klaviyo vs Maestra
Let’s summarize the best use cases for each:
Braze
Braze is a powerhouse for large enterprises or mobile-focused companies that need sophisticated cross-channel orchestration and have the technical muscle to fully utilize it. It’s best for organizations that perhaps have outgrown simpler tools and require fine-grained control, scalability, and integration flexibility. For example, a retail brand with a popular mobile app and millions of users might choose Braze for its real-time, multi-channel capabilities.
However, Braze may be overkill for smaller e-commerce teams—its lack of built-in e-commerce conveniences (like native Shopify integration or loyalty features) means you’ll spend more time and money setting up those parts. Also, Braze’s cost and complexity are justified only if you have a sophisticated strategy and team. If you are in that league (with dedicated marketing ops developers, huge customer base, etc.), Braze can deliver amazing results. But if not, you might find you’re paying for a lot of power you aren’t using.
Klaviyo
Klaviyo is the go-to choice for small and medium e-commerce businesses for a reason. It’s tailor-made for online stores, giving you quick wins with minimal effort. If you’re just starting with email marketing or SMS, Klaviyo provides a friendly ramp-up: you install it, plug in your store, and you can literally have effective automated flows running the same day (welcome series, cart reminders, etc. are nearly plug-and-play). It’s also relatively affordable to start—there’s even a free tier to try it out.
For a brand that primarily needs to improve their email/SMS marketing and basic segmentation, Klaviyo is hard to beat on simplicity and ROI. Many brands stick with Klaviyo through the mid-stage of growth because it covers a lot without needing additional tools.
However, as your marketing gets more advanced, you might hit some limits: Klaviyo doesn’t do on-site personalization (yet, beyond the upcoming Hub), it doesn’t have native loyalty or advanced omnichannel beyond email/SMS, and costs can rise quickly as your list grows (some larger brands find Klaviyo’s pricing for 1M+ contacts to be steep).
Essentially, Klaviyo is fantastic until you need capabilities outside its wheelhouse. If email and SMS are 90% of your strategy, you’ll be very happy. If you start wanting more channels integrated or more one-to-one personalization across every touchpoint, you’ll start to see why tools like Braze or Maestra exist.
Maestra
Maestra is the best choice for mid-sized and growing e-commerce brands that are ready to unify their marketing stack for the next level of personalization and scale. It’s perfect for a company that perhaps has been using separate tools (Klaviyo for email, a loyalty app, a personalization app, etc.) and is frustrated by the silos or lack of advanced capabilities. With Maestra, you get an all-in-one platform that can do what Klaviyo does and much more, all leveraging the same real-time customer data.
The benefit is huge: you can deliver the kind of tailored, consistent experiences that only big enterprises with custom setups (or Braze + a bunch of add-ons) could do, but without needing a big tech team because Maestra handles the heavy lifting.
Additionally, Maestra’s white-glove support means even if your team is small, you can execute sophisticated campaigns with expert guidance.
In terms of cost, Maestra is a larger investment than Klaviyo (no free tier; it’s a premium solution), but it often replaces multiple tools and the associated costs. For brands that reach the point where they say “We want to treat our customers uniquely across every channel and maximize retention via loyalty and personalization,” Maestra offers that in a unified way.
To put it simply:
- If you are a new or small online store mostly needing email/SMS, start with Klaviyo. It will cover your bases with minimal fuss and cost.
- If you are a very large or tech-savvy brand that needs enterprise-grade control (especially around a mobile app), Braze is a top contender—but ensure you have the resources to support it.
- If you are a growing e-commerce brand that is serious about taking customer engagement to the next level—where you want to run personalized omnichannel campaigns, a loyalty program, advanced segmentation, etc., and you don’t want to juggle 5 different apps to do it—then Maestra is the solution built for you.
In the end, all three platforms can help increase customer engagement and revenue—but they serve different stages and strategies. Klaviyo excels at the foundation and is beloved for its ease of use, Braze is like the high-performance sports car requiring skillful handling, and Maestra delivers a balance of power and unity, acting as the central hub for a modern omni-channel e-commerce strategy.
For many mid-market brands looking to scale efficiently, Maestra provides the most bang for your buck by consolidating capabilities. Instead of piecemeal solutions and fragmented data, Maestra gives you a single, coherent platform—with a team to support you—to execute your vision of personalized, loyalty-driven marketing. If that sounds like what your business needs, it may be time to book a demo with Maestra and see firsthand how it can accelerate your growth through smarter customer engagement.