Klaviyo Agency vs. AI Marketing Agent: When to Hire and When to Automate

A Klaviyo agency can be worth every dollar of the retainer, or it can be a line item you quietly resent. The difference is rarely the agency. It is whether the work they do actually needs a human team.

Key Takeaways

• A Klaviyo agency typically handles strategy, flow builds, campaign calendars, segmentation, and deliverability for a monthly retainer.
• Most of the recurring execution (writing campaigns, building flows, segmenting, reporting) is now automatable. The strategic and creative direction is not.
• Klaviyo flows earn roughly 18x the revenue per recipient of one-off campaigns, so the highest-value agency work is automation setup, not sending more blasts. (Klaviyo)
• An AI marketing agent like Hubi can do the day-to-day Klaviyo work an agency would, inside Slack, while you keep brand and creative ownership in-house.
• The honest answer for many brands is a hybrid: an agent for the grind, a human (agency or freelancer) for the parts that need taste and judgment.

What a Klaviyo agency actually does

When you hire a Klaviyo agency, you are usually paying for a bundle of recurring jobs:

• Account audit and deliverability cleanup
• Building and maintaining core flows (welcome, abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase, win-back)
• A monthly campaign calendar and the emails to fill it
• List segmentation and suppression hygiene
• A/B tests on subject lines, send times, and offers
• Monthly reporting and a strategy call

That is a lot of moving parts, which is why retainers exist. But notice how much of that list is repeatable execution rather than original thinking. The flows follow well-known patterns. The reports pull the same metrics every month. Once your segments and flows are set up, the logic rarely changes. From then on, a large slice of the monthly retainer goes to repeating the same execution: building campaigns, scheduling sends, refreshing audiences, keeping segments tidy. That recurring work is exactly what an AI agent can run for you, so you are not burning budget every month on tasks that stay essentially the same. The premium is worth paying for strategy and creative direction. It is not worth paying for repeatable upkeep.

Where the money actually comes from in Klaviyo

Before you decide who should run your account, look at where Klaviyo revenue is generated. According to Klaviyo's 2026 benchmarks, drawn from more than 183,000 brands, automated flows generate nearly 41% of total email revenue from just 5.3% of sends. Flows deliver revenue per recipient roughly 18x higher than campaigns, and more than 3x the click rate (5.58% versus 1.69%). (Klaviyo)

The takeaway is blunt: the biggest wins come from getting your automated flows right, not from sending more manual campaigns. So the most valuable thing a Klaviyo agency does is the upfront flow architecture and ongoing optimization. Once that scaffolding exists, a large share of the monthly work is maintenance and content production, which is the part you can hand to software.

Klaviyo agency vs. AI marketing agent: a side-by-side

The pattern is clear. For repeatable production and reporting, an agent matches an agency on output and beats it on speed and cost. For the judgment-heavy work, brand voice, creative direction, and big strategic bets, a human still wins.

How Hubi does the Klaviyo work an agency would

Hubi is an AI marketing agent that lives in your Slack. Instead of emailing an account manager and waiting, you ask Hubi directly and it does the work:

• Audits your store and Klaviyo setup, then flags gaps (missing flows, weak segments, deliverability issues).
• Drafts and ships campaigns on your calendar, written in your brand voice.
• Builds and updates flows like welcome, abandoned cart, and win-back.
• Pulls performance reporting on demand, so you are not waiting for a monthly call.
• Runs adjacent work too, like Meta ad copy and content, so email is not a silo.

Here is the honest caveat, because you deserve one. Hubi is not a full replacement for a great agency's brand strategist or creative director. It will not invent your positioning, art-direct a photoshoot, or make the big-picture calls about who you are as a brand. What it does is remove the recurring execution load so the humans you do pay (in-house or agency) spend their time on the work that genuinely needs a human. For a lot of small and mid-sized ecommerce brands, that shift alone changes the math on whether a full retainer is worth it.

When you should still hire a Klaviyo agency

Automation is not always the answer. Keep or hire an agency when:

• You are launching a brand from zero and need someone to define the email strategy and brand voice from scratch.
• Your account is a tangled mess and you want a senior human to untangle deliverability and migration problems.
• You want a dedicated creative team producing high-end designed templates, not just solid functional emails.
• You have the budget and you would rather buy back your attention entirely.

There is no shame in paying for expertise. The point is to pay for the expertise, not for the data entry.

When an AI agent is the smarter call

Lean on an agent like Hubi when:

• Your flows are mostly built and you need consistent execution, not a rebuild.
• You want faster turnaround than a retainer relationship allows.
• Your budget does not stretch to a quality agency, and the alternative is doing it all yourself at midnight.
• You want to keep brand and creative control in-house while offloading the grind.

FAQ

How much does a Klaviyo agency cost?

Pricing varies widely by scope and seniority, and most agencies quote a custom monthly retainer rather than publishing fixed rates. Ask any agency to break the retainer into strategy, production, and reporting so you can see what you are actually buying, and compare that against what software can handle.

Can an AI agent really replace a Klaviyo agency?

For the recurring execution, often yes. For brand strategy, creative direction, and senior problem-solving, no. Many brands land on a hybrid: an agent for the day-to-day, a human for the judgment calls.

Will I lose quality if I automate my Klaviyo work?

Not if you keep a human in the loop for review. An agent drafts and builds fast, but you still approve the brand voice and creative before anything ships. The goal is to cut the production time, not the oversight.

What is the highest-value thing to get right in Klaviyo?

Your automated flows. Klaviyo's benchmarks show flows generate around 41% of email revenue from 5.3% of sends, so flow setup and optimization is where the money is, whether a human or an agent does it. (Klaviyo)

The takeaway

A Klaviyo agency is worth it when you are paying for strategy, taste, and senior judgment. It is harder to justify when most of the retainer covers work that software now does in minutes. Figure out which half of the work actually needs a human, then let an AI marketing agent handle the rest. See how Hubi runs your Klaviyo work inside Slack.

Sources

• Klaviyo, 2026 Email Marketing Benchmarks by Industry: https://www.klaviyo.com/products/email-marketing/benchmarks