If you’ve been weighing a move from Klaviyo to Omnisend, you’ve probably already done the math on cost savings, looked at the feature comparison, and asked your team whether the switch is worth it. This guide is about what comes after that decision — the actual work of migrating, what Omnisend’s migration team will do for you, what they won’t, and how to sequence the move so you don’t torch your sender reputation in the process.
We’ve run this migration playbook for eCommerce brands many times, and the playbook below reflects what’s actually worked. These tips will save you time, headache, and ensure the transition is as smooth as possible.
Why Migrate from Klaviyo to Omnisend?
Most teams we work with come to this decision for a combination of reasons:
1. Cost – Omnisend’s pricing tends to come in lower than Klaviyo’s at comparable list sizes. Omnisend also has a pay-per-send model, which becomes interesting for business models that are acquisition-heavy. (For more on the cost angle, see our piece on How to Navigate Klaviyo Pricing Changes as a Small Business.)
2. Simplicity – Klaviyo has more depth, but that depth comes with complexity. Teams that don’t have a dedicated email specialist often find Omnisend’s interface faster to learn and easier to delegate.
3. Pre-built ecommerce workflows – Omnisend ships with templated automations for the flows most stores actually need — abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase, win-back — and the editor is built for eCommerce businesses.
4. Support – Omnisend’s support team responds in minutes rather than hours, and they’re available on every plan.
That said, migration isn’t always the right call. If you’ve built deeply customized predictive analytics in Klaviyo, rely on its CDP-style data model, or have engineering resources tightly integrated with Klaviyo’s API, the switch may cost more than it saves. Unsure whether the move is right for you? Our broader guide on When and How to Migrate Email Service Providers and our ESP Migration: A Complete Guide to Switching Email Providers Safely in 3 Months both walk through the decision framework. You can also reach out and schedule an assessment where we’ll offer a consultation and guide you through the decision-making process.
Should You Use Omnisend’s Migration Service?
Short answer: yes.
Longer answer: It’s helpful, but not the full solution so go in with realistic expectations.
Omnisend offers a migration service called Kickstart that’s free for paid plans. The team is genuinely helpful and removes meaningful friction. But it’s not a hands-off solution, and merchants who treat it as one tend to be unpleasantly surprised mid-project. (We’ve seen the same pattern in Mailchimp to Klaviyo migrations — the platform changes, the underestimation doesn’t.)
What the Omnisend Migration Service Actually Covers
Based on a real migration, here’s what Omnisend’s team handled:
- Contact migration: All contacts, properties, tags, and engagement stats synced from Klaviyo automatically.
- Up to 3 workflows rebuilt: In our case that meant welcome series, abandoned checkout, and browse abandonment workflows. Templates were not included, only the workflow logic.
- 1 master email template recreated: Brand styling, header, footer. Individual flow and campaign templates are not part of the scope.
- Up to 5 segments rebuilt: We prioritized our most-used segments: engaged subscribers, suppression lists, and a couple of behavioral segments.
- Up to 3 sign-up forms or popups rebuilt: Our highest-converting popups got rebuilt, needing only minor tweaks. Secondary forms were on us.
What the Migration Service Won’t Do
This is the part that surprises people. The migration service won’t:
- Rebuild every workflow you have. Our clients typically have eight or more active flows in Klaviyo. Omnisend rebuilt three. The remaining five — post-purchase follow-up, sunset unengaged, list growth warm-up, an SMS-only welcome series, and others — were rebuilt by our team.
- Create email templates beyond the master. Every individual flow email and campaign template needs to be designed and built by your team or a design partner.
- QA the workflows or forms after building them. The team that builds is not the team that tests. You need an internal QA owner.
- Configure SMS end-to-end. Sender registration, compliance, test sends, and go-live are your responsibility.
- Set up third-party integrations. Visitor tracking tools, CDPs, review platforms, custom webhooks — all on you.
- Migrate historical campaign performance or revenue attribution. You’ll lose visibility into Klaviyo’s historical reporting once you migrate — so depending on the kind of reporting you expect to maintain you’ll have to give this some thought.
- Make strategic decisions. Which flows are worth keeping, how to restructure segments, what to A/B test — those still need assessing by your team.
- Handle domain authentication, billing setup, or go-live verification. You’ll need to have a designated person on your team to head this responsibility.
- Manage your domain warm-up or sending cadence transition. (More on this below — it’s the single biggest thing teams underestimate.)
Our Recommendation
Use the Omnisend Kickstart migration service. It removes friction and gives you a strong head start. But plan for parallel work from your internal team or an agency partner. In our experience, the migration service handles roughly 30–40% of the total migration effort. The remaining 60–70% remains.
The Two-Phase Go-Live Approach
This is the most important section in this guide, and it’s the one most small businesses tend to skip. If you take nothing else away, take this:
Do not plan to switch automations and campaigns from Klaviyo to Omnisend on the same day.
The Deliverability Problem with a Single Go-Live Date
When you start sending from a new platform, you’re sending from a sending domain that has no reputation with inbox providers. Even if your root domain has years of history, the subdomain Omnisend uses for sending is effectively new. Inbox providers — Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo — watch how that domain behaves for several weeks before deciding whether to deliver to inbox or spam. (For a deeper look at how inbox providers actually evaluate your sends, see What Actually Happens When You Click Send? Understanding Email Deliverability Issues.)
If you dump your full sending volume on day one — every automation plus every campaign — you’re presenting inbox providers with a flood of unfamiliar mail. Bounce rates will spike, complaint rates will rise, and your domain reputation will get stamped before you’ve had a chance to build credibility. Recovering from a bad start can take months. (Email Deliverability Issues? Top Causes and Fixes covers what that recovery looks like — and why prevention is much cheaper.)
The solution here is to warm up the new domain slowly. Our agency’s full deliverability methodology lives in Stop Emails from Going to Spam for Good – An Agency’s Guide to Email Deliverability and A Simple Sending Strategy That Can Immediately Improve Your Email Deliverability, if you want the full picture.
Why Automations Warm Up Better Than Campaigns
Automations are sent to people who just took an action — signed up, abandoned a cart, made a purchase. They’re high-intent, recently engaged, and likely to open and engage with your email. Inbox providers see those positive engagement signals and start trusting the domain.
Campaigns, by contrast, go to larger lists, sometimes including subscribers who haven’t engaged in months. We recommend sending full campaigns after you’ve built up some credibility through automations.
Our Recommended Two-Phase Approach
Month 1 — Automations only on Omnisend. Pop-up forms, welcome series, abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase, and any other triggered flows go live on Omnisend. Pause the matching automations in Klaviyo or let users complete them in Klaviyo. Keep sending campaigns from Klaviyo during this period. The new domain warms up on high-engagement traffic, and your campaign cadence stays uninterrupted. This also makes it easier to turn off automations when people in Klaviyo have completed them. At this stage you might be able to adjust down your Klaviyo billing.
Month 2 — Campaigns move to Omnisend. Once automations have been running cleanly for about 30 days and deliverability metrics look healthy, migrate broadcast campaigns over. Stop scheduling campaigns in Klaviyo. After a brief overlap to confirm everything’s working, cancel your Klaviyo account entirely.
What to Monitor During the Warm-Up
- Open rates, click rates, bounce rates, spam complaint rates — daily for the first two weeks, then weekly
- Inbox placement, using a seed list service or a tool like GlockApps
- Domain reputation in Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS
The two-phase approach costs you about a month of dual-platform subscriptions. It protects your sender reputation and overall ROI from email. The math is almost always in your favor to keep some overlap.
What a Real Migration Timeline Looks Like
Here’s what an actual migration we recently completed looked like end-to-end:
Weeks 1–3: Build phase
- Week 1: Store integration, sender domain verification, contact list cleaning, contact migration kicked off, segment migration, and form migration begins
- Week 2: Workflow migration — Omnisend rebuilds three flows while our design team rebuilds the remaining five in parallel. SMS configuration begins.
- Week 3: QA on workflows and forms, third-party integrations (visitor tracking, webhooks), final SMS testing
End of Week 3: Phase 1 Go-Live — Automations
- Audience sync verification, segment checks, reporting verification, billing plan confirmation
- Activate Omnisend flows and triggers
- Pause Klaviyo automations
- Klaviyo campaigns continue running
- Klaviyo account can sometimes be downgraded here to save on costs
Month 1 after go-live: Warm-up period
- Automations running on Omnisend
- Campaigns still going from Klaviyo
- Daily deliverability monitoring for two weeks, then weekly
- Build upcoming campaigns out in Omnisend in parallel
Month 2: Phase 2 Go-Live — Campaigns
- Begin scheduling campaigns in Omnisend
- Pause Klaviyo campaigns
- Cancel Klaviyo after a safe overlap & data exports
End-to-end, the process takes roughly two months: three weeks of build, four weeks of warm-up, then campaign cutover.
Pre-Migration Checklist
Before you sign up for Omnisend, do the groundwork:
- Audit your Klaviyo setup. Inventory every active flow, segment, list, signup form, and template. Note performance metrics for each. (Our 100 Questions We Ask During a Marketing Audit is a useful starting framework.)
- Decide which flows Omnisend will rebuild and which your team will own. The migration service typically covers three. Pick the highest-volume or most complex ones.
- Export historical campaign data so you have a benchmark for post-migration performance.
- Identify every integration connected to Klaviyo. Visitor tracking, CDPs, review platforms, helpdesk tools, custom webhooks — write them all down.
- Assign clear ownership. Who’s running the point on the project? Who QAs workflows? Who handles SMS? Who’s monitoring deliverability after go-live?
- Set a two-phase migration timeline. Build, automation go-live, warm-up, campaign go-live.
- Plan for ~30 days of dual-platform subscription overlap. Budget for it up front.
Step-by-Step Migration Process
Step 1: Set Up Your Omnisend Account & Connect Your Store
Create the account, complete brand setup, and verify your sending domain (DNS, DKIM, SPF). Domain authentication is on you, not the migration team — and skipping it is one of the fastest ways to start your warm-up on the wrong foot.
Install the Omnisend ecommerce integration (Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, or another supported platform) and let products, customers, and order history sync. Verify the sync before moving on.
Step 2: Contact Migration & List Cleaning
Clean your Klaviyo lists before you migrate. Suppress unengaged contacts, remove duplicates, and fix formatting issues. Migrating a clean list is significantly easier than cleaning up after the fact. Our guides on How To Clean Your Email Lists – List Hygiene 101 and How To Use Alfred To Clean Your Email List walk through both the strategy and the tactics.
Once your lists are clean, the Omnisend migration tool syncs contacts, properties, tags, and engagement stats automatically. Spot-check consent status and subscription preferences after the sync — this is the data you cannot afford to get wrong.
Step 3: Migrate Segments
Identify your top five segments and hand them to the migration team. Typical priorities: engaged subscribers, VIP/exclusion lists, suppression lists, and one or two behavioral segments tied to your most important flows. Anything beyond five, your team rebuilds in Omnisend’s segment builder.
Step 4: Migrate the Master Template
Omnisend rebuilds one master template — typically your branded header, footer, and base styling. Every individual flow email and campaign template gets built on top of that master by your design team.
Step 5: Migrate Workflows
Omnisend rebuilds the three priority flows you selected. Your team rebuilds the rest. In our last migration, the split looked like this:
– Omnisend rebuilt: Welcome series, abandoned checkout, browse abandonment
– Our team rebuilt: Post-purchase follow-up, sunset unengaged subscribers, list growth warm-up, SMS-only welcome series, and a few smaller flows
QA every workflow before activation, including the ones Omnisend builds. The team that builds is not the team that tests, so small things (trigger conditions, delay logic, exit criteria) get missed.
Step 6: Migrate Forms and Popups
Omnisend rebuilds up to three forms — usually your highest-converting popups. Your team handles additional forms, regional variants, and embedded signups. QA every form across desktop, mobile, and any region-specific variants.
Step 7: SMS Configuration
Configure sender info, register for compliance (TCPA, GDPR depending on your geography), and run end-to-end test sends. Coordinate go-live timing with your email automations so SMS steps in flows trigger correctly from day one.
Step 8: Third-Party Integrations
Reconnect everything that talked to Klaviyo: visitor tracking platforms, CDPs, review tools, helpdesk systems, custom webhooks. Verify data is flowing correctly before go-live, not after.
Common Migration Pitfalls to Avoid
A handful of mistakes show up in nearly every migration we’ve seen go sideways:
- Trying to switch everything in a single go-live. The number-one deliverability killer.
- Assuming the migration service handles everything. It handles roughly a third.
- Underestimating the design team’s workload. Templates and additional flows take real time.
- Forgetting third-party integrations until go-live day. Visitor tracking and webhooks are easy to miss.
- Losing consent records or subscriber status during contact migration. Always spot-check. (Related: our piece on why you shouldn’t buy email lists covers the broader question of list integrity.)
- Skipping QA on Omnisend-built workflows. “They built it, so it must be right” is a trap.
- Skipping domain authentication. DKIM, SPF, and DMARC are non-negotiable on day one. (Stop Emails from Going to Spam for Good explains why.)
- Forgetting to disable Klaviyo flows after activating Omnisend flows. Duplicate sends are a fast way to lose trust.
- Canceling Klaviyo too early. Keep it running through Phase 2 as a safety net.
- Rushing the timeline. Two months end-to-end is realistic. Two weeks is not.
Conclusion
Migrating from Klaviyo to Omnisend is real work — more than the marketing pages suggest, less than it might seem if you’ve never done one. The migration service gives you a meaningful head start. A two-phase go-live protects your sender reputation. A clear-eyed view of who owns what — Omnisend’s team, your design team, your ops lead — keeps the project from stalling.
Done well, the whole thing takes about two months and ends with a faster, simpler, less expensive marketing platform that your team can actually operate without specialist help.
If your team is stretched thin or this is your first major platform migration, there are a few clear signs it’s worth bringing in an email marketing agency rather than going it alone.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does migration typically take?
Roughly two months end-to-end: about three weeks to build, then a one-month warm-up before campaigns move over.
Will I lose my email history?
Historical performance data stays in Klaviyo. Export anything you need for benchmarking before you cancel. (For why those benchmarks matter, see What’s the value of your email list?)
Can I run both platforms simultaneously?
Yes — and you should, intentionally. The two-phase approach requires it.
Does Omnisend support my ecommerce platform?
Omnisend has direct integrations with Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and several others. Check Omnisend’s integrations page for the current list.
What happens to my deliverability reputation?
Your root domain reputation is unaffected, but the sending subdomain Omnisend uses is new. The two-phase warm-up exists specifically to build that subdomain’s reputation cleanly. (What Actually Happens When You Click Send? is the longer version of this answer.)
Is the Kickstart service really free?
Yes, for paid plans. Free-plan users still get 24/7 support but not the full Kickstart scope.
What’s the realistic split of work between Omnisend and my team?
In our experience, roughly 30–40% Omnisend, 60–70% your team or a partner.
Why can’t I just switch everything at once?
You can. You probably shouldn’t. Sending from a brand-new domain at full volume is the fastest way to land in spam folders which can take months to recover from.
About Centric Squared
Centric Squared has run Klaviyo-to-Omnisend migrations for ecommerce brands across Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce. We handle the parts the migration service doesn’t — additional workflow rebuilds, template design, third-party integrations, QA, deliverability monitoring, and the two-phase go-live — so your team can keep shipping while the platform changes underneath them.
For an example of what this looks like in practice, see our case study on how this California-based architectural tile and bath specialist migrated to Klaviyo in 4 weeks and saved $12k/yr.
If you’re planning a migration and want experienced support, book a discovery call and we’ll walk through your setup together.
About Omnisend:
Curious enough to give Omnisend a try? Set up your Omnisend account here.
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