Kit (formerly ConvertKit) vs Mailchimp (2025): Who Wins?

Finding the right email marketing platform feels a bit like dating – you need to find the one that matches your specific needs and growth ambitions. I’ve spent years working with both Kit and Mailchimp across various projects, and I’ve noticed they attract very different types of users for good reason.

Kit has carved out its niche serving creators, bloggers, and course creators with a refreshingly straightforward approach to email marketing. Mailchimp, meanwhile, has evolved into something of a marketing Swiss Army knife, offering businesses an extensive feature set that goes well beyond basic email campaigns.

Let me walk you through what I’ve discovered about these platforms so you can make a choice that actually aligns with your marketing goals – without wasting months figuring it out the hard way.

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) vs Mailchimp — Quick Comparison

Feature Overview

Strengths & Weaknesses Overview

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) vs Mailchimp — Feature Comparison

The Kit Experience

Kit has become my go-to recommendation for clients who want simplicity without sacrificing effectiveness. Its visual automation builder is genuinely intuitive – I’ve watched clients with zero technical background map out complex email sequences in under an hour.

The tag-based subscriber management just makes sense. Rather than managing multiple lists (which can get messy and expensive), you have one list with tags to segment your audience. A food blogger client used this to seamlessly separate vegetarian, vegan, and omnivore readers without creating separate lists.

What’s impressed me most about Kit is how it scales with creators. A course creator I work with started with a list of 500 and grew to over 50,000 subscribers without ever feeling limited by the platform’s capabilities. The unlimited emails across all plans is a genuine advantage for content creators who communicate frequently.

The Mailchimp Reality

Mailchimp offers significantly more marketing firepower, especially for e-commerce brands. Their journey builder lets you create remarkably sophisticated automation flows triggered by practically any customer behavior. One retail client saw a 42% increase in repeat purchases after we implemented a series of post-purchase and abandoned cart emails.

The reporting capabilities are substantially more advanced than Kit’s. You can track revenue attributed to specific campaigns, compare performance across time periods, and even get predictive insights about audience behavior. For data-driven marketers, this alone can justify the higher price tag.

Where Mailchimp sometimes frustrates users is its interface complexity. Finding specific settings or features often requires clicking through multiple screens, and the learning curve steepens considerably once you move beyond basic campaigns. That said, their template library is extensive and the design options far exceed what Kit offers.

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) vs Mailchimp — Pricing Reality

Pricing Summary

I’ve noticed that Kit maintains fairly predictable pricing as you scale, which makes budgeting easier for independent creators. One author client was relieved to discover she wouldn’t face dramatic price jumps as her audience grew.

Mailchimp’s pricing structure becomes considerably more expensive at higher tiers, but the platform also adds more features as you climb the ladder. For businesses leveraging the full suite of tools – especially e-commerce brands tracking revenue – the higher cost often delivers proportional value.

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) vs Mailchimp — Free Options

Free Plan Reality

I’ve set up several clients on Kit’s free plan, and its generous subscriber limit and unlimited emails make it ideal for creators just starting out. A podcaster I worked with managed to build his first 1,000 subscribers without spending a dime.

The biggest limitation? No automation on the free plan. For creators who want to set up welcome sequences or drip campaigns, this is a significant drawback.

Mailchimp’s free plan offers fewer contacts but includes basic automation, making it better for users who prioritize setting up automated workflows over list size. A small non-profit client used the free plan effectively for their monthly newsletter and donor welcome sequence, staying comfortably under the email sending limits.

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) vs Mailchimp — Pros & Cons

Honest Insights from Real-World Use

Kit: Built for Content Creators

Using Kit feels like working with a tool designed by someone who actually understands what it’s like to build an audience online. The interface focuses on what matters most to creators – growing your list and communicating effectively with your audience.

What I’ve always appreciated about Kit is how they’ve simplified the complex aspects of email marketing. Their tag-based subscriber management is intuitive – you can easily see which content resonates with different segments of your audience and tailor future messages accordingly. For bloggers, authors, podcasters, and course creators, this approach aligns perfectly with how you naturally think about your audience.

The visual automation builder (on paid plans) deserves special mention. It makes creating complex subscriber journeys feel like sketching out ideas on a whiteboard – intuitive and actually enjoyable. I’ve watched non-technical creators build sophisticated email sequences in minutes once they upgrade to a paid plan.

Where Kit falls short is in advanced analytics and ecommerce capabilities. If you’re running a content-first business with relatively straightforward product offerings, this won’t matter much. But for stores with complex product catalogs or marketers obsessed with data-driven optimization, the limitations become apparent quickly.

Mailchimp: The Marketing Platform That Grew Up

Mailchimp has evolved from a simple newsletter service into a comprehensive marketing ecosystem, and that evolution shows in both good and challenging ways.

The platform offers impressive depth for marketers willing to dive in. The automation capabilities can handle intricate customer journeys triggered by specific behaviors. The segmentation tools allow for precise targeting based on engagement patterns and purchase history. And the analytics provide genuinely useful insights that can inform your broader marketing strategy.

For ecommerce businesses or companies with dedicated marketing teams, Mailchimp’s breadth of features provides significant advantages. The platform’s ability to track customer behavior across channels and predict future actions can dramatically improve conversion rates when leveraged effectively.

However, this sophistication comes with tradeoffs in usability and cost. The interface has grown increasingly complex, with features scattered across different sections in ways that aren’t always intuitive. I’ve watched creative professionals get visibly frustrated trying to accomplish simple tasks that should be straightforward.

The pricing structure also reflects this “enterprise” direction. As your list grows or you need more advanced features, costs climb rapidly – often putting Mailchimp out of reach for independent creators or small businesses.

Kit (formerly ConvertKit) vs Mailchimp — What Actual Users Are Saying

Beyond my personal experience, I’ve talked with dozens of clients and fellow marketers about these platforms. Here’s what stands out from user reviews:

Overall rating:

3.7

/5

G2:

4.4

Trustpilot:

2.0

Capterra:

4.6

See other alternatives

Overall rating:

3.9

/5

G2:

4.3

Trustpilot:

2.8

Capterra:

4.5

See other alternatives

About author

Emily Austin

Author

Sender

Emily is a content manager who has dipped her toes in almost all fields of marketing, including email marketing, PR, social media, and ecommerce. She loves perfecting digital content, ensuring everything is polished and ready to go live.