Email/SMS for Ecommerce: 6 Platforms Compared (Real Pricing, Real Cases)

TrackStack — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 05:30:52 +0000

Choosing an email platform for an online store isn't about newsletters — it's about automated revenue. The right tool recovers abandoned carts, segments by purchase behavior, and fires an SMS when email gets ignored. The wrong one charges you $150/mo for features you could get at $25.

I compared six platforms that ecommerce stores actually use. Here's the pricing at 10,000 contacts — a typical list size for a growing store:

Service	Price (10K contacts)	SMS Built-in
Klaviyo	$150/mo	✅ Email + SMS in one workflow
Omnisend	$115/mo	✅ Email + SMS + Push
Brevo	$25/mo (20K emails)	✅ Pay-as-you-go
SendPulse	$53/mo	✅ + Viber, Telegram
Mailchimp	$100/mo	❌ US only
Drip	$99/mo	❌ US/CA only

The Key Insight: Brevo Charges Per Email, Not Per Contact

Most platforms charge per contact count — even if half your list hasn't opened an email in months. Brevo charges per emails sent. For stores with large but not highly active lists, this flips the economics entirely: 20,000 emails/mo for $25 vs. $150/mo at Klaviyo for the same contact count.

A Real Case: Abandoned Cart Recovery at 12%

A WooCommerce clothing store (8,000 contacts) set up Omnisend with a 3-email abandoned cart series:

1 hour → reminder with cart contents
24 hours → social proof (review from a recent buyer)
72 hours → 10% promo code as final push

Result: 12% of abandoned carts recovered in month one. Revenue from automations: $4,200 at a platform cost of $89/mo.

The key factor? SMS as a fallback for email non-openers. SMS open rate was 94% with 4.2% conversion — more than double the email conversion of 1.8%.

Quick Decision Framework

Under 2K contacts, budget < $30/mo → SendPulse or Brevo
5K–20K contacts, $50–150/mo → Omnisend (best price-to-feature ratio)
20K+ contacts, data-driven → Klaviyo (predictive analytics, RFM segmentation)

📖 The full article includes: detailed reviews of all 6 platforms, a second case study on Viber + email doubling repeat purchases, a Klaviyo predictive analytics case with 1,400% ROI, and integration guides for WooCommerce and Shopify.

Read the full article on trackstack.tech →

GA4 Ecommerce Events: What Most Stores Get Wrong

TrackStack — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 08:00:58 +0000

Your GA4 shows traffic but zero revenue? You're not alone — over 70% of online stores have broken ecommerce event tracking. The purchase event fires twice on page refresh, the items[] array is empty, or currency says "USD" while prices are in euros.

GA4 uses 10 standardized ecommerce events. Get the names wrong, and data silently disappears from Monetization reports. Here's the minimum you need working on day one:

Event	When It Fires
`view_item`	Product page opens
`add_to_cart`	Item added to cart
`begin_checkout`	Checkout initiated
`purchase`	Payment confirmed

The #1 Mistake: Missing `ecommerce: null`

Before every dataLayer.push, you must clear the previous ecommerce object. Without this, the next event inherits stale items[] from the last push — your purchase event ends up containing products the customer only browsed, not bought.

// Always clear first
dataLayer.push({ ecommerce: null });
dataLayer.push({
  event: "purchase",
  ecommerce: {
    transaction_id: "ORD-2026-78432",
    value: 699.98,
    currency: "USD",
    items: [{
      item_id: "SKU-12345",
      item_name: "Sony WH-1000XM5",
      price: 349.99,
      quantity: 2
    }]
  }
});

Quick Validation Checklist

Before you call it done, verify these:

✅ GTM Preview shows all 4 core events during a test order
✅ Each event has a non-empty items[] with item_id, price, quantity
✅ purchase has a unique transaction_id (prevents duplicates on page refresh)
✅ currency matches the actual price currency
✅ GA4 DebugView shows events in real time
✅ Revenue in GA4 matches your store backend (±5% is acceptable)

What About Ad Blockers?

Client-side GA4 tracking gets blocked in 15–30% of users. The fix: server-side tracking via Measurement Protocol. Events go from your server directly to GA4, bypassing browser blockers entirely.

📖 The full guide covers: complete dataLayer examples for all 10 events, step-by-step GTM setup with one tag for all events, WooCommerce and Shopify implementation specifics, and 5 common mistakes with fixes.