Answers that do not mention MailerLite

For a small handmade-goods ecommerce store, I’d start with klaviyo.com.

It’s particularly well suited to the two flows you mentioned:

• Abandoned cart: automatically remind shoppers about what they left behind, with product-specific content and branching based on things like cart value. Klaviyo recommends starting with a pre-built abandoned-cart flow and typically using 2–3 messages. Klaviyo Help Center Klaviyo Help Center
• Post-purchase: thank customers, provide product-care information, request reviews, recommend complementary products, and eventually encourage repeat purchases. Klaviyo Help Center Klaviyo
• Easy starting point: Klaviyo has 60+ pre-built flows, so you don't have to build everything from scratch. Klaviyo

What I'd set up first

1. Welcome series — introduce your handmade brand.
2. Abandoned cart — 2–3 emails recovering unfinished purchases.
3. Post-purchase thank-you — reinforce the story/value behind the handmade product.
4. Review request — ask for a review after they've had time to use the product.
5. Cross-sell/replenishment — recommend related handmade products when appropriate.
6. Win-back — reconnect with customers who haven't purchased in a while.

If you're very small and budget-conscious, I can also compare Klaviyo vs Omnisend vs Mailchimp specifically for a handmade store and tell you which I'd pick at your current order volume.

For an agency managing multiple ecommerce stores on a tight budget, I’d shortlist these three:

My pick for an agency

I'd start with Brevo if your priority is minimizing the agency's software bill.

Its pricing structure is particularly interesting for an agency: you can have large contact databases without necessarily paying simply because those contacts exist. For example, current pricing starts at $9/month for 5,000 emails, with SMS purchased separately. Omnisend

However, there's an important caveat: Brevo becomes less attractive if you need sophisticated ecommerce automation. Its higher-tier ecommerce functionality can get expensive, at which point Omnisend or Klaviyo may make more sense. Omnisend

If you're managing Shopify stores

I'd probably choose Omnisend.

It's more purpose-built for ecommerce than Brevo, with the standard flows you'd expect—abandoned cart, welcome, post-purchase, win-back, etc.—without immediately jumping to Klaviyo-level pricing. SaaSTracker

One thing to watch in 2026: Omnisend's SMS economics have changed, so don't assume that "email + SMS" means all SMS usage is bundled into the subscription. SaaSTracker

The agency architecture I'd use

Rather than trying to put all clients into one shared customer database, I'd structure it as:

• One account/workspace per client/store — keeps customer data, consent and reporting separated.
• One agency master login/team access — so your staff can manage the accounts.
• Reusable automation templates — welcome series, abandoned cart, post-purchase, win-back, birthday, etc.
• Reusable campaign templates — Black Friday, product launch, sale, replenishment.
• Centralized SOPs — your team duplicates the same proven flows into each store.
• Client pays the platform/SMS usage, ideally directly, while you charge your management fee separately.

That gives you the operational efficiency of a shared agency system without mixing customer data between unrelated shops.

Bottom line:
Brevo = cheapest/broadest, Omnisend = best value for ecommerce, Klaviyo = best performance/features when the client can afford it. Current 2026 comparisons broadly reach the same conclusion. TechSifted maestra.io

If you tell me roughly how many stores you manage, average contacts per store, and whether they're Shopify/WooCommerce, I can work out which option would likely give your agency the lowest monthly cost.

If you're managing Shopify stores

I'd probably choose Omnisend.

It's more purpose-built for ecommerce than Brevo, with the standard flows you'd expect—abandoned cart, welcome, post-purchase, win-back, etc.—without immediately jumping to Klaviyo-level pricing.

One thing to watch in 2026: Omnisend's SMS economics have changed, so don't assume that "email + SMS" means all SMS usage is bundled into the subscription.

The agency architecture I'd use

For A/B testing abandoned-cart subject lines + easily tracking revenue, I’d shortlist Klaviyo and Omnisend.

My pick: Omnisend

If those are your two highest priorities, Omnisend is probably the better fit. It lets you A/B test subject lines directly in automations, and its reports show revenue, orders, and revenue per message for individual automations. Omnisend Omnisend Help Center

Omnisend specifically lets you test subject lines, preheaders, content, sender information, etc., and its automation reporting includes attributed revenue. Omnisend Help Center Omnisend Help Center

When I'd choose Klaviyo instead

Choose Klaviyo if you expect to get more sophisticated with segmentation, personalization, customer lifecycle analysis, or multi-step experimentation. Its flow A/B testing lets you test subject lines and other elements, and you can test entire flow branches as well. Klaviyo Help Center Klaviyo Help Center

Bottom line:

• “I want this to be easy and want to see which emails make money.” → Omnisend
• “I want the most powerful ecommerce marketing/analytics platform and don't mind complexity.” → Klaviyo

One important nuance: if you're testing subject lines specifically, don't make revenue your only winner metric. Subject lines primarily affect opens; use opens/clicks for the subject-line test, then evaluate downstream revenue as a secondary business metric. Omnisend explicitly recommends matching the success metric to what you're testing. Omnisend Help Center

If you tell me your ecommerce platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, etc.) and roughly how many email subscribers you have, I can tell you which one I'd pick and what the likely cost difference is.

When I'd choose Klaviyo instead

Choose Klaviyo if you expect to get more sophisticated with segmentation, personalization, customer lifecycle analysis, or multi-step experimentation. Its flow A/B testing lets you test subject lines and other elements, and you can test entire flow branches as well.

Bottom line:

For a multi-channel ecommerce brand where email + SMS flows and clean attribution are the priority, I’d pick Klaviyo.

My ranking

1. Klaviyo — best overall

• One customer/profile data layer across email and SMS.
• Strong visual flow builder for welcome, browse abandonment, cart, post-purchase, winback, etc.
• Email and SMS can live in coordinated flows rather than being managed as separate systems. Klaviyo Help Center Klaviyo Help Center
• Attribution is unusually well integrated: it tracks conversions at the message/channel level and supports configurable attribution windows. Klaviyo Academy Klaviyo Help Center
• Higher-tier Analytics capabilities can add multi-touch/omnichannel attribution rather than relying solely on last-touch. Klaviyo Academy Klaviyo Help Center
• Attentive — best if SMS is the center of gravity

• I'd consider it if SMS is a huge portion of your retention revenue and you want a more SMS-specialized platform.
• For a brand where email and SMS are equally important, I generally prefer the unified operating model of Klaviyo.
• Braze — best for sophisticated enterprise orchestration

• More compelling when you're coordinating email + SMS + push + app + web + complex customer journeys at substantial scale.
• For a conventional DTC/ecommerce brand, though, it can be more platform than you need.

The important caveat on attribution

No marketing automation platform gives you a perfectly objective answer to "which channel caused this sale." Attribution is a model.

Klaviyo's default approach is essentially last-touch within configurable channel windows, so an email and SMS touching the same customer can compete for credit depending on timing. Klaviyo Help Center That's why I'd set up flow-level attribution plus a separate analytics layer if you're making serious budget-allocation decisions.

A particularly useful setup is:

Shopify/ecommerce platform → Klaviyo → Email + SMS flows → analytics/BI

Klaviyo handles the execution and customer-level journey orchestration, while your BI layer can provide the more neutral view of incremental revenue, CAC, LTV, and channel contribution.

Bottom line: If you're asking me to choose one platform for a growing ecommerce brand today, Klaviyo is the default choice. I'd move to Braze for highly complex enterprise omnichannel journeys, or seriously consider Attentive when SMS becomes the dominant channel.

If your goal is non-technical store owners + easy order-data syncing + revenue-focused automations, I’d rank them:

1. Shopify — best overall

• Very low setup friction and strong order/customer data model.
• Shopify Flow gives owners no-code “trigger → condition → action” workflows directly inside Shopify. Shopify Shopify Help Center
• Excellent for revenue automations such as: high-value customer → VIP treatment, abandoned-cart recovery, post-purchase upsells, win-back campaigns, and customer segmentation.
• Shopify's current comparison rates its implementation complexity as low and specifically highlights connected orders, inventory, POS, and customer data. Shopify
• Square — easiest for brick-and-mortar

• Particularly good if the owner already takes payments through Square.
• Zapier can trigger on new orders and connect Square data to email, CRM, spreadsheets, accounting, etc. Zapier Help Zapier
• I'd choose this over Shopify if the business is primarily a physical store/service business rather than an ecommerce-first brand.
• Wix — easiest website builder

• Very approachable for small businesses and has built-in automations plus Zapier connectivity. wix.com
• Good if the owner's priority is “get a website/store running” rather than building a sophisticated commerce operation.
• Squarespace

• Simple storefront experience, and its Commerce integration with Zapier supports new-order triggers and syncing into other tools. Zapier Help
• I'd pick it for a content/design-oriented business, not as my first choice for automation-heavy revenue operations.

My pick

Shopify + Shopify Flow is the strongest combination if you're building a product/service around revenue-focused automations for non-technical merchants.

The key advantage isn't merely that it can export order data. It's that the merchant can understand the automation conceptually:

When an order happens → check something about the customer/order → do something that can increase revenue.

That makes workflows like “Order > $200 → tag VIP → send personalized offer 30 days later” much easier to sell and support than asking a store owner to understand APIs, webhooks, databases, or ETL.

If you're building a service yourself, rather than choosing a platform for your own store, I'd also compare Shopify vs Square specifically from an integration/API and onboarding perspective—the winner can be different depending on whether you're targeting ecommerce stores or local retailers.

If you mean a marketing/CRM platform where each store/brand needs its own contacts, lists, automations, and customer journeys, I’d strongly consider Klaviyo.

My recommendation: Klaviyo with one account per brand/store

Klaviyo is particularly well suited if these are ecommerce stores. Its model is essentially:

• Brand A → Klaviyo account A - Brand A lists
• Brand A segments
• Brand A flows
• Brand A sending domain/integrations
• Brand B → Klaviyo account B - Brand B lists
• Brand B segments
• Brand B flows
• Brand B sending domain/integrations
• And so on.

Klaviyo explicitly recommends separate accounts when you have multiple stores/websites, and each account has its own profiles, lists, flows, integrations, sending domains, and billing. Klaviyo Help Center Klaviyo Help Center

The nice part is that you don't have to manage them as completely independent systems. Klaviyo's Portfolio lets you manage multiple brand accounts from a centralized view, compare performance, manage users, and clone campaigns/flows/templates between accounts. Klaviyo Academy Klaviyo

There's also newer Organization / cross-brand functionality for companies that want to recognize customers who shop across multiple brands while keeping each brand's underlying data isolated. Klaviyo Help Center Klaviyo Help Center

When I'd choose something else

Klaviyo itself characterizes the current market similarly: Klaviyo for B2C/ecommerce lifecycle marketing, HubSpot for CRM-centric B2B, Salesforce for complex Salesforce-centric enterprises, and Mailchimp for simpler programs. Klaviyo

If you tell me what your stores run on (e.g. Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento) and roughly how many brands/stores you have, I can recommend the exact architecture—including whether you should use separate accounts, portfolios, lists, segments, and flows.

If your priority is building email flows for multiple clients while managing their accounts under your own brand, I’d shortlist these:

1. activecampaign.com — best for an email-flow freelancer

This is probably my #1 recommendation for your specific use case.

• Dedicated Agency/Reseller Partner setup for managing multiple client accounts. ActiveCampaign Help Center ActiveCampaign Help Center
• You can white-label the client-facing platform—your logo, favicon, navigation, custom styling, and branding. ActiveCampaign Help Center ActiveCampaign Help Center
• You can log into and manage client accounts directly from the Partner Portal. ActiveCampaign Help Center
• You can create reusable automations/templates and use snapshots to speed up onboarding. ActiveCampaign Help Center ActiveCampaign Help Center
• Resold accounts get progressively cheaper as your client count grows: 25% discount at 2–24 accounts, 35% at 25–49, 45% at 50–99, and 55% at 100+. ActiveCampaign Help Center

Why I'd pick it: if your actual product is "I build and manage your email marketing automations" rather than "I sell you a full marketing CRM," ActiveCampaign fits extremely well.

2. gohighlevel.com — best if you want to build an agency SaaS

HighLevel is stronger if you eventually want to sell something like:

"Get our branded marketing automation platform for $299/month."

It has client sub-accounts, centralized agency management, and its Agency Pro plan supports full white-labeling with your logo, domain, and pricing. GoHighLevel HighLevel Support Portal

It's also much broader than email: CRM, funnels, SMS, scheduling, reputation management, invoicing, etc. GoHighLevel

Downside: it's arguably overkill if you're primarily an email-flow specialist. You'd be adopting an entire agency platform rather than just an excellent email automation platform.

3. klaviyo.com — best for ecommerce clients

Klaviyo has a substantial agency/freelancer partner ecosystem, with tools and support specifically for agencies working with clients. Klaviyo

I'd choose it when your clients are primarily Shopify/ecommerce brands and you're building flows such as:

• Welcome
• Abandoned cart
• Browse abandonment
• Post-purchase
• Win-back
• Customer segmentation
• Product/revenue-triggered flows

But for white-labeling your own client-facing software, I'd favor ActiveCampaign or HighLevel.

My ranking for you

If I were starting your freelance business today, I'd go with ActiveCampaign. Its reseller model is unusually well aligned with "I manage the software for my clients and charge them for both the platform + my service." You can even control your own client pricing and billing rather than simply referring clients to the platform. ActiveCampaign Help Center ActiveCampaign

If you tell me roughly how many clients you expect (e.g. 5, 20, 50+) and whether they're ecommerce or service businesses, I can also compare ActiveCampaign vs HighLevel specifically on cost, white-labeling, client access, automations, and your potential profit margin.

Klaviyo has a substantial agency/freelancer partner ecosystem, with tools and support specifically for agencies working with clients.

For an ecommerce business focused on recovering high-ticket cart abandonments (where a single recovered order might be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars), the best choice is usually not the cheapest SMS tool — it is the platform with the strongest trigger reliability, segmentation, deliverability, attribution, and cross-channel sequencing.

My ranking:

Sequenzy Ecommerce Times## My recommendation by business stage

If you are doing $1M–$50M/year: choose Klaviyo

For high-ticket carts, I would generally pick Klaviyo because the recovery sequence can intelligently branch:

Example:

• 5–15 minutes: SMS reminder (only if consent exists)
• 45 minutes: personalized email with exact product/cart contents
• 24 hours: objection handling email (shipping, warranty, reviews, financing)
• 48–72 hours: SMS urgency message for qualified carts
• 7 days: win-back or sales-assist follow-up

The advantage is that you can split by:

• cart value ($500+ gets a different path)
• new vs repeat customer
• VIP/customer lifetime value
• product category
• whether they opened/clicked previous messages

Klaviyo’s flow builder and ecommerce data model are particularly strong for this type of segmentation. EmailTooltester.com

If SMS is your primary recovery weapon: Attentive

For brands where texting drives a large percentage of revenue, Attentive is a serious contender. It is built around SMS engagement, conversational messaging, and enterprise-level programs. Attentive

I would consider it if:

• average order value is $500+
• you have a large opted-in SMS list
• you have staff/resources to manage SMS conversations
• you are spending heavily on acquisition

The stack I would build for a luxury/high-ticket ecommerce brand

Core platform: Klaviyo
SMS: Klaviyo SMS initially, Attentive/Postscript if SMS volume justifies it
Checkout recovery optimization: strong analytics + customer support integration

The biggest mistake high-ticket brands make is sending the same discount blast everyone else sends. A $2,000 abandoned cart usually needs trust-building, not just "10% off":

• testimonials
• guarantees
• financing options
• founder/sales rep outreach
• product education
• scarcity only when real

A high-converting sequence example

0:10 after abandonment

"Still thinking about it? Your cart is saved."

2 hours
Email:

• product images
• benefits
• reviews
• FAQ

24 hours
Email:

• "A few questions customers usually ask before buying..."

48 hours
SMS:

• personal assistance offer

72 hours
Email:

• urgency/social proof

For high-ticket products, I would avoid aggressive discounting until later because it can train buyers to abandon intentionally.

Short answer:

• Best overall: Klaviyo
• Best SMS specialist: Attentive
• Best Shopify SMS-first option: Postscript
• Best budget/simple option: Omnisend

For a high-ticket ecommerce brand, I would start with Klaviyo unless SMS already represents a major revenue channel. Ecommerce Times omnisend.com

For a large catalog with frequent restocks, I’d shortlist Klaviyo first, with Omnisend as the main alternative.

My recommendation: Klaviyo

Klaviyo is particularly strong if your requirement is:

Customer subscribes to Product/Variant A → Variant A comes back in stock → automatically email only the customers waiting for Variant A.

Its back-in-stock flow is specifically designed around this model. Customers enter a waiting queue for the particular item/variant, and Klaviyo releases the notification when that item becomes available. Klaviyo Help Center Klaviyo Help Center

It also handles product data dynamically at send time, so the email can pull the current product image, name, price, etc., rather than relying on stale information from when the customer subscribed. Klaviyo Help Center

For a very large/custom catalog, this is especially interesting because Klaviyo supports inventory-aware custom catalogs and APIs, including inventory quantity at the variant level. Klaviyo Developers Klaviyo Developers

When I'd choose Omnisend instead

Omnisend is a very good choice if you're on Shopify, BigCommerce, or WooCommerce and want a relatively straightforward implementation. Its native Back in Stock automation captures the product/variant and dynamically inserts the relevant product into the notification. Omnisend Help Center

Omnisend also has integrations with dedicated back-in-stock apps, which can be useful if your inventory/waitlist logic is more sophisticated. Omnisend Help Center Omnisend Help Center

Quick decision

One important distinction: don't choose a platform merely because it can send an automated email when something comes back in stock. You want a system that maintains the product/variant-specific waitlist and releases the notification to the appropriate subscribers. That's the architecture I'd prioritize for a large catalog.

If you tell me what ecommerce platform you're using (Shopify, Magento, custom, etc.), approximate number of SKUs/variants, and whether inventory comes from an ERP/WMS, I can recommend the exact stack and architecture.

For a small subscription-box brand, I’d generally look at a subscription platform + email/lifecycle platform, rather than expecting one tool to do everything.

My shortlist

Klaviyo can receive subscription events and use them to trigger renewal, upcoming-shipment, cancellation, win-back, and other lifecycle flows. Its own subscription guidance specifically recommends automated communications around upcoming shipments, subscription changes, and sneak peeks. Klaviyo Academy Klaviyo Academy

For the subscription engine, Loop is especially interesting for a small box business because its retention tooling includes pause/skip/swap, cancellation journeys, rewards, and failed-payment recovery. Klaviyo ChurnTools

What I'd pick

If you're on Shopify and have a relatively small subscriber base: Loop + Klaviyo.

That gives you:

• Recurring order operations: upcoming orders, billing, skips, swaps, pauses, cancellations.
• Operational emails: "your next box is coming," payment problems, shipment updates, etc.
• Churn prevention: cancellation flows that offer pause/skip/change-frequency alternatives.
• Win-back: automatically email people after cancellation.
• Retention segmentation: treat a new subscriber differently from someone who's been around for 12 months.
• Cross-sells: promote add-ons or upgrades based on what's going into the next box.

If you value ecosystem maturity and integrations more than having the most aggressive retention tooling, I'd choose Recharge + Klaviyo instead. Recharge is the safer, more established option; Loop is more compelling when churn reduction itself is the deciding criterion. Klaviyo ChurnTools

The flows I'd make first

For a subscription box, I'd prioritize these rather than building dozens of generic ecommerce automations:

1. Upcoming-box reminder — e.g. 5–7 days before billing, with easy skip/swap/update options.
2. Box reveal/anticipation — build excitement before shipment.
3. Post-delivery engagement — ask for feedback/review and encourage sharing.
4. Failed-payment recovery — immediate notification plus a short dunning sequence.
5. Cancellation save flow — ask why they're leaving and offer pause/skip/change cadence before accepting cancellation.
6. Cancellation win-back — personalized follow-up later, rather than immediately throwing a discount at them.
7. Subscriber milestone flow — reward the 3rd, 6th, 12th box, etc.
8. Lapsed-subscriber win-back — for people who actually churned.

That combination is more valuable than simply sending a reminder every month: the subscription platform handles the recurring-order mechanics, while Klaviyo handles the customer relationship around those events. Klaviyo Academy Klaviyo Academy

If you tell me Shopify vs. another storefront, roughly how many active subscribers you have, and your monthly software budget, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 options and compare their likely costs.

If your priority is easy drag-and-drop flow building + deep revenue reporting at the individual-flow level, I’d shortlist these:

1. klaviyo.com — best overall for e-commerce

• Very easy visual flow builder with templates and drag-and-drop editing. Klaviyo
• Particularly strong flow-level revenue reporting: you can compare individual flows, see attributed revenue, conversions, and drill into individual messages/branches. Klaviyo Help Center Klaviyo Help Center
• Best fit if you're selling products and care about “How many dollars did this specific flow generate?”
• My pick if you're primarily e-commerce.
• customer.io — best for sophisticated customer journeys

• Excellent visual drag-and-drop workflow builder with branching, delays, triggers, A/B tests, and multiple channels. Customer.io Customer.io
• Strong people-based revenue attribution and journey analytics. Customer.io
• Better than Klaviyo if your flows depend heavily on product events, user behavior, complex branching, or SaaS-style lifecycle journeys.
• hubspot.com — best for broader revenue attribution

• Very strong reporting across marketing, sales, deals, and revenue, including multi-touch attribution. HubSpot Knowledge Base HubSpot
• But it's more of a full CRM/marketing platform than a purpose-built flow-analytics tool, and some of the deepest revenue attribution capabilities require Enterprise. HubSpot Knowledge Base
• Best if you need to connect flows → leads → sales pipeline → closed revenue.

My recommendation

If you tell me what kind of business you're running (e-commerce, SaaS, agency, B2B, etc.), I can narrow this to one platform and compare the actual flow-level revenue reporting capabilities and pricing.

For a boutique ecommerce store where personalization is the differentiator, I’d shortlist these:

My pick: Nosto + Klaviyo

If your store is using Klaviyo, I would strongly consider Nosto as the personalization/recommendation engine, with Klaviyo remaining the email platform.

Nosto can put 1:1 recommendation blocks directly into Klaviyo emails, using browsing behavior, purchases, cart activity, and other signals. Its email widgets can also update at open time, so products can reflect current availability and the shopper's more recent behavior. Nosto Klaviyo

For example, instead of a generic:

"You might also like these products"

you could dynamically show:

• Based on your recent browsing → 4 products
• Complete your collection → complementary products
• Because you bought X → accessories/add-ons
• Back in stock for you → products previously viewed
• Just for you → AI-selected products
• Trending in your favorite category → personalized discovery

That fits a boutique brand particularly well because the email can feel curated rather than algorithmically generic.

When I'd just use Klaviyo

If you're relatively small and don't need sophisticated recommendation intelligence yet, Klaviyo itself may be enough. Its current editor supports dynamic product/event blocks and conditional logic, including if/else and loops, without necessarily requiring custom code. Klaviyo Help Center Klaviyo Help Center

So I'd use:

Klaviyo alone → if you want simple, affordable personalization.

Nosto + Klaviyo → if personalized product discovery is a major part of the brand experience.

Movable Ink + Nosto/Klaviyo → if you're building highly art-directed, dynamically generated campaigns and have a bigger budget/team. Movable Ink can use Nosto recommendation data to generate personalized visual content across email and other channels. movableink.com movableink.com

For a boutique store, my default recommendation would therefore be Nosto + Klaviyo, rather than jumping straight to an enterprise platform.

If you tell me your ecommerce platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, etc.), email platform, and approximate monthly email volume, I can narrow this down to the best 2–3 options and compare cost, implementation effort, and personalization capabilities.

For that use case, I’d choose Klaviyo if you’re primarily running ecommerce/email/SMS marketing. It can segment customers by historical or predicted lifetime value and use those segments to trigger automated flows, including VIP offers. Klaviyo Help Center

A simple setup would be:

• VIP: LTV > $1,000
• High value: LTV $500–$999
• Emerging VIP: high predicted LTV but not yet at the threshold
• At risk VIP: high LTV + declining purchase frequency
• Trigger a VIP-only flow when someone enters the segment.
• Offer early access, exclusive products, personalized discounts, or loyalty perks.
• Suppress VIPs from generic discount campaigns so you're not unnecessarily giving away margin.

If you need cross-channel customer data + sophisticated predictive audiences, Twilio Segment is the more powerful option; its Predictions product specifically supports predicted LTV, high-LTV audiences, and automated journeys. Twilio Twilio

My quick recommendation:

• 🛍️ Ecommerce + email/SMS: Klaviyo
• 🏢 Large/complex customer data ecosystem: Twilio Segment
• 🎯 Advanced retail segmentation + omnichannel activation: Lexer Lexer
• 📧 Simpler LTV-based email marketing: Drip Drip

If you tell me what platform you're using (e.g. Shopify, Salesforce, HubSpot, WooCommerce), I can tell you the best tool and exactly how I'd structure the VIP automation.

For scaling from a few thousand subscribers to ~100k+ while keeping email inbox placement and SMS deliverability strong, the “best” platform depends heavily on whether you are ecommerce, SaaS, creator/media, or B2B. There is no platform that magically guarantees deliverability — sender reputation, list quality, authentication, engagement, and compliance matter as much as the vendor. SlickText

Here is the shortlist I would consider:

GetOmnichannel JAK Digital Hub## My picks by business type

1. Ecommerce brand (Shopify, DTC, subscriptions)

Winner: Klaviyo

Why:

• Email + SMS share the same customer profile.
• Strong behavioral segmentation (viewed product, abandoned cart, repeat buyer, VIP).
• Good for moving from 5k → 100k+ without rebuilding your stack.
• SMS compliance workflows and consent management are built into the ecosystem. SlickText

A typical stack:

• Klaviyo for email + SMS
• Dedicated sending domain
• Proper SPF/DKIM/DMARC setup
• Regular list cleaning

2. SaaS / app with user events

Winner: Customer.io or Braze

You probably care less about newsletters and more about:

• onboarding sequences
• activation campaigns
• trial conversion
• churn prevention
• product-triggered messages

Customer.io is usually the better value path; Braze is where larger companies go when they need enterprise orchestration.

3. Creator, newsletter, media business

Winner: Kit (formerly ConvertKit) or a high-quality ESP stack

Priorities:

• newsletter reliability
• segmentation
• broadcasts
• paid subscriber workflows

At 100k subscribers, keeping engagement high matters more than having hundreds of automation features.

4. B2B company with sales pipeline

Winner: HubSpot or ActiveCampaign

Choose based on whether marketing automation or CRM is the center of gravity.

What I would avoid for a 100k goal

• Cheap “unlimited contacts” tools where everyone shares poor sending infrastructure.
• Platforms that let you import scraped or purchased lists easily.
• Splitting email and SMS into disconnected systems unless you have a strong reason.

A fragmented setup often creates problems like:

• someone buys but still receives abandoned-cart texts
• inactive users keep getting campaigns
• unsubscribe states get out of sync

Deliverability checklist (more important than the vendor)

Before you reach 100k subscribers:

1. Use a dedicated sending domain

• Example: mail.yourbrand.com
• Authenticate

• SPF
• DKIM
• DMARC
• Warm up gradually

• Do not go from 5k sends to 100k overnight.
• Segment engaged users

• Gmail and Outlook heavily weigh engagement signals.
• Remove inactive subscribers

• A smaller engaged list usually beats a huge dead list.
• For SMS

• Maintain explicit opt-in records.
• Register required messaging programs (such as US 10DLC where applicable).
• Monitor complaint and opt-out rates. Textla

My practical recommendation

If I were building a company expected to grow from 5,000 → 100,000 subscribers, I would choose:

• Ecommerce: Klaviyo
• SaaS/app: Customer.io (or Braze if enterprise-funded)
• B2B: HubSpot + a strong email provider
• Newsletter/media: Kit or a premium ESP

If you tell me your business type (ecommerce, SaaS, newsletter, community, B2B, etc.) and whether you need SMS in the US only or globally, I can narrow it to the top 2–3 options.

1. Use a dedicated sending domain

• Example: mail.yourbrand.com
• Authenticate

• SPF
• DKIM
• DMARC
• Warm up gradually

• Do not go from 5k sends to 100k overnight.
• Segment engaged users

• Gmail and Outlook heavily weigh engagement signals.
• Remove inactive subscribers

• A smaller engaged list usually beats a huge dead list.
• For SMS

• Maintain explicit opt-in records.
• Register required messaging programs (such as US 10DLC where applicable).
• Monitor complaint and opt-out rates.

My practical recommendation

If I were building a company expected to grow from 5,000 → 100,000 subscribers, I would choose:

For a growing e-commerce brand, especially one that needs multiple users, role-based access, and real approval workflows, I’d shortlist these:

My recommendation: Cin7

I'd lean toward Cin7 Core if you're at the stage where several people are touching purchasing, inventory, orders, fulfillment, or finance.

Cin7 has customizable user roles/permissions, and its higher tiers support 10–15 users out of the box. More importantly for your question, Cin7 now explicitly supports multi-stage approval workflows, including purchasing workflows, rather than merely giving users different permissions. Cin7 Cin7

For example, you could build:

Buyer creates PO → manager approval → finance approval → PO released to supplier

while restricting what the buyer, manager, finance team, warehouse, etc. can actually do.

That combination of permissions + operational workflows + inventory/order management is why I'd put it ahead of a standalone workflow tool for a growing e-commerce company.

If you're already heavily invested in Shopify

Then I'd first look at Shopify + Shopify Flow rather than immediately adding an ERP. Shopify supports granular user permissions/roles, while Flow provides trigger → condition → action workflows. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

shopify.com

The limitation is that Flow is primarily automation, not a comprehensive procurement/ERP approval system. If what you mean by approval workflow is things like:

• purchase orders over $5,000 need manager approval
• discounts over 20% need approval
• new products need merchandising approval
• refunds above $500 need finance approval
• marketing campaigns need executive approval

…then I'd want to look more carefully at the specific workflow requirements rather than assuming Shopify Flow is sufficient.

When I'd choose NetSuite instead

If you're becoming a fairly substantial operation—with multiple entities, warehouses, complex accounting, substantial purchasing, international operations, etc.—I'd consider NetSuite. Current e-commerce ERP comparisons generally position it toward fast-growing/mid-market brands needing a unified ERP. ERP Research

But I wouldn't start with NetSuite just because you need approvals. It's a much bigger implementation than Cin7.

Bottom line:
Shopify + Flow if you mainly need lightweight operational automation.
Cin7 Core if you need a proper multi-user operational system with purchasing/inventory/order workflows and approvals.
NetSuite if you're approaching full ERP territory.

If you tell me roughly annual revenue, number of employees/users, Shopify vs. other channels, and what specifically needs approval, I can narrow this to 2–3 systems and tell you which I'd actually buy.

If you're already heavily invested in Shopify

Then I'd first look at Shopify + Shopify Flow rather than immediately adding an ERP. Shopify supports granular user permissions/roles, while Flow provides trigger → condition → action workflows.