Mailchimp is the stronger pick for small businesses and e-commerce teams; ConvertKit (rebranded as Kit in late 2024) is the stronger pick for creators, newsletter publishers, and course sellers. That's the short answer — but the wrong choice costs you real money and migration pain, so the details matter.
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Who Each Platform Is Actually Built For
Mailchimp is the category veteran, built for small businesses, e-commerce stores, and marketers who want rich design templates, broad integrations, and a full suite of marketing tools including SMS and landing pages.
Kit was purpose-built for creators — bloggers, podcasters, course sellers, and newsletter writers — who want clean, tag-based subscriber management and native tools for selling digital products.
Kit's interface is minimal on purpose. Everything centers around a subscriber-first data model where each person exists once in your account, regardless of how many forms or sequences they enter. Mailchimp, by contrast, uses a list-based model with audiences and segments — more familiar, but historically messier to manage at scale.
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Pricing: A Straight-Talk Breakdown
Both platforms have restructured their pricing recently, and neither is cheap once you start growing.
Mailchimp Pricing (as of mid-2026)
Mailchimp's Free plan costs $0, Essentials starts at $13/month, Standard starts at $20/month, and Premium begins at $350/month for 10,000 contacts.
The Standard plan starts at $20/month for 500 contacts. As your audience grows, pricing increases — about $60/month for 2,500 contacts and up to ~$800/month for the 100,000-contact limit.
Important billing gotcha: Subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed contacts are all included in your contact count. That means you pay for people who already left your list — a meaningful hidden cost. Between inactive contact billing, duplicates, overage charges, and paid add-ons for SMS and transactional email, actual monthly spend commonly runs 20–40% above the listed plan price.
Kit (ConvertKit) Pricing (as of mid-2026)
Kit's pricing structure is refreshingly simple. It has 3 plans: Newsletter (free), Creator, and Creator Pro. Each plan increases in price as subscribers grow. All plans include unlimited email sends and core features.
Prices on the Creator plan start at $39/month for up to 1,000 subscribers, $59/month for up to 3,000 subscribers, or $89/month for a list of 5,000 contacts.
Kit costs between $39 and $199/month for the Creator plan with 1,000–25,000 subscribers. On Creator Pro, the range is $79–$279/month for that same subscriber range.
One major upside: You won't pay extra for sending more emails or for duplicate contacts. Kit also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans.
Worth flagging: prices jumped roughly 35% in September 2025, making value-for-money a real question for budget-conscious founders. This was Kit's first price increase in 12 years.
Side-by-Side Pricing Comparison
| Scenario | Mailchimp | Kit (ConvertKit) |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 500 contacts, 1,000 sends/mo | 10,000 subscribers, unlimited sends |
| 500–1,000 contacts (paid) | ~$13–$20/mo (Essentials/Standard) | $39/mo (Creator) |
| 5,000 contacts/subscribers | ~$75–$100/mo (Standard) | $89/mo (Creator) |
| 10,000 contacts/subscribers | ~$110+/mo (Standard) | $108/mo (Creator) |
| Annual discount | ~15% | ~16% |
Prices are approximate and vary. Always verify directly with each vendor before purchasing.
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Free Plan: Not Even Close
Mailchimp's free plan has been gutted. As of early 2026, it's capped at 250 contacts and 500 emails per month. No automations, no scheduling, and Mailchimp branding on everything.
Kit's free tier is in a different league. The free Newsletter plan has a generous allowance of 10,000 subscribers as well as unlimited emails, forms, and landing pages, though it only includes a single automation. You can even sell digital products and subscriptions on the free plan.
If you're validating a list or running a small newsletter, Kit's free plan makes Mailchimp's look like a preview mode.
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Automation & Workflows
Kit's visual automation builder is the gold standard for creators. It looks like a clean flowchart — you can tag someone for clicking a link and immediately branch them into a different email sequence. Building a welcome series, a product launch funnel, or a re-engagement campaign feels fast and natural.
Mailchimp has automations too, but the best ones (Customer Journeys) are locked behind the Standard plan ($20/month minimum). On the $13/month Essentials tier, you're stuck with basic single-step automations.
For pure automation ease-of-use, Kit has the edge. The Creator plan adds unlimited visual automations, unlimited email sequences, integrations with 100+ apps, A/B testing for subject lines, RSS campaigns, and 24/7 email and chat support.
Mailchimp wins on breadth, though. Mailchimp is a great tool for setting up welcome emails, lead nurturing campaigns, e-commerce business automation like abandoned carts and product recommendations, and more.
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E-Commerce Features
This is Mailchimp's clearest advantage. Mailchimp integrates with WooCommerce, Shopify, and other popular e-commerce platforms natively. In addition to standard metrics, Mailchimp's platform can track social media stats, opens by location, performance by domain, and e-commerce sales. There is also native integration with Google Analytics.
Kit connects to Shopify and WooCommerce through integrations, but its e-commerce features are more basic. There is no abandoned cart automation in Kit's native toolkit.
For e-commerce teams that rely on abandoned cart flows, product-recommendation emails, and purchase-behavior segmentation, Mailchimp is the more capable tool.
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Email Design & Templates
Mailchimp offers a drag-and-drop visual editor with a wide library of branded templates — strong for product-focused or campaign-heavy emails. Mailchimp offers a visual, drag-and-drop email builder that lets you easily design emails, though you're also free to add your own HTML designs.
Kit's focus on creators means it leans text-based. The editor uses a block-based approach, similar to the WordPress block editor. While mostly text-based, the block system still lets you insert elements such as columns, buttons, and images.
If you send product-heavy visual newsletters: Mailchimp. If you send text-forward newsletters that feel like a letter from a person: Kit.
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Integrations & Ecosystem
Mailchimp has 330 integrations in its Integrations Directory, covering CRM tools, e-commerce, social media, and analytics.
Kit has a wide range of integrations available including e-commerce apps, CRM, membership software, and webinar services — specifically 123 direct integrations, while Kit also integrates with Zapier for more.
Mailchimp also includes features Kit doesn't: SMS marketing in 12+ countries and a lightweight CRM, which differentiates it since Kit doesn't really offer any CRM functionality.
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Unique Strengths: What Each Does That the Other Doesn't
Kit-only strengths:
- Creator Network for organic cross-promotion, paid newsletter recommendations, subscriber tagging that outperforms Mailchimp's list-based model, and built-in tools to sell subscriptions and digital products.
- The Pro plan unlocks unlimited users, an insights dashboard, subscriber engagement scoring, Facebook custom audiences, deliverability reporting, a newsletter referral system, and collaborative editing.
- No charge for unsubscribed or duplicate contacts.
Mailchimp-only strengths:
- Social media marketing and content creation — Mailchimp can help you create and manage content for your social media profiles.
- AI content creation tools — AI text and image generation to speed up workflows.
- Native abandoned cart recovery and product recommendation emails.
- Pay-as-you-go email credit option for infrequent senders.
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Which Should You Choose?
| Choose Mailchimp if… | Choose Kit (ConvertKit) if… |
|---|---|
| You run an e-commerce or Shopify store | You're a blogger, creator, or newsletter publisher |
| You need polished, image-heavy branded templates | You prefer clean, text-first email design |
| You want SMS marketing bundled in | You need powerful, intuitive visual automations |
| You need a lightweight built-in CRM | You want to sell digital products or paid newsletters |
| Your team needs 300+ third-party integrations | Your list is under 10,000 (free plan is exceptional) |
| You send infrequently and want pay-as-you-go | You hate paying for unsubscribed contacts |
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is ConvertKit still called ConvertKit? No. ConvertKit rebranded to Kit in late 2023. The product continues to evolve under the Kit name, but most search traffic still uses the ConvertKit name.
Does Mailchimp charge for unsubscribed contacts? Yes — subscribed, unsubscribed, and non-subscribed contacts are all included in your contact count, which drives up your billing tier faster than most users expect.
Is Kit's free plan actually free? Yes. The free Newsletter plan allows up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited emails, forms, and landing pages, though it only includes a single automation.
Did Kit raise its prices recently? Yes — prices jumped roughly 35% in September 2025. For budget-sensitive users, alternatives like MailerLite or beehiiv are worth evaluating.
Can I migrate from Mailchimp to Kit? Kit provides a Mailchimp import tool that transfers your subscriber list and basic segment data. Because Kit uses tags rather than lists, you'll need to recreate your segments as tags. Existing Mailchimp automations and email templates do not transfer and must be rebuilt in Kit's visual automation builder.
Which has better analytics? Mailchimp's reporting and analytics are considerably more advanced — it tracks social media stats, opens by location, performance by domain, and e-commerce sales, in addition to standard email metrics. Kit's analytics are solid for subscriber engagement but less broad.
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Bottom Line
Mailchimp and Kit serve genuinely different buyers. Mailchimp is the right call for small businesses and e-commerce brands that need a full marketing platform with strong templates, abandoned cart flows, SMS, and 300+ integrations — just go in with eyes open about the contact-count billing and the real cost creep. Kit wins for creators, newsletter operators, and digital product sellers who want clean automations, a subscriber-first pricing model, and built-in monetization tools; its free plan alone is one of the most generous in the market. Verify current pricing with each vendor before committing, as both platforms have made changes as recently as early 2026.