Comparison

Mailchimp vs ConvertKit (Kit): Which Email Platform Fits Your Business?

A side-by-side breakdown of pricing, automation, deliverability, and ease of use. One is built for general business marketing. The other is purpose-built for creators. Here’s how to choose.

Last updated: March 2026 · 10 min read

Quick Answer

How do Mailchimp and ConvertKit compare at a glance?

Mailchimp is the better all-in-one marketing suite. Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is the better creator-focused email platform.

Mailchimp and Kit (ConvertKit rebranded to Kit in late 2024) serve different audiences. Mailchimp targets small-to-medium businesses that want email, ads, landing pages, and basic CRM in one dashboard. Kit targets creators, bloggers, and solopreneurs who need clean automation and subscriber tagging without design complexity. Your choice depends on what you’re building.

Dimension	Mailchimp	Kit (ConvertKit)
Best for	SMBs, e-commerce, multi-channel marketing	Creators, bloggers, course sellers
Free plan	250 contacts, 500 emails/mo	10,000 subscribers, unlimited emails
Paid starting price	$13/mo (Essentials, 500 contacts)	$39/mo (Creator, 1,000 subscribers)
At 5,000 contacts	$75/mo (Essentials)	$89/mo (Creator)
Automation	Customer Journey Builder (Standard+)	Visual automation builder (all paid)
Email editor	Drag-and-drop, 100+ templates	Text-focused, minimal templates
Landing pages	Yes (all plans)	Yes (all plans, including free)
E-commerce	Strong (Shopify, WooCommerce, direct)	Basic (digital products, Kit Commerce)
Integrations	800+	200+
Deliverability	Good (shared IPs on lower tiers)	Good (strong creator reputation)
Support	Chat/email (paid), phone (Premium)	Email (all), live chat (paid)

Pricing as of March 2026. Sources: mailchimp.com/pricing, kit.com/pricing.

Overview

What are Mailchimp and Kit, exactly?

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is an all-in-one marketing platform owned by Intuit that combines email campaigns, landing pages, social ads, basic CRM, and e-commerce tools under a single subscription.

Founded in 2001 and acquired by Intuit in 2021 for $12 billion, Mailchimp serves over 11 million active users worldwide. It’s the default choice for small businesses because it bundles email with website building, social posting, postcards, and basic analytics. The platform works well for e-commerce brands running promotions, abandoned cart sequences, and product recommendation emails.

Kit (formerly ConvertKit)

Kit is a creator-focused email marketing platform built for bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, and course creators who want subscriber-first tools without design overhead.

Nathan Barry launched ConvertKit in 2013 specifically for professional creators. The company rebranded to Kit in September 2024 and has steadily expanded into creator commerce, paid newsletters, and digital product sales. Kit’s philosophy is that email for creators should be text-forward (like a real person writing to you) rather than heavily designed. That philosophy shapes every feature decision.

Pricing

How does pricing compare as your list grows?

Mailchimp charges based on total contacts (including unsubscribed). Kit charges based on active subscribers only.

The pricing models are fundamentally different, and that difference matters more than the sticker price. Mailchimp counts every contact in your account toward your bill, including people who unsubscribed but weren’t removed. Kit only counts active subscribers. At 10,000 contacts, you might be paying Mailchimp for 2,000 unsubscribes sitting in your list.

List Size	Mailchimp Essentials	Mailchimp Standard	Kit Creator	Kit Creator Pro
500	$13/mo	$20/mo	$39/mo*	$79/mo*
1,000	$26.50/mo	$45/mo	$39/mo	$79/mo
5,000	$75/mo	$100/mo	$89/mo	$129/mo
10,000	$110/mo	$135/mo	$119/mo	$167/mo
50,000	$385/mo	$450/mo	$379/mo	$519/mo

*Kit Creator minimum is 1,000 subscribers. Prices as of March 2026. Annual billing saves ~16% on Kit and ~15% on Mailchimp. At lower list sizes (under 2,000), Mailchimp is cheaper on a pure dollar basis. But once you pass 5,000 subscribers, the gap narrows and Kit’s active-subscriber-only pricing starts to work in your favor. The real cost difference shows up when you factor in which Mailchimp plan you actually need. Multi-step automation requires Standard ($20/mo minimum), not Essentials. On Kit, automation is available on every paid plan.

Automation

Which platform has better email automation?

Kit’s visual automation builder is available on all paid plans and handles the workflows most creators need: welcome sequences, tag-based segmentation, purchase follow-ups, and conditional branching. It’s clean, intuitive, and covers 90% of creator use cases without a learning curve. Mailchimp’s Customer Journey Builder is more powerful on paper. You can build multi-step, branching automations based on purchase behavior, email engagement, site activity, and audience segments. The catch: this feature requires the Standard plan at $20/mo minimum. The Essentials plan only supports single-step automations. Mailchimp deprecated its Classic Automation Builder in June 2025, which pushed many users into higher-priced plans. For creators running a newsletter with a welcome sequence and a few product launch funnels, Kit is simpler and gives you everything on the $39/mo Creator plan. For e-commerce brands running abandoned cart flows, post-purchase upsells, and re-engagement campaigns across multiple triggers, Mailchimp’s Standard plan is worth the investment. One specific advantage Kit holds: loop-based automations. If a subscriber doesn’t take an action, Kit can send them back to the beginning of a sequence. Mailchimp’s journey builder doesn’t support this natively.

Design

How do the email editors compare?

Mailchimp’s drag-and-drop editor is one of the best in the industry. You get 100+ pre-built templates, a content block library, brand kit integration, and an AI-powered content generator (Standard plan and above). If your emails need product grids, image carousels, or branded layouts, Mailchimp is the stronger choice. Kit takes the opposite approach. Its editor is deliberately minimal, favoring plain-text-style emails with simple formatting. The reasoning: creator emails that look like personal messages get higher engagement than heavily designed newsletters. Kit does offer a visual email builder with basic templates, but it’s not trying to compete with Mailchimp on design flexibility. Neither approach is wrong. E-commerce brands sending weekly promotions with product images need Mailchimp’s design tools. A blogger sending a weekly essay to 15,000 subscribers will get better open rates with Kit’s text-first approach. Data from Litmus (2025) shows plain-text emails average 1.3x higher click-through rates than HTML-heavy emails in B2C creator contexts.

E-Commerce

Which platform is better for selling products?

Mailchimp connects directly with Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Squarespace. You can sync product catalogs, trigger abandoned cart emails, send product recommendations based on purchase history, and track revenue attribution per campaign. For physical product e-commerce, Mailchimp is significantly ahead. Kit’s commerce features are purpose-built for digital products. Kit Commerce lets you sell ebooks, courses, paid newsletters, and digital downloads directly through Kit without a separate e-commerce platform. You can set up a sales page, connect Stripe for payments, and deliver the product via email. If your business is “sell a $49 ebook to your email list,” Kit handles it natively. The distinction matters: Mailchimp is the connector to your external store. Kit is the store itself for digital creators. Both approaches work well for their target audience, and both fall short outside their lane.

“We’ve migrated clients in both directions. Creators who started on Mailchimp and felt boxed in by its design-heavy approach moved to Kit and saw open rates climb 15-20%. E-commerce brands who tried Kit for its simplicity came back to Mailchimp within 6 months because they needed product catalog sync and revenue tracking. The right platform depends on what you’re selling and how you sell it.”
Hardik Shah, Founder of ScaleGrowth.Digital

Recommendation

When should you choose Mailchimp?

Mailchimp is the right pick when your business needs more than email. Specifically:

You run an e-commerce store on Shopify, WooCommerce, or BigCommerce and need product recommendation emails, abandoned cart flows, and revenue attribution.
You want one platform for email, social ads, landing pages, postcards, and basic CRM without juggling 4 subscriptions.
Your emails are design-heavy. Product launches, seasonal promotions, and branded newsletters with images, buttons, and multi-column layouts.
You have a team. Mailchimp’s role-based access, approval workflows, and shared template libraries work better for marketing teams than Kit’s single-user interface.
You need 800+ integrations. Mailchimp connects to virtually every business tool. Kit covers the basics but has roughly 200 integrations.

Recommendation

When should you choose Kit (ConvertKit)?

Kit is the right pick when you’re a creator or solopreneur building an audience through content. Specifically:

You’re a blogger, podcaster, or YouTuber who monetizes through courses, ebooks, paid newsletters, or sponsorships.
You want a generous free plan. Kit’s free tier supports up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited emails. Mailchimp’s free plan caps at 250 contacts and 500 emails/month.
You prefer text-based emails. If your emails read like personal letters rather than promotional flyers, Kit’s editor is built for that style.
You sell digital products directly. Kit Commerce handles sales pages, Stripe payments, and product delivery without a separate platform.
You value subscriber tagging over list segmentation. Kit’s tag-based system is more flexible for creators who segment by interest, lead magnet, or purchase history.

Our Take

What does ScaleGrowth.Digital recommend?

We use both platforms across our client base, and our recommendation is straightforward: pick the platform built for your business model, not the one with more features on a comparison chart. If you sell physical products online and need your email platform to integrate with your store, Mailchimp is the stronger choice. Its e-commerce integrations, design tools, and multi-channel marketing capabilities justify the price, especially on the Standard plan ($20/mo and up). If you’re building an audience through content and monetizing with digital products, courses, or paid newsletters, Kit is purpose-built for you. The 10,000-subscriber free plan is the most generous in the industry, and the tag-based automation system is exactly what creators need. Don’t choose based on price alone at small list sizes. At 1,000 subscribers, the monthly difference between these platforms is $13-26. That’s not meaningful. What matters is whether the platform’s core strengths match how your business actually operates. Switching platforms at 25,000 subscribers because you chose wrong at 500 is expensive and disruptive. One last note: both platforms have strong deliverability records. Neither will land your emails in spam more often than the other, assuming you follow basic email deliverability best practices. That variable is mostly about your sending behavior, not the platform.

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FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Is ConvertKit the same as Kit?

Yes. ConvertKit rebranded to Kit in September 2024. The product, team, and features are the same. The company changed its name to better reflect its broader focus on creator commerce beyond just email.

Does Mailchimp charge for unsubscribed contacts?

Yes. Mailchimp counts all contacts toward your billing tier, including unsubscribed contacts that haven’t been archived or deleted. You need to manually clean your list to avoid paying for inactive contacts. Kit only charges for active subscribers.

Which has better deliverability, Mailchimp or Kit?

Both platforms maintain good deliverability rates. Independent tests from EmailToolTester (2025) show both platforms delivering to inbox at rates above 85%. Kit has a slight edge in the creator space because its user base tends to send text-focused emails, which trigger fewer spam filters than image-heavy promotional emails.

Can I migrate from Mailchimp to Kit or vice versa?

Yes. Both platforms support CSV import/export of subscriber lists with tags and custom fields. Kit offers a dedicated Mailchimp migration tool that imports subscribers, tags, and sequences. Plan for 2-4 hours of setup time for a list under 10,000 subscribers and verify your automations manually after migration.

Which is better for someone just starting out?

For beginners, Kit’s free plan (10,000 subscribers, unlimited emails) is far more generous than Mailchimp’s free plan (250 contacts, 500 emails/month). If you’re a creator building your first email list, Kit gives you room to grow before you need to pay. If you’re a small business that needs landing pages, social ads, and CRM from day one, Mailchimp’s Essentials plan at $13/month is a reasonable entry point.