Quick Picks (TL;DR)

  • Best for e-commerce stores and general newsletters: Mailchimp — mature platform, deep analytics, strong free tier
  • Best for creators, course sellers, and audience builders: ConvertKit (now Kit) — subscriber-first logic, tag-based automation, clean landing pages
  • Best free plan: Mailchimp (up to 500 contacts free) vs. ConvertKit (up to 10,000 subscribers free, limited automations)
  • Best automation depth: ConvertKit edges ahead for creator workflows; Mailchimp wins for e-commerce behavioral triggers
Tool Best for Free plan Starting price Standout
Mailchimp E-commerce brands, general marketing Yes (500 contacts) ~$13/mo Essentials (verify) Templates, e-commerce integrations, reporting
ConvertKit (Kit) Creators, bloggers, course sellers Yes (10K subscribers, limited) ~$25/mo Creator (verify) Tag-based automation, subscriber-first UX, landing pages

Mailchimp: The Email Marketing Veteran

I built my first email list on Mailchimp in 2017 and stayed on the free plan for longer than I should have admitted publicly. Even then, it was remarkable — drag-and-drop template builder, audience segmentation, basic A/B testing, and a campaign report that told me exactly which subject line drove more clicks.

Eight years later, Mailchimp is a significantly different product. It absorbed a website builder, an e-commerce storefront, social media scheduling, and a customer journey builder. Some of those additions are genuinely useful. Others feel like scope creep dressed up as features.

Best for: Small e-commerce brands who want email marketing tightly integrated with their store (Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce), agencies managing email for multiple clients, and teams that want polished templates without writing code.

Honest pros:

  • The drag-and-drop template editor is one of the most refined in the industry — hundreds of starting points, good mobile previews
  • E-commerce triggers are strong: abandoned cart emails, post-purchase sequences, and product recommendation blocks connect to Shopify natively
  • Audience segmentation lets you filter by purchase history, engagement level, geography, and custom fields
  • A/B testing and multivariate testing are available on paid plans
  • Reporting includes industry benchmarks — useful when you want to know if a 24% open rate is good or average for your sector
  • Free plan covers 500 contacts and 1,000 sends/month — enough to start building

Honest cons:

  • Pricing is contact-based and jumps steeply as you grow; lists of 10,000+ contacts get expensive quickly on the Standard plan
  • The interface has grown cluttered over the years — finding the automation builder or a specific report can require too many clicks
  • Customer support on the free plan is chat-only during business hours; email support requires a paid plan
  • Automations are powerful for e-commerce but less elegant for content creator workflows (welcome sequences, course drips, subscriber tagging)
  • List-based model means you pay for contacts even if many are inactive; cleaning inactive subscribers is necessary but often forgotten

Who should skip it: Bloggers, independent creators, and online course sellers who need granular subscriber tagging and behavioral sequences. Mailchimp's architecture was built for lists, not individual subscriber journeys.

ConvertKit (Now Kit): Email for Creators Who Sell

I moved a client's newsletter from Mailchimp to ConvertKit two years ago when they started selling a digital course. The difference was immediate: instead of managing multiple lists and segments, we tagged subscribers by behavior — who watched the webinar, who clicked the sales page, who completed the course. Automations fired based on those tags. No duplicates, no overlap, no complicated segment logic.

ConvertKit rebranded to Kit in 2024, though many users still call it ConvertKit. Whatever the name, the philosophy is the same: subscribers are individuals with behaviors, not rows in a list. That subscriber-first model makes it the email tool of choice for podcasters, YouTubers, bloggers, Substack migrants, and anyone selling digital products or memberships.

Best for: Independent creators, solopreneurs, and course sellers who want email automation that responds to individual subscriber behavior — what they clicked, what they bought, what sequence they completed.

Honest pros:

  • Tag-based model eliminates duplicate contacts across multiple segments — one subscriber, one record, multiple tags
  • Visual automation builder is intuitive: trigger → action → condition flows are drag-and-drop and clearly labeled
  • Landing pages and opt-in forms are built in — clean, fast, and functional without needing a separate page builder
  • Commerce features (selling digital products and subscriptions directly through Kit) reduce the need for additional tools
  • Creator-oriented templates look modern and minimal — well-suited for newsletter-style content
  • Free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts, limited automations, and one landing page

Honest cons:

  • E-commerce integrations are thinner than Mailchimp; connecting to a WooCommerce store with product-specific triggers requires third-party tools
  • Template library is smaller than Mailchimp — the design philosophy favors plain text over heavily branded layouts
  • Reporting is functional but less detailed than Mailchimp's campaign analytics — no multivariate testing
  • The free plan blocks advanced automations (sequences and visual automations require the Creator plan)
  • Pricing is subscriber-based and rises as your audience grows — at 50,000 subscribers, costs are meaningful

Who should skip it: E-commerce brands that need deep Shopify or WooCommerce integration with behavioral purchase triggers. Also skip if you need rich HTML email templates that reflect a heavily branded look.

Head-to-Head: Where Each Tool Wins

Email template design: Mailchimp wins. The template editor is richer, the library is larger, and branded HTML emails look more polished for product-focused businesses. ConvertKit's templates are intentionally minimal — great for newsletters, not for promotional product emails with custom sections.

Automation logic: ConvertKit wins for behavior-based sequences. Tag triggers, conditional branches, and subscriber journey mapping are more natural in the visual automation builder. Mailchimp's Customer Journey automations are good for e-commerce but feel less flexible for content delivery workflows.

List management: ConvertKit wins definitively. One subscriber appears once, regardless of how many sequences or segments they are in. Mailchimp's list-based model means a subscriber on two lists counts twice against your billing limit.

E-commerce integration: Mailchimp wins for Shopify-first brands. Abandoned cart, purchase follow-up, and product block templates are native. ConvertKit's e-commerce integrations require more configuration.

Pricing at scale: At 1,000 subscribers, both tools are comparably priced. At 25,000 subscribers, ConvertKit Creator is cheaper than Mailchimp Standard in most scenarios (verify current pricing). At 100,000+ subscribers, prices on both platforms are significant, and enterprise pricing applies.

Landing pages: ConvertKit wins. Built-in landing page builder, fast hosting, and clean opt-in forms are ready to use without a third-party tool. Mailchimp has a website builder but it is a secondary feature, not the focus.

How to Choose: My Honest Verdict

Pick Mailchimp if:

  • You run an e-commerce store and want purchase-triggered emails, product blocks, and Shopify sync
  • You need rich, branded HTML email templates and A/B testing at scale
  • You are sending general marketing newsletters and want a mature platform with broad integrations

Pick ConvertKit (Kit) if:

  • You are a creator, blogger, podcaster, or course seller — or you aspire to be
  • You want automation that responds to what individual subscribers click, buy, or complete
  • You need a built-in landing page builder and want to sell digital products or subscriptions directly through your email platform

In my experience, creators who start on Mailchimp almost always migrate to ConvertKit eventually. E-commerce brands that start on ConvertKit often migrate back to Mailchimp when their product catalog grows. Save yourself the migration by picking the right one for your current model.

FAQ

Is ConvertKit (Kit) still called ConvertKit? The official rebrand is Kit, which launched in late 2024. Most documentation, integrations, and community references still use ConvertKit. The product is the same — only the name changed.

Which tool has better deliverability? Both Mailchimp and ConvertKit maintain strong sender reputations and publish deliverability stats. In practice, deliverability depends far more on your list hygiene and engagement rates than on which platform you use.

Can I migrate from Mailchimp to ConvertKit easily? Yes — ConvertKit provides a migration guide and supports CSV imports. Tags must be manually mapped, and automation sequences need to be rebuilt. Plan for a few hours of setup time, not just a data export.

What if I need both e-commerce and creator features? Some users run both — Mailchimp for transactional e-commerce emails and ConvertKit for a separate audience newsletter. It is manageable but adds complexity. Evaluate whether the Kit Commerce or Mailchimp audience-based segmentation can cover both needs before splitting your stack.