Kit vs MailerLite: the honest budget question
These two overlap more than any pairing we cover: both do sequences, visual automations, landing pages, forms, and sell-your-stuff features. Which means the decision comes down to the parts that don't overlap — and the bill.
The decision rule: if you earn your living as a creator and email is your sales engine, Kit's depth pays for itself. If email is important but you're watching costs — or you're a small business rather than a creator — MailerLite does 80% of the job for a fraction of the price.
Where Kit wins
Automation depth. Behavior-based tagging, funnel logic, and subscriber scoring that MailerLite approximates but doesn't match. Complex launches — evergreen funnels, segmented product sequences — are visibly smoother in Kit.
The creator ecosystem. The Creator Network drives real subscriber growth, and integrations with course platforms, webinar tools, and commerce products are first-class. Kit is the default in the creator economy, and that gravity has practical benefits — every tutorial, template, and contractor knows it.
Deliverability reputation. Both are good; Kit's standing among creators sending sales sequences is a real, if unglamorous, asset.
Where MailerLite wins
Price, decisively. At the same list size, MailerLite typically costs a fraction of Kit — check current pricing, but the gap has held for years. Over a year, that's real money for a solo operator.
The free tier. Genuinely usable: automations included, not a crippled demo. Kit's free tier is solid too, but MailerLite gives you more of the paid product for nothing.
Simplicity. Less creator-jargon, cleaner UI, faster to learn. For a small business or a side project, that's a feature.
The honest caveats
Switching between these two later is genuinely annoying — automations and tags don't migrate cleanly, only the subscriber list does. So unlike the Substack-to-Ghost path, "start cheap, upgrade later" carries a real rebuild cost here. Pick for where you'll be in a year.
Bottom line: Kit if email sells your products for a living. MailerLite if you want most of Kit and a smaller bill. And if what you're really building is a newsletter people read — neither; that's beehiiv or Substack.
Try Kit free → Try MailerLite free →