List Your Tool
    List Your Tool

    Kit

    The email marketing platform for creators who mean business

    Kit

    The email marketing platform for creators who mean business

    Tool Introduction

    Nathan Barry founded the company as ConvertKit in January 2013, after growing frustrated using Mailchimp to reach his blog readers and sell his own books and courses. He bootstrapped it with $5,000, nearly shut down around $1,200 monthly recurring revenue in October 2014, then reinvested $50,000 personally and grew the business to roughly $98,000 MRR by the end of 2015 and $500,000 MRR by the end of 2016.

    Kit, Inc. is registered in Boise, Idaho, remains privately held and bootstrapped under Barry as CEO, and rebranded from ConvertKit to Kit on October 1, 2024.

    Demo Available?

    Yes. Kit offers a self-serve 14-day free trial on both paid plans with no credit card, plus a sales demo with its Creator Partnerships team.

    Tool's Accuracy

    Kit's core job is inbox placement: delivering a creator's email to the subscriber's inbox and getting it opened. On its official deliverability page, Kit reports a 99.8% delivery rate and a 40% average open rate, measured last month when it sent over a billion messages. These figures are self-reported operational measurements across Kit's full sending volume rather than a third-party benchmark with disclosed independent methodology, and no independent inbox-placement study of Kit's current infrastructure was found on official or Tier-2 sources.

    Aggregate Rating

    4.4/5 stars (based on 586+ verified reviews across the internet)

    Detailed Overview

    What Kit Does

    Kit helps a creator turn an email list into revenue. At its center is a visual, no-code automation builder that sends welcome sequences, launches, and nurture emails in response to subscriber behavior such as purchases, link clicks, or form submissions. Landing pages and opt-in forms grow the list, tagging and segmentation target who receives each send, and native commerce sells digital products, subscriptions, and paid newsletters.

    Who Kit Is For

    Kit is built for individual online creators rather than general small businesses: writers, podcasters, YouTubers, musicians, coaches, course creators, and bloggers who want to grow an audience they own and then convert it into income through newsletters, automations, and native selling. The Pro tier supports small teams working around a single creator, including named bestselling authors and public figures who use it for newsletter-driven audience building and product sales.

    Top Differentiators

    Kit reports an industry-leading 99.8% delivery rate and average open rates above 40%, and charges just 0.6% plus credit-card fees on commerce sales. Its Recommendations network lets creators cross-promote and earn $1 to $5 or more per referred signup. Kit also gives paying creators free access to physical Kit Studios recording spaces in New York City, Chicago, and Boise, and stays independently owned and bootstrapped.

    Founding Year

    2013

    Target Industry

    B2C, Prosumer, Solo creators, Small teams, Artists, Authors, Bloggers, Coaches, Course creators, Marketers, Musicians, Newsletter creators, Podcasters, YouTubers

    Available Integrations
    • Shopify: deepest native e-commerce sync of customers and purchase history, auto-tagging buyers and embedding products in emails; automations and product blocks require a paid Kit plan.
    • WordPress: official plugin embeds Kit forms, products, and gated content in under five minutes, with companion plugins for WooCommerce and Gravity Forms.
    • Squarespace: embeds Kit forms via code blocks (needs a Business or Core plan) or syncs native form blocks through Zapier with a paid Kit plan.
    • Canva: syncs saved designs into the Kit Media Gallery, usable inline via a /canva slash command; requires paid Kit and Canva accounts and is view or insert only.
    • GIPHY: Creative Assets app for pulling GIFs directly into the email and content editor.
    • Circle and Mighty Networks: community and course platform integrations for delivering memberships to subscribers.
    • SavvyCal: scheduling integration in the Events and Scheduling category.
    • Transistor.fm: podcast-hosting integration under Kit's Content and Creative Assets category.
    • Zapier: paid-account bridge exposing 7 triggers and 5 write actions, extending Kit into thousands of apps the native App Store does not cover.

    Kit offers three tiers, all scaling by active-subscriber count; figures below are the base tier of up to 1,000 subscribers.

    • Newsletter (Free): $0/month for up to 10,000 active unique subscribers. Includes unlimited landing pages and forms, unlimited broadcasts, unlimited digital products and subscriptions, audience tagging and segmentation, a Creator Profile mini-website, and 1 basic Visual Automation with a single email sequence. No credit card or trial needed. Exceeding 10,000 subscribers requires upgrading to a paid plan to keep sending.
    • Creator: $39/month billed monthly for up to 1,000 subscribers, or $33/month ($390/year) billed annually, which saves $78/year. Adds unlimited Visual Automations and email sequences, Kit MCP, subject-line A/B testing (2 variants), poll surveys, SMS marketing, RSS campaigns, branding removal, up to 2 team members, and 24/7 email and chat support. Includes a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
    • Pro (Creator Pro): $79/month billed monthly for up to 1,000 subscribers, or $66/month ($790/year) billed annually, which saves $158/year. Adds Subscriber Signals, an advanced engagement analytics dashboard, deliverability reporting, engagement scoring, unlimited team members, collaborative editing, advanced A/B testing (up to 5 subject-line variants plus content variants), Facebook custom-audience sync, a newsletter referral system (SparkLoop), post-send link editing, and 24/7 priority support. Includes a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.

    Price increases as subscriber count grows. No usage or send overage charges apply; pricing scales only by active subscriber count. All paid plans carry a 30-day money-back guarantee, and canceled accounts remain active through the end of the current billing period. Free migration from other email platforms is offered.


    Pricing last verified: 07/08/2026
    Disclaimer: Pricing is subject to change. Please confirm current pricing on the vendor site.
    Features & Specs
    • Free Newsletter plan: up to 10,000 subscribers, unlimited landing pages, forms, and broadcasts, audience tagging and segmentation, digital product and subscription sales, and 1 basic visual automation.
    • Creator plan: $33/month or $390/year (saves $78) for up to 1,000 subscribers, adding unlimited visual automations and email sequences, Kit MCP, subject-line A/B testing, polls, SMS marketing, RSS campaigns, branding removal, and 24/7 support.
    • Pro plan: $66/month or $790/year (saves $158) for 1,000 subscribers, adding Subscriber Signals, engagement analytics and scoring, unlimited team users, deliverability reporting, collaborative editing, advanced A/B testing (5 subject lines plus content variants), Facebook custom audiences, a newsletter referral system, and post-send link editing.
    • Free trial: 14-day trial on all paid plans, no credit card required, plus free concierge migration for paid customers.
    • Commerce fee: 0.6% plus payment-processing fees on digital product sales.
    • Developer API: v4 (v3 deprecated) with cursor-based pagination and bulk/async processing, authenticated by a V4 API Key via an X-Kit-Api-Key header or OAuth 2.0.
    • Zapier: paid-account bridge to services without a native Kit App Store integration.
    Security & Compliance

    Kit protects all data in transit with TLS (Transport Layer Security) and stores passwords using one-way encryption at the database level. Its infrastructure runs on AWS and Cloudflare, both independently SOC 2 Type II certified, with AWS also ISO 27001-compliant and Cloudflare certified to ISO 27001:2013, ISO 27701:2019, and ISO 27018:2019; these certifications belong to the infrastructure vendors rather than to Kit itself.

    Kit runs an ongoing security program with continuous vulnerability scanning, a bug bounty and Vulnerability Disclosure Program through BugCrowd, automated code scanning and static analysis, DDoS mitigation, and disaster recovery via redundant multi-site backups.

    On privacy, Kit complies with GDPR, UK GDPR, and CCPA, and relies on the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, its UK extension, the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, Standard Contractual Clauses, and the International Data Transfer Agreement to transfer data to the United States. Kit is a listed active participant in the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, honors access and erasure rights, and lets account owners export subscriber lists at any time.

    Industry Use-Cases

    Product-sales growth from a targeted welcome sequence

    Katelyn Bourgoin, founder of the "Why We Buy" newsletter, built an onboarding sequence to identify subscriber pain points and deliver a targeted welcome flow. Over the following three months she reported a 30 percent increase in sales of the two products featured in those sequences. These are creators' own figures published on Kit's marketing pages.

    List growth through the Recommendations network

    Dan Go, a high performance coach, credits Kit's Recommendations network for a large share of his audience. He states that 22,000 subscribers came from Recommendations, calling it one of the best things to happen to his newsletter.

    Fast digital product setup for artists

    Selling an ebook through Kit took Danny Gregory, an artist, writer, and YouTuber, about half an hour to set up and embed into his templates. Speed of setup was the outcome he highlighted.

    Newsletter-driven revenue for video creators

    Jo Franco, founder of JoClub and a YouTuber with over 1,000,000 subscribers, attributes higher income to funnels and newsletter campaigns built in Kit. Making more money is how she describes the result.

    Email sends that move book pre-orders

    When Nisha Vora, a New York Times bestselling vegan cookbook author, compared a Kit email send against an Instagram announcement, the email drove real movement in her book pre-orders.

    Tool's Alternatives

    Mailchimp offers a much broader all-in-one marketing suite with 300+ native integrations and built-in generative-AI content tools and predictive segmentation. Its breadth targets general small-to-large businesses and e-commerce brands rather than solo creators. Its distinguishing trait is native SMS marketing bundled with email in a single workflow.

    ActiveCampaign provides deep, sales-oriented automation with a built-in CRM (customer relationship management) and an AI system that personalizes email, SMS, and WhatsApp across 1,000+ integrations. Its complexity and sales focus suit marketing teams more than creator simplicity. It stands apart with native WhatsApp and SMS channel automation.

    Substack integrates publishing and payments so writers can launch a free or paid newsletter with zero setup and in-network discovery. Monetization is limited to Substack's own payment rails and lacks Kit's sequences, tagging, and funnels. Its differentiator is a 90/10 creator-favorable revenue split with no subscription fee.

    beehiiv is a purpose-built newsletter platform pairing email sending with a no-code website builder and a large native ad network. Its ad monetization only works for newsletters sent through beehiiv's own infrastructure. Its signature feature is Boosts, a cross-newsletter referral-monetization network Kit does not offer natively.

    MailerLite emphasizes a simple drag-and-drop interface with an integrated website builder and behavior-triggered automations serving over 1 million creators and small businesses. Its automation depth is lighter than Kit's creator-focused sequences and tagging. It differentiates on 24/7 live chat support with a stated 97% satisfaction rate.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is Kit and who is it built for?

    Kit, formerly ConvertKit, is an email marketing and monetization platform for individual online creators, including writers, podcasters, YouTubers, musicians, coaches, course creators, and bloggers who want to grow and sell to an audience they own.

    How much does a paid Kit plan cost?

    The Creator plan starts at $33/month or $390/year for up to 1,000 subscribers, and the Pro plan starts at $66/month or $790/year; both scale in price as the subscriber count grows.

    What does the free Newsletter plan include?

    The free Newsletter plan supports up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited landing pages, forms, and broadcasts, audience tagging and segmentation, digital product and subscription sales, and one basic visual automation.

    What transaction fee does Kit charge on sales?

    Kit charges 0.6% plus payment-processing and credit-card fees on digital product, subscription, and paid-newsletter sales made through its native Commerce feature.

    Does Kit offer a free trial or demo?

    Both paid plans include a 14-day free trial with no credit card required, and prospects can book a guided demo through Kit's Creator Partnerships team.

    What is the Kit Recommendations cross-promotion network?

    Recommendations is a peer network where creators refer subscribers to each other's lists, earning $1 to $5 or more per referred signup. One creator reports 22,000 subscribers gained through it.

    What email deliverability rates does Kit report?

    Kit reports a 99.8% delivery rate and a 40% average open rate, measured across over a billion messages sent last month. These are self-reported figures, not an independent third-party benchmark.

    Is Kit compliant with GDPR and CCPA?

    Kit complies with GDPR, UK GDPR, and CCPA, and participates in the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework. Its infrastructure runs on SOC 2 Type II certified AWS and Cloudflare, and account owners can export subscriber lists anytime.

  • Comments are closed.

    • You May Also Be Interested In