Kit vs Customer.io
Pricing
Kit: Free up to 10,000 subscribers, Creator from $39/mo ($33/mo billed yearly)
Customer.io: From $100/mo
Description
Kit: Email marketing (formerly ConvertKit) built for creators who want to grow an audience, not manage a CRM
Customer.io: Behavior-based email and push for SaaS
Pros
- Visual automation builder that is actually understandable
- Free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited landing pages, forms and broadcasts
- Tagging system makes subscriber management simple and flexible
- Powerful segmentation
- Multi-channel (email, SMS, push)
- Great for product-led growth
Cons
- Visual automations and email sequences need a paid plan
- Pricing climbs quickly as your list grows: Creator costs $89/mo at 5,000 subscribers
- Landing page builder is basic compared to dedicated tools
- Expensive for small lists
- Steep learning curve
Details
Kit, known as ConvertKit until its rebrand, was built by Nathan Barry specifically for creators: bloggers, podcasters, course creators, and indie founders who need to grow an email list. It strips away the complexity of tools like Mailchimp and focuses on what actually matters: collecting subscribers, tagging them based on behavior, and sending the right emails at the right time.
The free plan goes a long way, with tagging, segmentation and unlimited broadcasts for up to 10,000 subscribers. The real value is in the visual automations and email sequences, which only come with paid plans. Emails are built in a template-based designer with 40+ templates. If you need pixel-perfect HTML emails, look at MailerLite or Beehiiv instead.
Customer.io sends messages based on what users actually do in your product. Founded by Colin Nederkoorn, “fundstrapped” (took some money but runs like bootstrapped). Took 18 months to hit $10k MRR, now at $100M ARR. Great for SaaS doing product-led growth.
Verified
