Kit vs Mailchimp
Pricing
Kit: Free up to 10,000 subscribers, Creator from $39/mo ($33/mo billed yearly)
Mailchimp: Free tier (250 contacts), Standard from $20/mo
Description
Kit: Email marketing (formerly ConvertKit) built for creators who want to grow an audience, not manage a CRM
Mailchimp: Email marketing platform with campaigns, automation flows, landing pages and sign-up forms, owned by Intuit
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
- Landing pages, pop-up forms and social posting are included on every plan, Free too
- Automation flows on Standard can run up to 200 steps with branching
- 14-day free trial of the Standard plan
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
- The Free plan is small: 250 contacts, 500 sends a month (250 a day), one user and Mailchimp branding
- Going over your contact or send limit adds overage charges automatically
- Automations on Free are a preview only, and Essentials caps each flow at 4 steps
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.
Mailchimp covers newsletters, automated email flows, landing pages, sign-up forms and basic social posting, with 100+ email templates. It is owned by Intuit, which also makes QuickBooks.
It suits founders who want one marketing tool for email, forms and simple landing pages, and who expect to use automations.
Pricing grows with your contact list. Free stops at 250 contacts. Standard starts at $20/month for 500 contacts and lets you send 12 emails per contact a month. Outside the US the site shows prices as estimates based on exchange rates, and taxes come on top.
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