We make Drry, one of the alternatives below, so read accordingly. The best ConvertKit alternatives in 2026 are beehiiv, Ghost, Substack, MailerLite and Flodesk, with Drry as the pick for creators whose list exists to sell a course, coaching or a paid community. ConvertKit renamed itself Kit, so a search for either lands here. Most creators leave for one of two reasons: the paid plans climb with every subscriber, or the newsletter has grown into a business that needs more than email. The Kit figures below carry the date we checked them and a link to the source; other vendors are described by how they charge, because prices move, so verify current terms before you commit, including ours.
Credit where it is due: Kit is one of the best email tools a creator can use. Tagging is flexible, the visual automations are clear, the free plan is unusually generous, and deliverability is a reason people switch TO it. If all you want is a better way to send, the honest advice may be to stay. For the head-to-head against us, see Drry vs Kit.
Why do creators leave Kit?
The free plan runs to 10,000 subscribers, so price rarely bites while you are small. It bites on the way up: Creator is $39/mo a month at up to 1,000 subscribers and Pro is $79/mo, both billed monthly, and both rise with every subscriber tier. A list that is growing faster than it is earning turns into a bill that is growing faster than it is earning.
The second reason is selling. Kit Commerce charges 3.5% + $0.30 per transaction, and to its credit Kit describes that as including card processing, so it is not a platform cut on top of Stripe. On $2,000 of sales in a month across 100 payments, it comes to about $100. The bigger limit is what you can sell: products and paid newsletters, yes; a course with lessons, or a community your subscribers log into, no. We could not find a course builder or a community in Kit's help centre, and its own 2026 product launch added analytics, sponsorships, SMS through a partner and more, not those.
beehiiv: the newsletter as a business
beehiiv is where a lot of growth-minded newsletter writers go from Kit: a website on your own domain, a referral programme, an ad network, and paid subscriptions it takes no cut of on its paid plans. It is built around the send and the growth of the list.
- Best for: writers building a publication who want growth tools and sponsorship income built in.
- Pricing structure: a free tier with no card, then paid plans priced on subscriber count. Paid subscriptions are a paid-plan feature, with 0% taken on them there.
- What you give up: Kit's tagging depth, and charging from a standing start, since monetization is not on the free tier. See Drry vs beehiiv.
Ghost: open source, and you own the whole stack
Ghost is a publishing platform with memberships and email newsletters built in, and it is open source, so you can pay for its hosted service or run it yourself. Paid subscriptions go through your own Stripe account with no transaction fee from Ghost.
- Best for: writers who want a real website and a paid publication they fully control.
- Pricing structure: hosted plans priced by audience size, with no cut of subscription revenue; self-hosting costs you a server and your time instead.
- What you give up: marketing automation. Ghost does newsletters and member welcome emails well, we could not find anything like Kit's visual automations in it, and it asks more setup of you.
Substack: the network, at a percentage
Substack is free to publish on and brings a recommendation network that can grow a list faster than anything you build yourself. It pays for itself by taking a percentage of your paid subscription revenue.
- Best for: writers whose growth comes from discovery and who would rather share revenue than pay a monthly bill.
- Pricing structure: free to publish, with a percentage of paid subscriptions plus card processing. Our Substack pricing guide has the dated figures.
- What you give up: most of the automation Kit gives you, and a cut that grows with your success. Our Substack alternatives guide covers the other direction.
MailerLite: the same job, for less
If you like Kit and just want to pay less, MailerLite is the nearest equivalent: automations, landing pages, a website builder, and the ability to sell digital products and paid newsletters, in a clean editor.
- Best for: creators who want Kit's job done on a smaller bill and do not need its creator network.
- Pricing structure: a free plan capped by subscribers and sends, then paid plans priced on subscribers and sending volume.
- What you give up: Kit's recommendation network and some of its creator-specific polish. Its free plan is also much smaller than Kit's.
Flodesk: when the email is the brand
Flodesk is the design-led choice: beautiful templates that look like a magazine rather than a marketing email, aimed at creators whose audience cares how things look. Its top plan adds checkouts and sales pages.
- Best for: lifestyle, wedding, design and photography businesses where the email itself sells the brand.
- Pricing structure: a free plan for growing your list, then paid plans in subscriber tiers, with ecommerce on the top one.
- What you give up: automation and segmentation depth. It is a lovely sender, not a power tool.
Drry: when the newsletter sells a community (ours)
Our product, so treat this as a pitch with numbers you can check. Drry is not a better Kit, and for a pure newsletter it is not the right tool. It is for the creator whose emails exist to sell a course, coaching or a paid membership: the broadcasts, lists, segments and automations live next to the course player, the community feed, events and the checkout, so the person who clicks your email lands somewhere they can log into. More at Drry email.
- Best for: creators and coaches paying for Kit AND a course platform AND a community tool, who want one place and one login for their members.
- Pricing structure: a free plan with no card (100 members, 500 contacts, 700 marketing sends a month), then Creator at $29 a month (25,000 contacts, 60,000 sends, automations) and Growth at $99 (no contact cap, 500,000 sends, email from your own domain). Members never count as contacts, and 0% of member payments and product sales on every plan, paid into your own Stripe account.
- What you give up: Kit's free plan is far bigger than ours for a list with no members yet, and it has a creator recommendation network, sponsorships and A/B testing that we do not. If the list is the whole business, stay with an email tool.
How do you choose a Kit alternative?
Moving is mostly mechanical: export with tags and status, import, and rebuild your sequences by hand. Our guide to moving your email list to a new platform walks through it, and email automation for coaches covers which sequences to rebuild first. Still weighing the bigger tools too? See Mailchimp alternatives and ActiveCampaign alternatives.
Questions coaches ask
What is the best ConvertKit alternative?
It depends on what the newsletter is for. If the newsletter IS the product, beehiiv, Ghost or Substack, which are publications with paid subscriptions built in. If you want a cheaper general email tool, MailerLite. If design is the point, Flodesk. If the newsletter exists to sell a course, coaching or a paid community, Drry (we make it, so weigh that), because the email and the thing it sells live in one place. ConvertKit is now called Kit, and it is still a very good email tool; most people leave over price as the list grows, or because they want more than email.
Is ConvertKit now called Kit?
Yes. ConvertKit renamed itself Kit and moved to kit.com. It is the same company and the same product, so a guide or a review that says ConvertKit is talking about Kit, and your account, forms and subscribers carried over with the name.
Is Kit free?
Yes, up to 10,000 subscribers, which is one of the most generous free plans in email. The full automation tools are on the paid plans, and those are priced by subscriber count: Creator is $39/mo a month at up to 1,000 subscribers, billed monthly, and rises from there.
How much does Kit take when you sell something?
3.5% + $0.30 per transaction through Kit Commerce, on paid newsletters and digital products alike. Kit's help centre describes that rate as including card processing, so it replaces the card fee rather than stacking on top of it. On $2,000 of sales across 100 payments that is about $100 for the month. On Drry, sales run through your own Stripe account, so Stripe's standard processing applies and Drry takes 0% on every plan.
Can I move my Kit subscribers and tags to another platform?
Yes. Export your subscribers as a CSV with their tags and status, then import that file. Drry's import maps the columns, reads a tags column if your file has one, and moves unsubscribed people onto your blocked list rather than importing them. What never moves between tools is sequences and visual automations: those you rebuild by hand, wherever you go.
Should I use Drry instead of Kit?
Only if the list exists to feed something you sell. Drry sends broadcasts on every plan (700 sends a month on free, 60,000 on Creator, 500,000 on Growth) and runs automations from Creator, next to your courses, community and checkout. If you are a writer whose newsletter is the whole product, Kit or a publication platform is the better tool, and we would rather say so than win you for a month.