MailerLite or ConvertKit? Which is for you

If you’re choosing between MailerLite and ConvertKit, now called Kit, the better option depends on how you plan to use email marketing. MailerLite is generally the better value for small businesses and creators who want strong design, automation, landing pages, and lower paid-plan costs. Kit is a stronger fit for creators focused on newsletters, audience growth, digital products, and creator-specific monetization.

The two platforms can look similar at first. Both help you build an email list, send newsletters, create automated sequences, build forms and landing pages, and grow an online audience.

The real difference is what each platform is built around.

MailerLite takes a broader email-marketing approach. Kit is much more focused on creators and turning an audience into a business.

MailerLite vs Kit at a glance

One major detail can easily confuse shoppers: ConvertKit is now called Kit. The company officially rebranded the platform, so references to ConvertKit and Kit generally refer to the same email marketing service.

MailerLite or Kit: what is the biggest difference?

The biggest difference is their focus.

MailerLite is an all-around email marketing platform. It gives you email campaigns, visual automations, landing pages, websites, forms, segmentation, and other marketing tools in one system. Its design tools also make it appealing if you want newsletters that look more like traditional marketing emails.

Kit is built around creators and their audiences. Its tools are designed for people such as writers, bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, coaches, and course creators who want email to become a central part of their business. Kit also emphasizes creator recommendations, audience growth, paid newsletters, and commerce.

That leads to a simple starting point:

• Choose MailerLite if you want an affordable, flexible email marketing platform.
• Choose Kit if your email list is the core of a creator business.
• Choose Kit if staying on a free plan with a large subscriber list matters most.
• Choose MailerLite if you expect to pay and want more marketing tools for your money.

Pricing: MailerLite vs Kit

Pricing is one of the biggest differences between these services.

Kit has an unusually large free plan. Its free Newsletter plan can support up to 10,000 subscribers, although the free tier has important limitations compared with its paid plans. Kit’s paid Creator plan starts at $39 per month for 1,000 subscribers according to current 2026 pricing information.

MailerLite’s free allowance is much smaller, but its paid plans are generally less expensive once you need more features. Current pricing information shows MailerLite’s paid pricing starting around $12 per month for 500 subscribers and $19 per month for 1,000 subscribers, with the price increasing as your list grows.

A simplified comparison looks like this:

Prices and plan limits can change, so treat these figures as a snapshot rather than a permanent price list. The important point is the pricing model: Kit gives you a much larger free starting point, while MailerLite generally becomes more attractive once you move into paid plans.

Which is cheaper for a growing email list?

If you’re starting with almost no budget, Kit has a major advantage because you can keep a relatively large audience on its free plan.

But there’s a catch.

You may eventually need paid Kit features for more advanced automation and creator-focused functionality. At that point, MailerLite can cost substantially less for a similar subscriber count. Current comparisons show MailerLite below Kit at several common paid subscriber levels.

So don’t simply ask, “Which has the cheaper free plan?”

Ask:

“Which platform will cost less for the way I actually plan to run my business?”

Email design and the writing experience

MailerLite has an advantage if visual email design matters to you.

Its editor uses a drag-and-drop approach, making it easier to create newsletters containing images, buttons, columns, videos, social elements, and other visual blocks. This is useful for small businesses, online stores, bloggers, and marketers who want more control over email appearance.

Kit takes a different approach.

Its email experience is more creator-oriented and often feels closer to writing a newsletter than designing a traditional marketing email. That’s a good thing if your emails are mainly personal stories, educational content, commentary, or regular creator updates.

For example, imagine you’re a photographer sending a weekly newsletter about photography tips.

If you want a polished newsletter with multiple visual sections, MailerLite may feel more natural.

If you mainly write a personal weekly email with a few links and a call to action, Kit may feel simpler.

Automation and segmentation

Both platforms can automate your email marketing, but they approach automation differently.

MailerLite provides a visual automation builder where you can create workflows based on subscriber actions and other triggers. The platform also supports automation templates and multiple marketing workflows depending on your plan.

Kit also has visual automations and places heavy emphasis on sequences, tags, subscriber behavior, and creator funnels. Its automation system is particularly useful when your subscribers can follow different paths based on what they click, buy, or sign up for.

Which is better for simple automation?

MailerLite is a strong choice for straightforward workflows such as:

1. Someone joins your list.
2. They receive a welcome email.
3. They receive several educational emails.
4. They are placed into a relevant group.
5. They receive an offer.

This is relatively easy to understand and manage.

Which is better for creator-focused funnels?

Kit has an edge when your automation is tightly connected to a creator business.

For example, you might have:

• A free newsletter
• A paid newsletter
• A digital course
• An ebook
• Several audience interests
• Multiple email sequences
• Subscriber tags based on behavior

Kit is designed around these types of creator workflows, which is one reason creators often choose it even when it costs more.

Landing pages and list growth

MailerLite is particularly strong if you want more than email.

Its platform includes landing pages, websites, forms, automation, and other tools for building an online presence. Its current feature set also includes website and landing-page tools alongside email automation and audience features.

Kit also provides landing pages and forms, but its bigger focus is on helping creators turn an audience into subscribers and customers.

Kit’s Creator Network is another important difference. It allows creators to participate in recommendation-based audience growth, which is closely tied to the platform’s creator-first approach.

If you’re building a small business website and email list together, MailerLite may give you more of the tools you need in one place.

If your main goal is growing a creator audience, Kit’s ecosystem may be more useful.

Selling digital products

This is an area where Kit becomes much more interesting.

Kit supports creator commerce, including digital products and paid newsletters. Its platform is designed to connect audience growth, email marketing, and monetization rather than treating them as completely separate activities.

Suppose you’re a fitness creator selling a downloadable workout guide.

With Kit, your general workflow could be:

Free content → email subscriber → automated emails → product offer → customer

That creator-business model fits naturally with Kit.

MailerLite also supports selling digital products and bookings, making it more than a basic newsletter service.

The difference is that Kit places creator monetization much closer to the center of its product.

MailerLite vs Kit for bloggers

For bloggers, either platform can work well.

MailerLite makes sense if your blog is part of a broader business. You may want attractive newsletters, landing pages, forms, automation, and other marketing tools without paying for a more specialized creator platform.

Kit makes more sense if the newsletter itself is becoming the business.

For example, consider two hypothetical bloggers.

Blogger A runs a food website and uses email to bring readers back to recipes, promote products, and support affiliate marketing. MailerLite would be a strong fit.

Blogger B writes a personal finance newsletter and plans to sell premium newsletters, ebooks, and educational products. Kit may be the better match.

The subject of the blog isn’t what matters most. The business model is.

MailerLite vs Kit for small businesses

MailerLite is usually the easier recommendation for a traditional small business.

A local service company, ecommerce store, consultant, or small online business may need:

• Promotional emails
• Customer newsletters
• Lead forms
• Landing pages
• Automated follow-ups
• Audience segmentation
• Attractive email templates

MailerLite is designed to handle this broader marketing use case without requiring you to build your entire business around the creator model.

Kit can still work for a small business, but you may end up paying for creator-focused capabilities that you don’t really need.

MailerLite vs Kit for newsletters

This one depends on the type of newsletter.

If you’re building a traditional marketing newsletter, MailerLite has the advantage because of its broader design and marketing features.

If you’re building a personality-driven creator newsletter, Kit becomes more compelling.

Kit’s product is heavily centered on creators, email publishing, audience growth, recommendations, and monetization.

So a writer sending a personal essay every Sunday may prefer Kit, while an ecommerce brand sending a visually designed weekly promotion may prefer MailerLite.

Which is easier to use?

Both are designed to be approachable.

MailerLite tends to feel familiar if you’ve used traditional email marketing software before. The drag-and-drop editor and visual workflow tools make common marketing tasks straightforward.

Kit is also designed to be simple, but its interface and terminology are built around creators, subscribers, broadcasts, sequences, tags, and audience growth.

For a beginner, neither platform is likely to be a bad choice.

The better question is which interface matches the work you want to do every week?

If you want to design marketing emails, MailerLite has the stronger fit.

If you want to write newsletters and build creator funnels, Kit may feel more natural.

Two real-world ways to choose

Choose MailerLite if you’re building a small online business

Imagine you’re launching an online store for handmade products.

You need an email signup form, promotional newsletters, product announcements, abandoned-cart or customer follow-up workflows, and landing pages.

You don’t necessarily need creator recommendations or a paid newsletter system.

MailerLite makes more sense because you’re buying an email marketing toolkit rather than a creator-business platform.

Choose Kit if you’re building an audience-first business

Now imagine you’re a writer building a weekly newsletter.

You want to grow your audience, recommend other creators, sell an ebook, eventually launch a paid newsletter, and create automated sequences based on subscriber interests.

Kit fits this model much more closely.

The difference isn’t simply “features.” It’s how those features fit together around your business model.

What about deliverability?

Both companies put significant emphasis on email delivery, but you shouldn’t choose between them based on a single advertised deliverability number.

Your actual inbox placement depends on many factors, including:

• Sender reputation
• Domain authentication
• Subscriber engagement
• Email content
• Sending practices
• List quality
• Spam complaints
• Email frequency

Kit currently advertises a 99.8% delivery rate on its website, but that shouldn’t be interpreted as a guarantee that every sender will achieve the same inbox placement.

For either platform, proper domain authentication and a clean, engaged email list matter.

So, which one should you choose?

The easiest way to decide is to ignore the feature checklist for a moment.

Ask what you’re actually building.

Frequently asked questions

Is MailerLite better than ConvertKit?

MailerLite is better for many small businesses and creators who want lower paid-plan costs, strong email design, visual automation, landing pages, and broader marketing tools. Kit is better suited to creators who want audience growth and monetization features built around newsletters and digital products.

Is ConvertKit still available, or is it called Kit now?

ConvertKit has been rebranded as Kit. The company officially announced the transition to the Kit brand, so people searching for ConvertKit are generally looking for the same platform under its newer name.

Which is better for a beginner, MailerLite or Kit?

MailerLite is usually the better beginner choice if you want a traditional email marketing platform with visual design tools and a broad set of marketing features. Kit can be easier for a beginner creator who mainly wants to publish newsletters and build an audience without needing many traditional marketing features.

MailerLite or Kit: the final verdict

For most people who expect to pay for their email marketing platform, MailerLite is the safer value choice. It offers a broad set of email marketing, automation, landing page, website, and monetization tools while generally costing less on paid plans.

But Kit can be the smarter choice if you’re a creator and email is at the center of how you make money.

Its large free plan is especially attractive when you’re building a list, and its creator-focused ecosystem makes more sense if you plan to monetize through newsletters, digital products, recommendations, or other audience-based businesses.

My practical rule: choose MailerLite when you want an affordable email marketing system; choose Kit when you want an email-first system for a creator business.

And if you’re still unsure, don’t decide based only on today’s subscriber count. Think about where your email list will be in the next two years. The platform that fits your future business model is usually the better choice.