Klaviyo vs. Braze: An In-Depth Comparison of Features, Reviews, and Use Cases

Choosing the right customer engagement platform is a pivotal decision for marketing leaders, as it can make or break a brand’s engagement strategy. Two platforms that often come up in these evaluations are Klaviyo and Braze, each with a strong reputation. Klaviyo is popular for its e-commerce marketing capabilities, and it boasts deep integrations with online store platforms. Braze offers a broader multi-channel approach and boasts scalability and advanced features.

In this article, we’ll compare Klaviyo vs. Braze to help you make the best choice and find what suits you best. We’ll discuss each platform’s strengths and limitations and ultimately explain why many industry-leading brands are turning to CleverTap as a more comprehensive customer engagement solution.

Comparing Klaviyo vs. Braze: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Key Features

Klaviyo’s e-commerce focus, user-friendly interface, robust email toolset, and data-driven personalization make it a preferred choice for online retailers looking to enhance customer relationships. Braze has emerged as a great platform for mobile-first, cross-channel customer engagement. 

On G2, Braze boasts a 4.5 out of 5 star rating, primarily driven by mid-market users, while Klaviyo holds a comparable 4.6 out of 5 rating, largely attributed to small-business users—highlighting a noticeable difference in their offerings and audiences.  

Klaviyo Strengths: Strong Email Marketing Focus and Ease of Use

According to customer reviews, the following are the strengths of Klaviyo:

• Easy to Use & Quick Campaign Creation: G2 users frequently note that Klaviyo is intuitive, simplifying campaign creation and email workflows, making everyday tasks faster and more manageable.
• Strong Email Marketing Capabilities: Customers highlight powerful email marketing and segmentation tools that help enhance targeting and marketing strategy effectiveness.
• Seamless Integrations: Klaviyo’s integrations, especially with platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Zapier, are praised for making it easier to connect and sync data across systems.
• Efficient Email Creation Tools: Users appreciate how quickly they can create email campaigns and templates with Klaviyo once they understand the platform.

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Klaviyo Limitations: Some Missing Features and Steep Learning Curve

According to customer reviews, the following are some challenges with Klaviyo:

• Pricing Can Be Expensive: Multiple reviewers feel Klaviyo’s pricing structure is high, especially as contact lists grow, and can feel unfair for smaller businesses.

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• Missing or Limited Features: Some users note that certain functionalities (e.g., deeper SMS support, pop-ups, multi-brand management) are lacking or could be more robust. There are mentions of limited or primitive reporting and analytics compared to other tools, which some feel reduces effectiveness.

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• Steep Learning Curve: New users often find it challenging to learn and fully leverage Klaviyo’s advanced features, making onboarding slower.
• Customer Support Issues: Reviewers express frustration with customer support, citing slower response times and unclear communication.

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Braze Strengths: Feature-rich, Strong Customer Support, and Intuitive

According to customer reviews, the following are the strengths of Braze:

• Intuitive Interface: Users frequently mention that Braze’s interface is easy to navigate, making campaign management and communication workflows simpler for teams.
• Intuitive Platform for Marketing Needs: G2 reviewers appreciate that Braze feels intuitive and functional, enabling efficient execution of marketing tasks across channels.
• Helpful Customer Support: Many reviewers highlight supportive and responsive customer support, which enhances their experience with onboarding and troubleshooting.
• Feature-Rich for Engagement: Users value Braze’s robust set of features and tools that significantly support customer engagement strategies.
• Strong Customer Engagement Tools: The platform’s engagement capabilities (multi-channel interactions, campaign orchestration) are noted as a key strength.

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Get a comprehensive list of the top Braze competitors to find the most suitable option for your needs.

Braze Limitations: Complexity, Learning Curve, and Reporting Limitations

According to customer reviews, the following are some challenges with Braze:

• Complexity and Learning Curve: Braze’s rich features can overwhelm small teams or users without engineering support. It often requires solution engineers and a significant setup. Businesses moving from simpler platforms may find the complexity and cost excessive.

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• Analytics and Data Limitations: Braze limits data to 250 points per user with a one-year lookback. Real-time segmentation is lacking, with 30-day windows and daily batch updates. External data warehouses are often required. Tools like CleverTap offer better real-time insights and flexible segmentation.

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• Limited Reporting: Users note that reporting and analytics options are not as robust as they’d like, hindering custom analysis or insights.

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• Missing Features or Limitations: Customers point out missing or limited features, such as lacking double-nested attributes for segmentation, that can hinder personalization.

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Klaviyo vs. Braze: Which One to Choose?

Klaviyo is known for its intuitive interface, strong email marketing, and easy integrations, making it a popular choice for marketing teams though rising costs, feature gaps, and limited reporting are common concerns. Braze offers powerful customer engagement and multi-channel capabilities, but its steep learning curve, complexity, and cost can be challenging.

CleverTap bridges the gap by combining ease of use with real-time, AI-driven, multi-channel engagement built to scale.

Why CleverTap Is a Better Alternative to Klaviyo and Braze

CleverTap combines Klaviyo’s user-friendly approach with Braze’s omnichannel features while addressing their limitations. It’s an all-in-one customer engagement solution offering a comprehensive, insights-led platform used by top brands globally. With real-time analytics, AI-driven engagement, and scalable architecture, CleverTap delivers personalized, multi-channel campaigns with ease, making it a preferred choice for brands seeking sustainable growth and long-term customer loyalty.

CleverTap’s real-time, data-driven capabilities and flexible omnichannel support make it an ideal choice for companies aiming to maximize customer engagement and retention.

Real-Time, Insights-Led Engagement

CleverTap’s analytics-first design sets it apart. It integrates behavioral analytics, funnels, cohort analyses, and segmentation tools without requiring extra integrations. Powered by TesseractDB, CleverTap can capture 10,000 data points per user and store years of activity up to 10 years, giving a complete customer view. 

Agentic AI Decisioning Engine

CleverAI™ is CleverTap’s intelligent decisioning engine for real-time, one-to-one customer engagement. It uses modular AI agents — Strategy, Decision, Creative, and Action — to plan, decide, generate personalized content, and execute campaigns automatically across channels. 

Built on TesseractDB and the CleverAI Dataverse, it processes large-scale data with context awareness and self-learning. Marketers can use it to deliver individualized experiences through push, email, in-app, and web messages, all while maintaining brand consistency and control.

Omnichannel Reach with Ease

CleverTap supports a wide range of channels, including push notifications, in-app messages, email, SMS, web push, WhatsApp, and even voice calls. CleverTap offers superior push delivery and omnichannel reach through innovations like RenderMax™, which ensures that push notifications are not only delivered but also rendered on screens in ~90% of cases, even in power-saving modes.

CleverTap’s low-code interface makes omnichannel campaigns straightforward, giving teams powerful tools without overwhelming complexity. Its strong mobile engagement focus also suits businesses with large app user bases. 

Advanced Personalization and Retention Features

CleverTap leverages AI-driven automation to enhance retention and lifetime value. The CleverAI engine predicts user behaviors like churn or conversion, creating segments and triggering campaigns proactively. 

On G2, CleverTap is rated 9.2 as opposed to Braze’s 7.7 for Personalization Engine features.

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Features like Lifecycle Optimizer and IntelliNode make it easy to map customer journeys and test multiple paths within a single workflow. CleverTap’s automated, data-driven approach streamlines engagement. This deep integration between analytics and action enables faster, more informed marketing decisions.

Scalability and Enterprise-Readiness

CleverTap scales with growing businesses, offering flexible pricing and robust architecture for both startups and enterprises. It can handle large user bases without compromising performance. CleverTap’s unified platform reduces tech stack complexity and cuts costs by up to 40% by eliminating the need for separate tools for analytics or data storage. Its enterprise support includes regional data hosting and compliance, ensuring global readiness.

Quality of Support

On G2, CleverTap is rated at 9.0 on quality of support, exceeding Braze’s 8.5 and Klaviyo’s 8.4, reflecting responsive and reliable customer service.

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Klaviyo vs. Braze: Final Thoughts

Both Klaviyo and Braze are strong customer engagement platforms, but they serve different needs. Klaviyo appeals to teams looking for intuitive email marketing and quick integrations, though its pricing and feature limitations can become restrictive over time. 

Braze delivers advanced, multi-channel engagement capabilities suited to larger, more complex use cases, but often requires greater technical expertise and investment. 

For businesses seeking a balanced approach, CleverTap offers an alternative that combines ease of use with real-time, AI-driven, multi-channel engagement, enabling scalable and personalized customer experiences without added complexity.