Before anything else: ConvertKit rebranded to Kit in 2024. Same company, same product line, new name. If you are searching for alternatives and finding conflicting information, that is usually why.
People leave Kit for three reasons that point in different directions. Some outgrow its automation and want real branching logic. Some run an online store and need product data it does not hold. And some find it expensive for what is, at heart, a well-made newsletter tool.
What You Give Up
Kit’s strength is that it was built for creators publishing to an audience, and it shows in ways that are easy to underrate.
The subscriber model is clean. One subscriber, tagged and segmented, never counted twice — no audience duplication, no confusion about which list someone belongs to.
Landing pages and forms are genuinely good, and included rather than upsold.
Deliverability reputation is strong, helped by a text-forward default aesthetic that inboxes treat well.
The creator features — recommendations between newsletters, paid subscriptions, digital product sales — have no direct equivalent in general-purpose tools.
If you publish to an audience and sell your own products, several alternatives below are a downgrade.
If You Need Deeper Automation
ActiveCampaign
The clearest upgrade for automation. Branching conditions, wait-until-true steps, goals that let subscribers skip ahead, split testing inside flows, and a built-in sales CRM on higher plans.
Choose it if: your marketing depends on behavioural sequences, or you want marketing and sales pipeline in one system. Give up: simplicity — there is a genuine learning week — and the creator-specific features.
Customer.io
Event-driven messaging across email, push and SMS, aimed at teams with engineering support to send product events.
Choose it if: you have a product emitting events and someone to wire it up.
If You Run an Online Store
Klaviyo
Stores every customer action as a timestamped event with full product data attached, so you can trigger on cart contents, category affinity and predicted lifetime value. Reports revenue per flow, which makes the price argument measurable.
Choose it if: you sell products with meaningful order volume. Give up: money, and it is poor value without a store.
Omnisend
Similar ecommerce focus, cheaper, with email and SMS combined. Less deep than Klaviyo.
If You Want Cheaper
MailerLite
The strongest value option. Clean interface, decent automation for common flows, landing pages and websites included, and notably lower pricing at comparable list sizes.
Choose it if: cost is the driver and your automation needs are modest. Give up: depth and integration breadth.
Brevo
Prices by emails sent rather than contacts stored, which inverts the usual model. If you hold a large list and mail it infrequently, that can be substantially cheaper. Includes transactional email and SMS.
Choose it if: your list is large relative to your send frequency.
Buttondown or EmailOctopus
Deliberately minimal and inexpensive. Buttondown is popular with technical writers; EmailOctopus can run on Amazon SES for very low cost at volume.
Choose them if: you send a newsletter and want nothing else.
If You Want to Own It
Ghost
Publishing platform with newsletters, memberships and paid subscriptions native. Self-hostable, or hosted by Ghost.
Choose it if: your site and newsletter should be one thing. This is the most direct competitor to Kit’s creator positioning, and for many publishers it is the better answer because the website comes with it.
Listmonk
Free, open source, self-hosted. You supply a sending service such as Amazon SES.
Give up: support, and any assumption that deliverability is someone else’s problem.
How They Compare
| Tool | Automation depth | Pricing basis | Free tier | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ActiveCampaign | High | Contacts | No | Behavioural sequences, CRM |
| Klaviyo | High (ecommerce) | Profiles | Limited | Online stores |
| Omnisend | Moderate-high | Contacts | Limited | Smaller stores |
| MailerLite | Moderate | Subscribers | Yes | Value, simple needs |
| Brevo | Moderate | Emails sent | Yes | Large list, infrequent sends |
| Ghost | Basic | Members | Self-host | Publishers, memberships |
| Buttondown | Basic | Subscribers | Yes | Simple newsletters |
| EmailOctopus | Basic | Subscribers | Yes | Low cost at volume |
| Customer.io | Very high | Profiles | No | Product-led, event-driven |
| Listmonk | Basic | Self-hosted | Free | Technical, large lists |
Pricing bases differ enough here that entry prices are not comparable — Brevo charges by sends, Klaviyo by profiles, most others by subscribers. Model your own list size and send frequency.
Migration Essentials
Subscribers, tags and custom fields export and import between all of these. Automations never transfer — every sequence is rebuilt by hand, in every direction.
- Clean the list first. You pay per subscriber almost everywhere. Removing people who have not opened anything in a year cuts cost and improves deliverability at once.
- Export with consent status and opt-in dates. You need these to evidence lawful basis under GDPR and PECR, and you cannot reconstruct them later.
- Do not import unsubscribed contacts as subscribed. Exports include them; mailing them is a legal problem and a deliverability disaster.
- Authenticate your sending domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC before the first send — the 2024 Google and Yahoo bulk sender requirements make this mandatory.
- Warm up gradually. New sending infrastructure has no reputation. Start with your most engaged segment and expand over a week or two.
- Rebuild your two or three highest-value sequences first. Ignore the rest until those work.
- Update your forms and landing pages. If Kit hosted them, those URLs stop working. This is where people quietly lose signups.
That last point matters more with Kit than most platforms, because its landing pages and forms are widely used and often embedded in places people forget.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Forgetting Kit hosts your forms and pages. Audit everywhere you embedded them before cancelling.
- Downgrading without auditing what you use. Check which sequences actually sent in the last month before assuming a simpler tool will do.
- Moving to Klaviyo without a store. Its value is the ecommerce data model.
- Comparing entry prices across different bases. Sends versus subscribers versus profiles are not comparable numbers.
- Losing consent records. Map opt-in status and date, or you cannot evidence lawful basis.
- Sending to everyone on day one. Warm up or expect a deliverability dip.
- Self-hosting without understanding deliverability. Listmonk means you own reputation management, which is a real job.
- Switching for price and rebuilding badly. A cheaper tool with worse-implemented sequences can cost more in lost revenue than you saved.
FAQs
Is ConvertKit the same as Kit?
Yes. ConvertKit rebranded to Kit in 2024. Same company and product, new name — which is why you will find both names in search results and documentation.
What is the best Kit alternative?
ActiveCampaign for automation depth, Klaviyo if you run a store, MailerLite if cost is the driver, Ghost if you want your website and newsletter to be one system.
Is there a free alternative to Kit?
MailerLite and Brevo both have free tiers with limits, as do Buttondown and EmailOctopus at small scale. Listmonk is free if you self-host and supply your own sending infrastructure.
Which is cheaper than Kit?
MailerLite typically is at comparable list sizes, and Brevo especially if you hold a large list you mail infrequently, since it charges by emails sent rather than subscribers stored.
Will my automations transfer?
No. Subscribers, tags and custom fields migrate; sequences are rebuilt by hand on every platform. Treat it as an opportunity to keep only what was working.
What happens to my Kit landing pages?
They stop working when you cancel. Audit every place you embedded a form or linked a landing page — website, social profiles, lead magnets, older newsletters — and replace them before you leave.
Key Takeaways
- ConvertKit is now Kit — same product, which explains conflicting search results.
- Identify why you are leaving: automation depth, ecommerce, or cost. Each points elsewhere.
- Kit’s forms and landing pages are hosted. Audit every embed before cancelling.
- Automations never transfer. Rebuild your top two or three first.
- Clean the list and carry consent records across before importing anywhere.
Where to Start
Open Kit and list the sequences that actually sent something in the last thirty days. If there are fewer than three and none branch, MailerLite or Brevo will do the job for less. If your best sequences use conditions and goals, only ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo or Customer.io are genuine replacements.
For detail, see our ActiveCampaign alternatives guide, Klaviyo vs Mailchimp, and AI email marketing prompts for writing whatever you rebuild.