Independent review · Pricing re-verified 24 August 2026
Kit: the most generous free plan in email marketing, with one catch
We have no affiliate relationship with Kit. No link on this page earns us anything. Where we mention GetResponse further down, note that GetResponse does pay us a commission — and that we still rate Kit's free plan the most generous in this category. How this works
Kit — formerly ConvertKit — is email marketing built specifically for creators: writers, course sellers, podcasters, newsletter operators. It's tag-based rather than list-based, so one person on three of your lists counts once, and it has selling tools built in rather than bolted on.
Its free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited sends. Nothing else in this category comes close. But the thing it withholds on that plan is the thing most people eventually need, and that's the whole story of Kit's pricing.
- Best for
- Creators and newsletter publishers building a list
- Free plan
- Yes — 10,000 subscribers, unlimited sends, no card
- From
- USD $33/mo annual ($39 monthly) at 1,000 subscribers
- Sends
- Unlimited on every plan, including free
- Watch for
- No sequences on free; 3.5% + 30¢ on sales
Plans
| Plan | Annual | Monthly | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newsletter | Free | Free | 10,000 subscribers, unlimited broadcasts, landing pages, forms, sell digital products. One basic automation, and no email sequences. |
| Creator | $33 | $39 | Email sequences, unlimited visual automations, integrations |
| Creator Pro | $66 | $79 | Subscriber scoring, advanced reporting, your own affiliate program |
Paid prices shown at 1,000 subscribers, in US dollars. Both paid plans scale with subscriber count — see below. Annual billing works out at roughly two months free. Re-verified 24 August 2026; every figure was unchanged from our first check.
You upgrade for sequences, not for capacity
This is the single most useful thing to understand about Kit. The free plan's 10,000-subscriber ceiling is far higher than most people reach — but it stops at one basic automation and no email sequences. You can broadcast to your list, and you can trigger a single action; you can't build a welcome series that sends four emails over a fortnight.
So the upgrade trigger isn't list size. It's the moment you want a chain of emails to send themselves, which is what a welcome sequence, a course drip and an abandoned-cart follow-up all are. That happens early for most people — often at a few hundred subscribers rather than at ten thousand — which means the free plan is better understood as a very good place to collect and broadcast than as a place to run automated follow-up.
The price climbs faster than the headline suggests
Creator is $39 at 1,000 subscribers. It doesn't stay there. Published breakpoints run roughly $59 at 3,000, $89 at 5,000, $139 at 10,000 and $199 at 25,000.
Kit moves you to the next band automatically when you cross it, and never interrupts sending — convenient, but it means the bill ratchets up on its own. Cleaning your list back down to a lower band is a manual request. Model the cost at the list size you expect in a year.
One thing that works in your favour here: Kit's own pricing page states that subscribers are counted only if they are unique and active. Someone on three of your lists is billed once, and unsubscribes don't keep inflating your band. That is the vendor's own commitment rather than our inference, and it is a genuine structural advantage over list-based tools.
The 2025 price rise
Worth knowing because a lot of older reviews are now wrong: Kit raised prices substantially in September 2025. Creator moved from $29 to $39 a month at 1,000 subscribers — roughly a third — with the annual rate landing at $33. Existing customers were migrated at renewal, and the reaction was not warm.
Be careful with the figures you'll see quoted elsewhere. Some reviews compare the old annual rate against the new monthly one, which makes the increase look like more than a doubling. Compare like with like: monthly to monthly, or annual to annual.
The free plan was untouched, which is why the gap between free and paid now feels so wide.
Selling costs extra
If you sell digital products or paid newsletters through Kit, there's a fee of roughly 3.5% plus 30 cents per transaction — on every plan, including the free one. On a $50 product that's about $2.05 a sale.
That's competitive with standalone checkout tools rather than outrageous, but it isn't zero, and it isn't in the plan price. Factor it into your margins before you decide Kit's free plan means selling for free.
Who it suits
- Creators building a list before they have anything to sell — 10,000 free subscribers is an enormous runway
- Anyone whose subscribers overlap across several lists, since Kit bills only for unique, active subscribers
- Newsletter publishers who want selling and sponsorship tools in the same place as the list
- People who prefer automations laid out visually — Kit builds them on a canvas, so each branch and condition is on screen rather than buried in a settings list
Where it's weaker
- The free plan stops at one basic automation and no email sequences, which is the capability most people need first
- Paid pricing is high for the category after the 2025 increase, and climbs steeply with list size
- The email designer is commonly described as basic — Kit's aesthetic is plain-text-leaning by design, which suits newsletters and frustrates anyone wanting rich layouts
- Transaction fees on sales apply even on paid plans
- Automatic band upgrades mean the bill can rise without you doing anything
Probably not for you if
- You need automated sequences on day one and can't pay — a cheaper tool with sequences on its entry tier will serve you better
- You want heavily designed, image-rich emails
- You're running ecommerce rather than a creator business — the feature set is pointed elsewhere
- Your list is large and your budget tight; per-subscriber cost here is well above the cheapest options
Questions
Is the free plan actually usable?
Yes, genuinely — with one significant limit. You get 10,000 subscribers, unlimited broadcasts, landing pages, forms and the ability to sell digital products, permanently, with no card required. What you don't get is email sequences; there's a single basic automation and no more. If you only send broadcasts, you may never need to pay.
When do I actually have to upgrade?
When you want a series of emails to send themselves — a welcome sequence, a course drip, an abandoned-cart follow-up. Not when your list grows. That's unusual in this category and it's the thing to plan around.
Why is it more expensive than it used to be?
Kit raised prices in September 2025, moving Creator from $29 to $39 a month at 1,000 subscribers, with the annual rate at $33. Any review or comparison written before then is quoting numbers that no longer exist — and watch for ones that compare the old annual price against the new monthly one, which overstates the rise considerably.
Does it cost anything to sell through Kit?
Yes — around 3.5% plus 30 cents per transaction, on every plan including free. Roughly $2.05 on a $50 sale. Worth modelling into your pricing rather than discovering later.
How does it compare to GetResponse?
Disclosure first: GetResponse pays us a commission and Kit pays us nothing, so weigh this answer accordingly. Different shapes. Kit's free plan is far more generous — 10,000 subscribers against 500 — and that is the more valuable free tier by a wide margin. What it withholds is sequences, which GetResponse includes in limited form on its entry paid tier, though that tier allows only one custom workflow. GetResponse also has native webinars, which Kit doesn't. If you're a creator building a list, Kit. If you sell through webinars, GetResponse.
If it fits, start here
Start on the free plan — there's no card and no expiry, so there's no reason not to. Build your forms and landing pages, collect subscribers, and upgrade the day you need your first automated sequence. That's the real decision point, and you'll know when you hit it.
This link earns us nothing. We have no affiliate relationship with Kit.
Read next: Kit vs GetResponse — two free plans built on opposite assumptions. Which one suits you depends on whether you automate or broadcast. That comparison recommends Kit, which pays us nothing, over GetResponse, which pays us.