Something is stirring in the email and SMS marketing vendor wars, and it has nothing to do with product roadmaps. According to three sources with direct knowledge of the situation, Attentive has been running what one agency principal described as a “white-glove recruitment blitz” targeting Klaviyo’s top-tier certified partners — the agencies that collectively manage hundreds of millions in annual email and SMS revenue for DTC and Shopify Plus brands.
The campaign, which sources say began in earnest in Q1 2026 and has intensified heading into Q3, allegedly involves dedicated partner development reps from Attentive reaching out directly to agency principals, offering enhanced commission structures, co-marketing budgets, and — in at least two reported cases — guaranteed client migration support packages worth upwards of $50,000 in services credit.
“It’s the most aggressive partner recruitment I’ve seen in this space since Klaviyo was trying to eat Mailchimp’s lunch back in 2019,” said one agency founder who requested anonymity but whose firm manages retention programs for more than 60 Shopify brands. “The phone calls have been relentless.”
What Exactly Is Attentive Reportedly Offering Partner Agencies?
Sources close to the matter say the pitch from Attentive’s partner team is built around three core elements. First, a tiered revenue-share model that reportedly pays out 20–25% recurring commission on net new clients, compared to what multiple agency sources describe as Klaviyo’s current standard of 15–20% for most mid-tier partners. Second, dedicated technical migration engineers who will handle the platform switch for the agency’s clients at no additional cost. Third, and perhaps most controversially, a co-branded demand generation fund that Attentive allegedly offers to top-tier recruits — essentially paying for the agency to market its own services, provided the agency commits to pitching Attentive as its primary SMS recommendation.
- Reported commission uplift: 20–25% recurring vs. Klaviyo’s alleged 15–20% standard
- Migration engineering support: dedicated Attentive engineer assigned for 90-day onboarding
- Co-marketing credits: unconfirmed reports of $25,000–$75,000 in joint demand generation funds
- Minimum commitment: sources say partners are asked to commit to migrating at least 5 clients within 12 months
Attentive declined to comment on the specifics of its partner program terms. A spokesperson provided only a written statement: “Attentive is committed to building the industry’s strongest agency ecosystem and continues to invest in partnerships that drive measurable results for brands.”
How Is Klaviyo Responding to the Alleged Partner Poaching?
Klaviyo’s partner organization, led by VP of Partnerships Amanda Nguyen, is reportedly aware of the situation and has begun a defensive push of its own. Sources say Klaviyo has quietly accelerated conversations with its top 50 certified partners about locking in multi-year preferred agency agreements — a structure Klaviyo has historically resisted in favor of more flexible arrangements.
“Klaviyo called us in for a QBR two weeks ago — which they’ve never done before at that level. They came in with a retention package. It felt reactive, not proactive.” — agency principal, identity withheld
Internally, sources say there is some frustration at Klaviyo over what one person described as the company being “too product-focused and not relationship-focused enough” at the partner level. The company’s aggressive push into CRM functionality over the past 18 months — positioning itself less as an ESP and more as a full customer data platform — has reportedly created friction with agencies that feel the product is becoming harder to implement and differentiate against lower-cost alternatives.
“When your platform starts competing with your partners’ services businesses, that creates tension,” said Andrew Faris, who runs AJF Growth and has been publicly vocal about the evolving economics of DTC retention marketing. “Agencies want platforms that make them look smart, not platforms that try to replace them.”
Which Agencies Are Allegedly Being Targeted — and Have Any Flipped?
Ecommerce Times was unable to confirm the identity of any specific agency that has formally switched its primary recommendation from Klaviyo to Attentive as a result of this reported campaign. However, sources in the ecosystem point to notable shifts in public-facing case studies and LinkedIn activity from at least two mid-size retention agencies in the 20–80 employee range, both of whom have increased Attentive-branded content output significantly since February 2026.
One source, a consultant who works across both vendor ecosystems, alleged that a prominent Atlanta-based retention agency — described only as having roughly 45 employees and a strong presence in the beauty and wellness DTC vertical — has been in advanced negotiations with Attentive about becoming a launch partner for a new “Certified Growth Studio” tier that Attentive is reportedly preparing to announce later this year.
“They’re building a tiered certification structure that would essentially create a two-class system — agencies that get the good stuff and agencies that don’t. That’s a classic playbook, but it works.” — independent retention marketing consultant
Is This About SMS Market Share, Email Market Share, or Both?
Industry observers note that the timing of Attentive’s alleged push is not accidental. After years of being primarily positioned as an SMS platform, Attentive has been steadily expanding its email capabilities since the 2024 launch of Attentive Email, and by most third-party estimates has reached somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 brands using its email product as of mid-2026 — still a fraction of Klaviyo’s installed base of approximately 160,000 accounts, but growing at a pace that has Klaviyo’s partner team on notice.
The strategic logic of going after agencies rather than brands directly is straightforward: in the Shopify Plus and mid-market DTC segment, agencies are kingmakers. A single 40-person retention agency may influence platform selection across 80–120 active clients. Flipping the agency flips the client book.
- Attentive Email launched in beta: Q3 2024
- Estimated Attentive Email active accounts (mid-2026): 5,000–8,000 (unconfirmed)
- Klaviyo total active accounts: ~160,000 (per company disclosures)
- Average Shopify Plus retention agency client roster: 40–120 brands
“The email product is good enough now that agencies can’t dismiss it,” said Chase Dimond, a well-known email marketing operator and educator with a large following in the DTC space. “Eighteen months ago you could say Attentive was SMS-only. That argument is gone. Now it comes down to who’s treating partners better.”
Could This Trigger a Broader Agency Loyalty Crisis Across Retention Platforms?
What makes this situation particularly volatile, sources say, is the broader context: agency loyalty to single-platform recommendations has been eroding across the board since 2024, as brands increasingly push their agencies to be platform-agnostic. At the same time, the explosion of AI-native retention tools — including startups like Recart, Sendlane, and the much-discussed but still-in-beta Bloomreach Commerce Studio — has given agency principals more credible alternatives to anchor their pitches around.
“The days of ‘we’re a Klaviyo shop’ are ending,” said one agency founder who claimed to have received outreach from both Attentive and Postscript in the past 90 days. “Every platform wants to be your default. That means we have more leverage than we’ve had in years.”
Whether Attentive’s alleged campaign constitutes a genuine threat to Klaviyo’s partner ecosystem or is simply a well-funded but ultimately limited push remains unconfirmed. Klaviyo’s scale advantage — its developer ecosystem, its data infrastructure, and its integration depth with Shopify — remains formidable. But in a market where CAC for enterprise and mid-market contracts runs into tens of thousands of dollars, poaching even a handful of high-volume agency partners could represent a meaningful shift in the competitive math heading into 2027 planning cycles.
One thing is clear: the retention marketing platform wars have moved off the product roadmap and onto the golf course, the QBR calendar, and the partner development budget. And right now, sources say, Attentive is the one picking up the tab.
