ConvertKit vs Mailchimp

ConvertKit was founded in 2013 and is based in Idaho, the US. It was created by Nathan Barry, a blogger and creator who needed a better way to promote his books and courses.

Mailchimp was founded in Atlanta in 2001 by Ben Chestnut, Mark Armstrong, and Dan Kurzius. Headquarters in Atlanta, GA. Was acquired by Intuit in 2021.

Not beginner-friendly, since you need to code while creating emails.

Creating emails doesn’t require design or coding skills. However, the interface can be confusing to novices.

Bloggers, coaches, course creators, writers, and everyone who makes content for living.

Small to medium e-commerce companies that want email marketing together with their website hosting.

The forever free plan includes the contact list of up to 1,000 subscribers and the following features:

• Unlimited landing pages
• Unlimited forms
• Unlimited “broadcasts”, or one-off email campaigns, sent right away or scheduled
• Audience tagging and segmentation
• Selling digital products & subscriptions
• Community support
• Free recommendations

Has a free plan for up to 500 subscribers and 1,000 emails a month and a daily send limit of 500. It has a lot fewer features than paid plans, fewer available templates, and customer support for 30 days only.

Dynamic pricing depends on the size of your contact list and the features of interest.

Creator: $9–1,916/month billed yearly for 300–400,000 subscribers. Includes all the free features plus:

• Live chat & email support
• Paid recommendations
• Free migration from another tool
• Automated email sequences
• Visual automation builders
• Third-party integrations
• One additional team member

Creator Pro: $25–2,166/month billed yearly for 300–400,000 subscribers. Includes all the Creator features plus:

• Newsletter referral system
• Subscriber scoring
• Advanced reporting

For up to 500 contacts, billed monthly:

• Essentials $13
• Standard $20
• Premium $350

Other pricing features:

• 1-month free trial for Essentials and Standard
• A Pay As You Go plan
• Two possible pauses of the account’s billing every 12 months
• 15% discount for nonprofit organizations

Community support:

• The internal forum where you can ask questions and receive answers from ConvertKit support specialists and other platform users
• Available even on the free plan

Email and live chat support:

• Available for Creator users
• Priority support via email and live chat available for Creator Pro users

ConvertKit also provides a knowledge base and a YouTube channel with tutorials. The platform also runs online workshops for newbies in marketing.

• Email support on paid plans and 30-day only on a Free plan
• 24/7 chat support on paid plans
• Support phone line for the Premium plan: Mon-Fri 6:30 am — 6:00 pm ET (UTC-5)

• Email builder
• Email marketing automation
• Landing pages
• Sign-up forms
• Tools for selling digital products and paid subscriptions
• List segmentation
• Lead scoring
• A/B testing
• Reporting and analytics
• Internal referral systems for creators to earn off putting links in your newsletter or paying to get promoted by other creators

• Email automation with pre-made customer journeys
• Hosting, websites, and landing pages builder
• Online store creator
• Marketing CRM
• Integrations with popular services
• Drag-and-drop email builder and pre-made templates
• A mobile app for iOS and Android to create and send emails, add clients, check analytics, etc.

25 email templates made for content creators by content creators, includes templates for:

• Newsletters
• Content promotion
• Product sales pitch
• Waitlist

The templates are sourced from other users and you can create and share your own.

ConvertKit also offers 50+ landing page templates not specified by purpose.

100+ templates for emails and landing pages
AI assistant for designing
The free plan has a limited number of pre-built templates

Templates for:

• Welcome messages
• Sales
• Newsletter
• Events
• Announcements
• Win-back

120 integrations with third-party apps for:

• Memberships and courses
• Analytics
• Lead capture
• E-commerce
• Giveaways
• Quizzes
• Workflows
• Webinar
• Affiliate management
• CRM
• Scheduling
• Email verification

ConvertKit also supports Zapier for even more integrations and provides users with the API docs for custom integrations.

315 integrations including WordPress, Shopify, Facebook, Stripe, LiveChat, Canva, Unsplash, and more.

• Web app only

• Website
• A mobile app for iOS and Android to create and send emails, add clients, check analytics, etc.

No installable solution.

English

English Spanish Portuguese

10+ visual automation templates for starting a paid newsletter, releasing a new podcast, crowdfunding for a music album, and other tasks that professional content creators might face.

Many pre-built automations (called customer journeys):

• Welcome series
• Abandoned cart
• Product retargeting
• Lead generation
• Order notifications, and more

• Good platform for content creators
• Great deliverability
• Supports paid newsletters and has a “tip jar” functionality for free donations from subscribers
• A flexible tagging and segmentation system for targeted campaigns

• Essential features for small businesses
• 315 integrations
• Website hosting
• A mobile app
• Stylish design and built reputation
• Landing page builder

• Very basic reporting
• Expensive compared to other email marketing tools
• Not great for midsize and large businesses
• No drag-and-drop builder which makes it harder to design emails from scratch

• Relatively high prices
• Free and Standard plans are very limited
• Limited customization
• Customer support is hard to reach and isn’t very helpful
• Many people find the interface not user-friendly
• Unsubscribed and inactive accounts are still included in sending limits