Mailchimp vs ConvertKit: Which Wins in 2026?

If you have ever searched for the best email marketing tool for creators, you have almost certainly run into the same debate: Mailchimp vs ConvertKit. Mailchimp is the household name — the platform everyone has heard of, with a cheerful monkey logo and a free plan that pulled millions of small businesses aboard. ConvertKit (now rebranded as Kit) took the opposite route: it ignored small business marketing teams entirely and built a laser-focused tool for bloggers, YouTubers, and course creators.

Affiliate disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to Mailchimp and Kit. If you buy through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you — it keeps our reviews independent and free to read. We score both platforms the same whether or not we earn anything.

But which one actually deserves your money in 2026? The answer changed more than most reviews admit — because ConvertKit renamed itself to Kit in late 2024 and then pushed through a major price increase in 2025. This honest Mailchimp vs ConvertKit comparison walks through pricing, automation, deliverability, templates, and who each platform truly serves, so you can pick the right tool the first time.

Mailchimp vs ConvertKit at a Glance

Short on time? Here is the 30-second verdict:

	Mailchimp	Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
Best for	Small businesses, ecommerce, all-round marketers	Creators: bloggers, YouTubers, course sellers, newsletter writers
Free plan	250 contacts / 500 sends per month	Up to 10,000 subscribers
Paid from	$13/mo (Essentials, 500 contacts)	$39/mo monthly ($33/mo annual, 1,000 subscribers)
Automation	Solid, with customer-journey builder	Best-in-class visual builder
Templates	100+ polished templates	Simple, clean, fewer options
Deliverability	~99%	Excellent (strong creator reputation)
Our rating	4.1/5	4.5/5 for creators

The short version: if you run a small business or an online store, Mailchimp usually wins. If you are a creator building an audience and selling digital products, Kit wins. Now the detailed breakdown.

First, the Name Change: ConvertKit Is Now Kit

Before anything else, a clarification that outdated reviews keep getting wrong: ConvertKit rebranded to Kit in October 2024. Same company, same product, new shorter name. You will still see “ConvertKit” in old blog posts, Google searches, and YouTube tutorials — they are all talking about Kit. In this article we use both names so nothing gets lost in translation, but when you visit the website you will find it at kit.com.

The rebrand came with something less welcome: a September 2025 price increase that doubled the entry-level Creator plan from $15/month to $33/month (annual) for 1,000 subscribers. Trustpilot grumbled loudly, and honestly, the paid plans are no longer the budget option they once were. That matters a lot in this comparison, because Mailchimp’s paid plans suddenly look a lot more competitive on price.

Mailchimp vs ConvertKit Pricing Compared

Pricing is where these two diverge hardest, so let us lay it out with real 2026 numbers.

Mailchimp pricing (2026):

• Free: $0 — 250 contacts, 500 sends per month, basic templates. Good for testing, too small for real growth.
• Essentials: from $13/mo (500 contacts) — removes Mailchimp branding, unlocks more templates and A/B testing.
• Standard: from $20/mo (500 contacts) — adds customer-journey builder with branching, predictive segmentation, send-time optimization.
• Premium: from $350/mo — for large teams with advanced needs.

Two honest warnings about Mailchimp billing: first, Mailchimp bills you for unsubscribed contacts unless you archive them — dead weight inflates your tier silently. Second, prices rise steeply as your contact count grows; 5,000 contacts on Standard costs around $75–$100/month.

Kit pricing (2026):

• Newsletter (free): $0 — up to 10,000 subscribers, unlimited emails, unlimited forms and landing pages. The most generous free tier in email marketing, full stop. The catch: only limited automations (a single basic one) and Kit branding on emails.
• Creator: from $39/mo monthly or $33/mo annual (1,000 subscribers) — full visual automations, integrations, Kit Commerce, free migration. Scales to $59/mo at 3,000 and $89/mo at 5,000 subscribers.
• Creator Pro: from $79/mo monthly or $66/mo annual (1,000 subscribers) — adds the newsletter referral network, subscriber scoring, and advanced reporting.

The honest critique of Kit’s billing: Kit charges per subscriber regardless of engagement. If 2,000 of your 5,000 subscribers have not opened an email in a year, you still pay for them at the 5,000 tier. Kit does not auto-remove cold subscribers or give you a cheaper “inactive” bucket, so list hygiene is on you.

Pricing verdict: Kit’s free plan crushes Mailchimp’s free plan — 10,000 subscribers versus 250 contacts is not a contest. But once you pay, Mailchimp is usually cheaper at small list sizes ($13–$20/mo versus $33–$39/mo), while Kit’s costs climb aggressively with list size. If you can live with one automation, Kit’s free plan is unbeatable value — an early point for Kit in the Mailchimp vs ConvertKit matchup.

Try Mailchimp Free →   Try Kit Free (10,000 Subs) →

Ease of Use: Editor and Templates

Mailchimp’s drag-and-drop email builder is one of the most polished in the industry. With 100+ modern templates, smart content suggestions, and a genuinely pleasant interface, a non-designer can build a newsletter that looks like it came from an agency. For ecommerce users, the deep integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce — abandoned cart emails, product recommendations, order notifications — are genuinely best in class.

Kit takes the opposite philosophy. Its emails are intentionally plain-text styled: minimal formatting, no heavy graphics, built to look like a personal email from a friend rather than a corporate newsletter. There are far fewer templates and design options, and that is deliberate — Kit’s data shows plain-style emails get better engagement for creators.

Here is the honest take: if you want beautiful designed newsletters, Mailchimp wins easily. But if you are a creator, Kit’s plain approach is not a weakness — it is the format your audience expects from a newsletter they actually read. Do not judge Kit’s editor by Mailchimp’s design standards; they are playing different games.

Mailchimp vs ConvertKit Automation

This is Kit’s home turf, and it shows. Kit’s visual automation builder uses a flowchart interface: you drag in triggers (subscriber joins, clicks a link, buys a product), conditions (has tag, opened email), and actions (send sequence, add tag, move to another funnel). Building a welcome sequence that branches into a sales funnel takes about 20 minutes and feels intuitive even for non-technical users.

Kit’s subscriber model is also smarter for creators. Instead of separate lists, everything lives in one audience with tags and segments — so a subscriber interested in your course and your newsletter is counted once, not twice. Sequences, rules, and the visual builder all work from this single source of truth.

Mailchimp’s automation is no slouch either. Its Customer Journey Builder (Standard plan and up) supports branching logic, delays, and predictive segmentation like send-time optimization. For ecommerce, Mailchimp’s pre-built journeys (abandoned cart, post-purchase follow-up, win-back) are genuinely excellent and faster to deploy than anything in Kit.

Automation verdict: Kit wins for creator funnels and lead nurturing — its builder is the best in the business. Mailchimp wins for ecommerce automation and out-of-the-box journeys. For a blogger or course seller, pick Kit; for a store owner, pick Mailchimp — that is the automation takeaway from this Mailchimp vs ConvertKit showdown.

Deliverability: Do the Emails Actually Land?

Features mean nothing if your emails hit spam. Both platforms perform well here, with an important nuance.

Mailchimp reports roughly 99% deliverability, backed by enormous sending infrastructure and dedicated deliverability teams. Independent testing (EmailToolTester) has generally placed Mailchimp near the top of major platforms. Its authentication tooling (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is straightforward to set up.

Kit also earns consistently strong deliverability marks — independent tests have shown Kit/ConvertKit scoring near the very top for inbox placement, often a touch above Mailchimp. This makes sense: Kit’s plain-text-style emails trigger fewer spam filters than image-heavy promotional mail, and its sender reputation benefits from a creator-heavy user base with engaged audiences.

Whichever you choose, your own list hygiene matters more than the platform. Warm up new domains, authenticate properly, and prune cold subscribers. For a deeper dive, see our guide to email deliverability best practices for 2026.

Creator-Specific Features: Where Kit Pulls Away

This is the section that decides the Mailchimp vs ConvertKit debate for most creators, because Mailchimp simply does not compete here:

• Kit Commerce: sell digital products and paid newsletters directly through Kit with 0% fees on the free plan. Mailchimp has no equivalent.
• Landing pages and forms: unlimited on every Kit plan including free. Mailchimp offers them too, but Kit’s are built for audience growth with higher-converting templates for creators.
• Newsletter referral network (Creator Pro): cross-promote with other newsletters and get paid for referrals you send. A genuine growth engine for newsletter writers.
• Free migration: Kit moves your list from another tool for free on paid plans — a real, human-assisted migration, not just a CSV import.
• Sponsor network: Creator Pro opens access to newsletter sponsorships, turning your audience into revenue.

Mailchimp counters with its own exclusive strengths: a proper website builder and landing pages for businesses, social media ad tools, postcards (yes, physical mail), and the deepest ecommerce integrations in the industry. If you sell physical products, none of Kit’s creator features matter as much as Mailchimp’s abandoned-cart flows.

Mailchimp vs ConvertKit: The Final Verdict

After testing both platforms and digging through their 2026 pricing, here is our honest recommendation:

Choose Kit (ConvertKit) if: you are a blogger, YouTuber, course creator, coach, or newsletter writer. The free plan (10,000 subscribers!) lets you grow without paying a cent, the automation builder is the best in its class, and Kit Commerce plus paid newsletters turn your audience into income. Just know that paid plans got expensive after the 2025 price hike, and you must keep your list clean because you pay per subscriber.

Choose Mailchimp if: you run a small business, an online store, or an agency managing client campaigns. The template library is far superior, ecommerce automation is excellent, and paid plans start cheaper ($13/mo). Just remember to archive unsubscribed contacts so you stop paying for them, and read our full Mailchimp review for the complete picture.

Our pick for most readers of this site: Kit wins for creators; Mailchimp wins for businesses. There is no single winner because they serve different people — which is exactly why this comparison exists. If you are still torn between Mailchimp and other platforms, our Mailchimp vs ActiveCampaign comparison covers the automation-heavyweight alternative.

Start Free with Mailchimp →   Start Free with Kit →

Mailchimp vs ConvertKit FAQ

Is ConvertKit now called Kit?
Yes. ConvertKit rebranded to Kit in October 2024. It is the same company and product — only the name changed. Old tutorials saying “ConvertKit” refer to Kit.

Which is cheaper, Mailchimp or ConvertKit?
Kit’s free plan is far more generous (up to 10,000 subscribers vs Mailchimp’s 250 contacts). On paid plans, Mailchimp starts cheaper at $13/mo, while Kit’s Creator plan starts at $39/mo monthly ($33/mo annual) for 1,000 subscribers.

Can I migrate from Mailchimp to Kit?
Yes. Kit offers free human-assisted migration on its paid plans, moving your subscribers, tags, and sequences from Mailchimp at no extra cost.

Which is better for newsletters?
Kit, for most newsletter writers — its plain-text style, referral network, and paid newsletter features are built for the job. Mailchimp suits designed, image-rich business newsletters better.

Does Kit have a free plan?
Yes — the Newsletter plan is free for up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited emails, forms, and landing pages, though automations are limited.