ConvertKit Review

ConvertKit Review: 1-minute summary

Here’s the deal: if you’re looking for a simple, straightforward email marketing tool, ConvertKit is the one for you. Its newsletters, sign up forms, and landing pages are all simple to use and set up. It’s one of the most user-friendly email tools I’ve used. 

You can trust our reviews✔️ We spend days testing and comparing this software to help you find the best marketing tool. Click here to find out more about how we test products. Regarding ConvertKit, I have years of experience with it since I’ve used it myself for over three years.

Click here to sign up for ConvertKit.

The above link is our partner link. If you sign up through our link, you’ll receive free goodies at no extra cost. For more information on how to receive the free goodies, click here.

Why not use ConvertKit?

In a nutshell, don’t blindly choose ConvertKit because you fall into one of the categories that fall under the umbrella of being a creator, e.g., blogger, podcaster, YouTuber, etcetera. Also, don’t use ConvertKit because you see the people/businesses you look up to are using it.

For example, ConvertKit wouldn’t be my first choice if you’re on a budget. Instead, MailerLite or Sendinblue might be a better alternative. Or at higher subscriber numbers, GetResponse (Ecommerce Marketing) is an even more affordable option, although GetResponse offers way more functionalities. For further reading, see: 

• MailerLite review
• Sendinblue review
• GetResponse review

Or maybe you’re a startup selling B2B software or high-priced information products and aren’t only looking for an email marketing tool. Instead, you might be interested in a tool that can do more than just email. If this is you, you might consider checking out GetResponse or ActiveCampaign.

ConvertKit Tutorial

Would you like to see ConvertKit in action? You can watch my free ConvertKit tutorial on YouTube.

ConvertKit Review: Pricing

The bottom line is that ConvertKit is relatively expensive, comparing its price and functionalities with its competitors. Here are a few quick examples:

At 5,000 subscribers, ConvertKit costs $790 annually, including discounts. A cheaper alternative is MailerLite for $348 yearly or $420 for the most comprehensive MailerLite tier.

At higher subscriber numbers, GetResponse can be an excellent alternative for ConvertKit since it offers way more functionalities for a better price. With up to 100,000 contacts/subscribers, you pay $6,878 annually for GetResponse’s most comprehensive tier, Ecommerce Marketing. ConvertKit Pro, on the other hand, costs $8,790.

In other words, ConvertKit doesn’t differentiate itself on price or functionalities. For example, the reason to choose ConvertKit would be if you’re looking for a simple email tool without too many bells and whistles.

For further reading, check out these pages on our website:

• MailerLite review
• GetResponse review
• ConvertKit vs MailerLite comparison

Pros

• Two months free (+-17%) when purchasing annual plan
• 30-day refund period available
• ConvertKit only charges you for subscribed contacts
• Unlimited email sending on all plans and levels

Cons

• ConvertKit isn’t the most affordable tool
• No special discounts for non-profits or students

Click here to sign up for ConvertKit.

The above link is our partner link. If you sign up through our link, you’ll receive free goodies at no extra cost. For more information on how to receive the free goodies, click here.

Different plans

1. Free
2. Creator (starting from $15/mo)
3. Creator Pro (starting from $29/mo)

ConvertKit Creator Plan Review

When subscribing to ConvertKit’s creator plan, you get access to almost all its features, including email marketing automation, third-party integrations, and live chat support.

Do keep in mind that ConvertKit pushes you towards its most expensive plan, the Creator Pro plan. At the 1,000 subscriber mark, the Creator Pro tier is double the first plan’s costs.

The higher you go in subscribers, the more you pay for their basic plan (Creator plan) relative to the Creator Pro plan. For example, at the 25,000 subscriber mark, you pay around 71% of the Creator Pro price for being a customer of its basic plan, the Creator plan.

When you’re at the 115,000 subscriber mark, you almost pay 80% of the Creator Pro plan’s price for its first plan. They’re pushing you towards their most expensive tier, Creator Pro, which makes sense from ConvertKit’s financial point of view but not from the customer’s point of view. 

This isn’t an excuse, but remember that almost every software company follows a similar tactic.

ConvertKit Creator Pro Plan Review

The bottom line is that the Creator Pro is relatively expensive compared to its competitors. Let’s take the email marketing tool GetResponse for example; its most comprehensive tier (Ecommerce Marketing) costs $6,878 annually, while ConvertKit Pro costs $8,790 annually for up to 100,000 contacts. Looking at both their features, I can say that GetRepsonse offers more functionalities. Remember that GetResponse also offers unlimited email sending.

Aside from comparing ConvertKit Creator Pro with its competitors, the extra features you’ll get when upgrading from Creator to Creator Pro aren’t that valuable, as you can see in my explanation below.

Creator Pro plan features that aren’t in the Creator plan:

• Priority live chat and email support
• Facebook custom audiences
• Newsletter referral system
• Subscriber engagement scoring
• Unlimited team members
• Deliverability reporting
• Edit links in sent broadcasts

Let’s look at ConvertKit’s Creator Pro features and their value. 

Facebook custom audiences

This feature allows you to synchronize ConvertKit segments with your Facebook ad manager account, which saves you lots of time and prevents errors. The challenge is receiving consent from subscribers to use their email addresses for Facebook retargeting purposes – especially if you want to comply with GDPR guidelines if you have European visitors on your website. 

Newsletter referral system

When subscribing to ConvertKit Creator Pro, you’ll receive free access to the SparkLoop Media Brand tier, which covers up to 250,000 subscribers.

One of the case studies on SparkLoop’s website covers the newsletter The Pour Over. It’s a politically daily newsletter that now has more than 200,000 subscribers. They tried various tactics in the beginning, such as Facebook ads to attract new subscribers, but none worked nearly as well as its referral growth tactic. If their subscribers spread the word, they can receive a gift. More referrals equal more or higher-priced gifts.

Edit links in sent broadcasts

Creator Pro enables you to change URLs in your broadcast after sending. 

Did you know that MailerLite offers this feature in its first paid plan? Which is more affordable than ConvertKit.

Moreover, I’ve been playing the email marketing game since 2010, and I’ve (luckily) never added an incorrect URL in my newsletters, i.e., I’m unsure whether you’ll use it.

Deliverability reporting

Creator Pro gives you advanced deliverability reporting, which shows you a graph of the open rate, and click rate of the newsletters and automated sequences you sent. 

Sample deliverability report for sequences

These graphs shows you the deliverability data of your newsletters

Moreover, you can add a filter to this data to see how specific audience segments are performing. Sadly, there’s no comparison feature, i.e., you can’t compare segment Y with X or compare particular months.

One could argue why ConvertKit doesn’t offer these reporting features to all its customers. For example, a better reporting feature might improve my emails, leading to fewer unsubscribers, i.e., more money for ConvertKit.

Subscriber engagement scoring

This feature gives a 1 to 5-star rating to your subscribers. This scoring system segments your audience based on their engagement. 

Add unlimited team members

When you outsource your email marketing, you don’t want to give that person administrator access and risk compromising your email marketing account. In the Creator plan, ConvertKit offers you the option to add one user to your account. In the Pro plan, you can add unlimited users to your account.

Price comparison

The table below shows the annual prices of the most popular email marketing companies, including discounts for purchasing annually. Remember that the email tool Sendinblue isn’t included in the table below because it doesn’t calculate its price based on the number of subscribers in your account. If you only send one or two newsletters monthly, Sendinblue might be financially more attractive than any other email tool. If that’s you, take a quick glimpse at our Sendinblue review + pricing.

By scrolling to the right, you can find higher contact numbers up to 20,000. Click here for a full-width version if you’re on a laptop or PC.

	500	1,000	1,500	2,000	2500	3,000	4,000	5,000	6,000	7,000	8,000	10,000	15,000	20,000	20,000	50,000	100,000	200,000	300,000	500,000	700,000	900,000	1,200,000	1,500,000	2,000,000	2,500,000	3,000,000	4,000,000	5,000,000
MailerLite Growing Business	$10	$15	$25	$25	$25	$39	$39	$39	$59	$59	$59	$73	$109	$139	$139	$289
MailerLite Advanced	$20	$30	$40	$40	$40	$50	$50	$50	$80	$80	$80	$110	$150	$180	$180	$340	$440	$820	$1,200	$1,900
ConvertKit Creator	$29	$29	$49	$49	$49	$49	$79	$79	$99	$99	$99	$119	$149	$179	$179	$379	$679	$1,279	$1,879
ConvertKit Creator Pro	$59	$59	$79	$79	$79	$79	$111	$111	$139	$139	$139	$167	$209	$251	$251	$519	$879	$1,579	$2,179
Zoho Standard	$4	$7	$17	$17	$17	$18	$24	$31	$35	$38	$41	$49	$61	$74	$74	$138	$242
Zoho Professional	$6	$12	$29	$29	$29	$30	$40	$52	$58	$63	$69	$81	$101	$123	$123	$230	$403	$748	$1,035	$1,380
Sender Standard	$19	$19	$19	$19	$19	$33	$33	$33	$57	$57	$57	$57	$87	$107	$107	$227	$367	$697
Sender Professional	$35	$35	$35	$35	$35	$60	$60	$60	$120	$120	$120	$120	$200	$250	$250	$460	$860	$1,660
Constant Contact Lite	$12	$30	$50	$50	$50	$80	$80	$80	$120	$120	$120	$120	$180	$230	$230	$430
Constant Contact Standard	$35	$55	$75	$75	$75	$110	$110	$110	$160	$160	$160	$160	$210	$260	$260	$460
Constant Contact Premium	$80	$110	$150	$150	$150	$200	$200	$200	$275	$275	$275	$275	$325	$375	$375	$575
ActiveCampaign Marketing Lite	$39	$39	$61	$61	$61	$99	$99	$99	$174	$174	$174	$174	$286	$286	$286	$486
ActiveCampaign Marketing Plus	$70	$70	$125	$125	$125	$186	$186	$186	$287	$287	$287	$287	$474	$474	$474	$699
ActiveCampaign Marketing Professional	$187	$187	$187	$187	$187	$262	$262	$262	$424	$424	$424	$424	$686	$686	$686	$1,011
ActiveCampaign Bundles Plus	$116	$116	$171	$171	$171	$232	$232	$232	$333	$333	$333	$333	$520	$520	$520	$745
ActiveCampaign Bundles Professional	$482	$482	$482	$482	$482	$557	$557	$557	$719	$719	$719	$719	$981	$981	$981	$1,306
GetResponse Email Marketing	$19	$19	$29	$29	$29	$54	$54	$54	$79	$79	$79	$79	$174	$174	$174	$299	$539
GetResponse Marketing Automation	$59	$59	$69	$69	$69	$95	$95	$95	$114	$114	$114	$114	$215	$215	$215	$359	$599
GetResponse Ecommerce Marketing	$119	$119	$139	$139	$139	$169	$169	$169	$199	$199	$199	$199	$299	$299	$299	$444	$699
Mailchimp Essentials	$27	$45	$45	$75	$75	$110	$110	$110	$180	$180	$180	$180	$230	$270	$270
Mailchimp Standard	$20	$45	$45	$60	$60	$100	$100	$100	$135	$135	$135	$135	$230	$285	$285	$450	$800
Mailchimp Premium	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$350	$465	$535	$535	$815	$1,025	$1,600
AWeber Lite	$15	$25	$25	$25	$25	$45	$45	$45	$65	$65	$65	$65	$145	$145	$145	$388	$788
AWeber Plus	$30	$40	$40	$40	$40	$60	$60	$60	$80	$80	$80	$80	$160	$160	$160	$403	$803
AWeber Unlimited	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899	$899
Klaviyo Email	$20	$30	$45	$60	$60	$70	$100	$100	$130	$150	$150	$150	$350	$375	$375	$720	$1,380	$2,070
Klaviyo Email & SMS	$35	$45	$60	$75	$75	$85	$115	$115	$145	$165	$165	$165	$365	$390	$390	$735	$1,395	$2,085
Beehiiv Launch	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0
Beehiiv Grow	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49	$49
Beehiiv Scale	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99	$99
HubSpot Marketing Hub - Starter	$20	$20	$40	$40	$60	$60	$78	$96	$112	$128	$144	$176	$256	$336	$336	$816	$1,616
HubSpot Marketing Hub - Professional	$890	$890	$890	$890	$1,140	$1,140	$1,140	$1,140	$1,140	$1,140	$1,390	$1,390	$1,640	$1,890	$1,890	$3,190
HubSpot Marketing Hub - Enterprise	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,600	$3,700	$3,700	$3,700	$4,000	$4,450	$5,250	$5,950	$7,350	$8,550	$9,750
Moosend Pro	$9	$16	$24	$24	$32	$32	$48	$48	$64	$64	$64	$88	$160	$160	$160	$315	$624	$1,216	$1,808	$2,896	$4,080	$5,840

Discounts

ConvertKit offers two months (+- 17%) for free when paying yearly. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any information regarding a special discount for non-profit organizations or students.  

Cancellation process

If you want to cancel your ConvertKit subscription, you can do so by emailing [email protected] or by contacting its chat support.

Refunds

ConvertKit is one of the few email companies offering a 30-day refund period on all plans, including annual plans. Remember that you must be within the first 30 days of the date you signed up for your account.

For more information about ConvertKit’s refund policy, read their website page. 

Extra discounts (special occasions)

From time to time, ConvertKit has special discounts, e.g., it offered a Black Friday deal of 31% off if you purchased the Creator annual tier.

Check out this page on ConvertKit’s website to see if there are any active promotions. The screenshot below shows the Black Friday deal of the year 2022.

Screenshot of Black Friday, November 2022 Discount Deal

The number of contacts (subscribed vs unsubscribed)

Some email tools like Mailchimp charge you for contacts that are either subscribed or unsubscribed from your email list. In other words, with Mailchimp, if 500 people unsubscribed from your email list, you still pay for those email addresses. 

ConvertKit doesn’t work like that. You only pay for active/subscribed contacts. For more information on how its billing works, see this page on ConvertKit’s website or check their pricing page.

Email credits

Some email tools like Sendinblue and MailChimp offer email credits, i.e., pay-as-you-go credits. Unfortunately, ConvertKit doesn’t offer email credits.

If you’re an infrequent newsletter sender, email credits might make the most sense. Tip: compare the table below with the pricing comparison above to see what makes the most financial sense. The left column shows the number of email credits, columns 2 and 3 show the total price, and columns 4 and 5 show the cost per email credit. 

	Brevo	Mailchimp	Brevo	Mailchimp
5,000	$32	$200	$0.0064	$0.0400
10,000	$59	$260	$0.0059	$0.0260
15,000	x	$390	x	$0.0260
20,000	$95	x	$0.0048	x
50,000	$165	$1,300	$0.0033	$0.0260
75,000	x	$1,950	x	$0.0260
100,000	$275	x	$0.0028	x
200,000	x	$2,600	x	$0.0130
500,000	$940	x	$0.0019	x
1,000,000	$1,600	x	$0.0016	x
2,000,000	x	$3,300	x	$0.0017
5,000,000	x	$6,500	x	$0.0013
25,000,000	x	$13,000	x	$0.0005

Mailchimp is another email tool that offers pay-as-you-go email credits, but they are more expensive when purchasing a lower number of email credits, as you can see in the table above. Mailchimp becomes cheaper once you buy 2,000,000 or more email credits.

Remember that Mailchimp’s email credits expire after 12 months, and Sendinblue doesn’t have an expiration date on its email credits.

ConvertKit Review: Free plan

Does ConvertKit offer the best free plan compared to its competitors? The short answer is no – you can find a more detailed explanation here, where we compare the best free email marketing tools.

Forever free plan	✔️
Maximum subscribers/contacts	1,000
Maximum monthly emails	Unlimited
Maximum daily emails	Unlimited
Email automation	❌
Support	❌
Remove branding	❌
Maximum signup forms	✔️ (Unlimited)
Landing pages	✔️ (Unlimited)
Can add custom domain	✔️
Email scheduling	✔️

Although I feel ConvertKit doesn’t have the best free plan, it offers great features. For example, not many email tools offer a customizable domain in their free plan. You can start your newsletter business professionally by adding a custom domain to your ConvertKit landing pages.

ConvertKit Review: Newsletter Features

• This section only covers ConvertKit’s newsletter features and not its automation features

Pros

• Unlimited email sending
• Simple & user-friendly

Cons

• The newsletter editor has fewer features than most of its competitors
• Not that many pre-designed templates
• Not the most extended segmentation features
• No special email scheduling options
• Not the best when heavily focused on ecommerce

Maximum contacts  & monthly emails

	Creator	Creator Pro
Max contacts	500,000*	500,000*
Max monthly emails	Unlimited	Unlimited

As you can see in the table above, ConvertKit is especially interesting for the ones that plan to send many monthly emails. For quick reference, the email tool MailerLite (MailerLite review) offers unlimited emails to up to 50,000 subscribers. If you go above that number, the monthly limit is around 12X your contact number.

Remember that although there are no maximum contacts on the Creator plan, the Creator plan becomes more costly relative to the Creator Pro plan when you have more subscribers.

*The screenshot below shows that if you have more than 500,000 subscribers, you must contact ConvertKit’s sales team. I don’t think there’s a maximum number of subscribers, but you can’t sign up online for a paid plan with over 500,000 contacts – you must contact them first.

Google Analytics UTM builder

• The UTM builder is available on all plans, including the free plan

ConvertKit allows you to add UTM parameters to email links for Google Analytics automatically. Did you know that not every email tool offers this feature? For example, AWeber and Constant Contact do not have this function and require you to add UTM parameters to your emails’ links manually.

If you enable the GA setting in ConvertKit, the service will automatically add UTM tracking codes to the links in your emails. This is an essential feature for those who are serious about their online marketing efforts.

Newsletter

ConvertKit has an easy-to-use and beginner-friendly email newsletter editor, as shown in the screenshot below. Remember that the ConvertKit editor doesn’t have as many options as most other email tools.

ConvertKit isn’t known for its email templates because it initially only offered text-only emails. It currently has roughly 15 pre-designed templates you can tweak to your liking. 

For example, if you’re switching from Mailchimp to ConvertKit, its editor isn’t what you’re used to – Mailchimp has more editing features than ConvertKit.

Segmentation

• Segmentation options are available on all plans, including the free plan

ConvertKit, like many other email tools, offers a range of segmentation features that allow you to target specific groups within your audience. For example, you may want to send a promotional email with a discount code to a segment of your audience rather than your entire list because you might not like to send a discount code to people who have already purchased. 

In this case, you could create a segment of your audience that excludes those who have already made a purchase, ensuring they don’t receive the email.

Although you can create plenty of segmentation options with ConvertKit, it doesn’t offer as many segmentation options as the less expensive email tool MailerLite (MailerLite review). One handy feature that MailerLite has that ConvertKit doesn’t is the ability to segment your subscribers based on the number of days they have been inactive. With MailerLite, I can specify the number of days of inactivity I want to use as a threshold (I usually choose 30 days). In contrast, ConvertKit does not allow me to change the number of days of inactivity it uses for segmentation (ConvertKit uses 90 days as the threshold as default, and you can’t change it).

Email Scheduling

• Email scheduling is available on all plans, including the free plan

Every email tool allows you to schedule your emails, and so does ConvertKit.

Some email tools offer more fancy email scheduling features, such as sending the email in batches or sending the email at a specific time, no matter your audience’s time zone. In addition, some tools offer send time optimization, i.e., it determines the most likely time your subscriber will open the email based on previous emails you have sent to them.

ConvertKit doesn’t offer any of those extra scheduling features. Instead, it only provides the regular email scheduling feature.

If you’re looking for a tool that offers extra scheduling features, check out these email marketing tools:

• MailerLite (MailerLite review) – A great alternative to more expensive email tools
• GetResponse (GetResponse review) – Excellent for start-ups selling B2B software or if your business sells high-priced information products
• ActiveCampaign (ActiveCampaign review) – The most user-friendly email tool with the most incredible set of automation features
• Sendinblue (Sendinblue review) – Financially attractive for the ones that only send one or two newsletters monthly

Audiences / Email lists

Some email tools allow you to create multiple email lists, such as Mailchimp and Sendinblue. MailChimp recommends creating various audiences, i.e., email lists, if you have a B2B and B2C side to your business or if you plan to use Mailchimp for customer and internal communication within your firm. 

If you want to segment your audience based on event attendance, location, or interests, using tags and custom fields is better than creating separate email lists.

ConvertKit doesn’t allow you to create multiple email lists. However, to create a second email list, you must create a new account.

For a more detailed explanation, check out this page on ConvertKit’s website.

Ecommerce

• Integrations with third-party software, e.g., Shopify, are only available on the paid plans

If you have an ecommerce store, such as Shopify or WooCommerce, you can create an integration with ConvertKit. For example, if someone orders a product in your store, you can automatically tag that customer with ConvertKit.

You can then use that WooCommerce tag to trigger an automated email workflow, e.g., asking them to leave a review after X days of purchasing your product.

If you’re selling a few ebooks, an online course, or a coaching program, ConvertKit’s features might be all you need. However, if you want a more comprehensive and customizable experience, you might want a tool designed for ecommerce businesses, such as Klaviyo. With Klaviyo, you can create product recommendations based on a customer’s recent product views, other products they may like, products they have added to their cart, and more.

Remember that Klaviyo is more expensive than ConvertKit, but it can help you save time and make more money if your business is ready for a sophisticated tool like Klaviyo. 

ConvertKit’s Sponsor Network

You can apply for the ConvertKit’s sponsor network if you meet the following criteria: 

• If you’re a ConvertKit subscriber
• Have at least 10,000 email subscribers
• Publish consistently (at least once a week)

The concept is that ConvertKit finds and places sponsorships in your newsletter, so you don’t have to find brands, negotiate with brands, send invoices, write copy, etcetera. Remember that ConvertKit takes a 23.5% cut of total sponsorship revenue.

The amount of money you can earn through sponsorships for your newsletter depends on your audience, number of subscribers, typical open rate, and how many subscribers click on sponsor ads. To calculate the price for sponsorships, multiply your subscriber count by your open rate, divide by 1,000, and then multiply by either $45 (high-end) or $25 (low-end). For example, if you have 30,000 subscribers with a 35% open rate, you could earn around $470 per sponsorship insertion or $24,000 per year. However, this amount does not include fees and processing.

The pro of using ConvertKit’s sponsor network is that you don’t have to find the sponsors yourself since ConvertKit does this. In other words, it might be a great way to start testing with sponsors in your newsletters.

The downsides are:

• ConvertKit takes a cut of 23.5%
• Fixed prices (high-end $45 CPM and low-end $25 CPM)
• You aren’t allowed to sell other sponsor spots in your newsletter, i.e., ConvertKit’s sponsor network has exclusive rights

ConvertKit Review: Email Marketing Automation

Here’s the deal: ConvertKit has one of the market’s most user-friendly email automation workflow builders.

Pros

• One of the most user-friendly interfaces
• Pre-built automation templates
• You can use the template language Liquid to display dynamic content (for advanced users)

Cons

• No email automation for free plan users
• Not a beginner-friendly way to display dynamic content

Pricing

To gain access to ConvertKit’s automation features, you must subscribe to its first paid plan, the Creator plan. Unfortunately, ConvertKit doesn’t allow its free plan users to access its automation features.

There’s only one email tool that allows for unlimited email automation in its free plan: MailerLite. Email tools like Sendinblue and AWeber also allow for email automation in their free plan, but they have limitations.

I wrote reviews about these ConvertKit alternatives as well if you want to check them out: MailerLite review, Sendinblue review, and AWeber review

For a more detailed explanation of the best free email marketing software tool, check out our comparison here.

Pre-built automation templates

ConvertKit, like many other email tools, offers pre-built automation templates to help you understand what’s possible.

User-friendly email automation features

What I like most about ConvertKit’s automation features and software is its user-friendliness. ConvertKit allows you to create automated emails with as little as mouseclicks as possible, i.e., you can write your email inside the same window, making it far more manageable. Another email tool, Sendinblue, sits on the other side of the spectrum, i.e., creating automated emails with their tool requires way more mouse clicks making it unnecessarily cumbersome. You can read more about it in my Sendinblue review.

The screenshot below shows an example of how ConvertKit’s automation feature works. On the left-hand side, you can see the automated workflow where the red square (webinar ebook) triggers the automation, i.e., a sign up form. When someone signs up through that form, the next step in the workflow is the webinar guide follow-ups (the green circle), which contains five emails you can see on the right-hand side of the screenshot below. The middle part is where you edit the content of the emails, which in this case, email 5. The beauty is how easily you can swap emails, change between emails, or go back and forth to the workflow itself. 

This might seem all obvious if you’re new to email marketing software but trust me, it’s not. Unfortunately, many software tools have inefficient processes.

Not the most comprehensive email automation features

Although ConvertKit has a user-friendly interface, it doesn’t offer the most comprehensive automation features.

A quick example; MailChimp and ActiveCampaign have this automation feature where you can split your audience into two branches (see screenshots below). ConvertKit, on the other hand, doesn’t have a splitter feature to A/B test your automated emails.

The above example is a random example of why I feel ConvertKit’s automation tool isn’t the most comprehensive, but there are many more. See this page for different automation ideas ActiveCampaign can do for you.

Despite ConvertKit not being the most comprehensive automation tool, it still offers lots of features, for example:

You can have multiple entry points for starting an automation (see screenshot below).

There’s an option to split your audience into two branches based on whether they have a specific tag (see screenshot below).

You can also add multiple variables, e.g., when the contact matches the custom field Beginner, the contact will move through the Beginner branch.

In your automated workflow, you can use events to move your subscriber to another location. For example, let’s say you have an automated workflow of ten emails across three weeks to sell your book. When your subscriber purchases your book in the first week after email number 3, you don’t want to send them the other seven emails. In this case, you use the event feature to move your subscriber to the end of this workflow.

Dynamic content

With ConvertKit, you can send dynamic emails since it allows you to use Liquid while writing your emails. Liquid is an open-source template language from Shopify. 

In a nutshell, it is more similar to coding your newsletter instead of just writing it. As you can imagine, doing so is far more complicated and takes you more time.

For example, if you have an email list where you collect email addresses and first names, you probably want to use a merge tag, e.g., *|FNAME|*, in the header of the email, right? That way, you address everyone in your list by their first name when sending an email. 

When someone writes their first name in all CAPS when subscribing to your email list, your email also shows their first name in CAPS when you send it, e.g., Hello ROBBIN. As you see, this looks a bit weird.

Liquid can solve this problem by using this Liquid code when creating your email:

Hello {{ subscriber.first_name

| downcase

| capitalize }}

The above Liquid code will downcase the subscriber’s first name from ROBBIN to robbin and then capitalize it to Robbin. And this is just one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of things you can do with Liquid.

Another helpful thing would be:

{% if subscriber.tags

contains "Customer" %}

Show this text

{% endif %}

The above Liquid code will output the words: Show this text to only subscribers with the tag Customer.

The drawback is that using Liquid has a steep learning curve, and there isn’t enough ConvertKit documentation or tutorials for using Liquid, in my opinion. In other words, if you’re not already familiar with using Liquid, it will take you lots of time to understand and use it to its fullest extent.

Here’s a bright side: With ChatGPT’s emergence, you now have an excellent assistant to help craft Liquid template language for your newsletters. Here’s an example of what I’ve created using ChatGPT’s assistance:

Email Subject Line

{% if customer.first_name %}
  {{ customer.first_name }}, discover what's new at The Gadget Emporium!
{% else %}
  Discover what's new at The Gadget Emporium!
{% endif %}

This subject line uses a conditional to personalize the greeting if the customer’s first name is known.

<!-- Email Header -->
{% if customer.first_name %}
  <h1>Hello {{ customer.first_name }}!</h1>
{% else %}
  <h1>Hello there!</h1>
{% endif %}
<p>We hope this message finds you well. At The Gadget Emporium, we're always looking for ways to bring you the latest and greatest in tech. Here's what's new and exciting this month:</p>

<!-- New Product Announcement -->
<h2>Introducing: The Ultimate SmartWatch 5.0</h2>
<p>The SmartWatch 5.0 isn't just a watch; it's your fitness trainer, personal assistant, and much more, all wrapped around your wrist. And because you're one of our valued customers, we're offering you an exclusive <strong>10% off your first purchase</strong> of this game-changing device. Use code <strong>NEWTECH10</strong> at checkout.</p>

<!-- Personalized Recommendations -->
<h2>We Thought You Might Like...</h2>
<p>Based on your recent purchases, we think you'll love these:</p>
<ul>
  {% for item in customer.recommended_products %}
    <li>{{ item.name }} - <a href="{{ item.url }}">View now</a></li>
  {% endfor %}
</ul>

<!-- Special Offer -->
{% if customer.loyalty_points >= 500 %}
  <h2>Exclusive Offer Just for You</h2>
  <p>You've earned it! Use your {{ customer.loyalty_points }} loyalty points for a <strong>15% discount</strong> on your next purchase. Apply code <strong>LOYALTY15</strong> at checkout. Don't forget, this offer is only valid until the end of the month!</p>
{% endif %}

<!-- Call to Action -->
<h2>Don't Miss Out!</h2>
<p>These offers are only available for a limited time. Visit our website and take advantage of them before they're gone. Happy shopping!</p>

<!-- Email Footer -->
<p>If you have any questions or need assistance, our customer service team is here to help. And remember, shipping is always free for orders over $50.</p>
<p>Best wishes,</p>
<p>The Gadget Emporium Team</p>

Explanation

• Personalized Greeting: The email starts with a personalized greeting, using the customer’s first name if available.
• New Product Announcement: A new product is introduced along with an exclusive discount code, aimed at enticing the customer to make a purchase.
• Personalized Recommendations: Based on the customer’s purchase history, the email includes a section of personalized product recommendations.
• Special Offer for Loyalty Points: For customers with a sufficient number of loyalty points, a special discount offer is presented, encouraging them to redeem their points.
• Call to Action: The email concludes with a strong call to action, urging the customer to take advantage of the limited-time offers.
• Footer: Provides additional customer service information and reinforces the value proposition of free shipping on orders over a certain amount.

For more information about Liquid, see this page (basic) and this page (more advanced) on ConvertKit’s website. These are the only two recourses on ConvertKit’s website that cover Liquid, which isn’t that much considering it has a steep learning curve.

Aside from Liquid, ConvertKit also allows you to create snippets, i.e., reusable content blocks.

An example snippet can be you linking to your social media accounts. Instead of typing it repeatedly across your newsletters and automations, you can create a snippet to reuse in multiple emails.

For example, the email tool MailerLite allows you to show or not show parts of your newsletter to particular segments or contacts with a specific tag. Aside from creating Liquid formulas to accomplish this, ConvertKit doesn’t offer this functionality in a more user-friendly way. 

For example, in the screenshot below, you can see MailerLite’s newsletter editor, where you can select who will see this particular email block. Check their website for more information on MailerLite, or read our review.

ConvertKit Review: Landing Page Features

Pros

• You can tweak the landing page with custom CSS
• Beginner friendly
• Unlimited landing pages available on all plans, including the free plan
• Unlimited traffic

Cons

• No option to design/create a custom landing page
• Very few customization options

Custom domain for free plan users

ConvertKit is one of the few email tools that allow you to create a customizable domain for free plan users.

ConvertKit’s default landing page URL example: https://schwarzenegger.ck.page/ff81cbf258.

Custom domain URL example: http://creatoregg.com/ or http://creatoregg.com/landingpage1

As you can see, the custom domain URL does look way more professional. Remember that your audience doesn’t know what ck.page is and might not trust it, resulting in fewer opt-ins.

Landing page templates

ConvertKit offers 54 pre-designed landing page templates for you to choose. Unfortunately, there’s no option to create/design your custom landing page.

Very few landing page customization options

Aside from changing the background image, text, font, etcetera, you can’t alter many aspects of the page, i.e., it’s a basic landing page editor. ConvertKit’s builder is incredibly convenient for beginners since there aren’t many options preventing you from feeling overwhelmed.

ConvertKit Review: Opt-in Form Features

Pros

• Unlimited opt-in forms available on all plans, including the free plan
• Unlimited traffic
• Different forms; embedded forms, popups, sticky bar
• You can tweak the form with custom CSS
• GDPR features
• One of the easiest-to-use double-opt-in features

Cons

• Limited customization options that don’t require CSS changes

Opt-in form templates

ConvertKit gives you four options when creating a form (see screenshot below).

The inline form is a sign up form you can use inside your blog posts, in the widget area of your website, or at the bottom. The screenshot below shows an example of how the website https://tim.blog/ uses ConvertKit to create an inline form at the right-hand side of the website (widget area).

Aside from the sticky bar, they all have the same nine pre-designed templates for you to choose from.

You’ll see different display options when choosing the inline, modal, or slide-in form. For example, the modal form is a popup you trigger on exit intent, scroll percentage, timing, or when someone clicks on a link/button.

GDPR

The EU GDPR and the UK GDPR are regulations for data privacy. Simply put, you must have received consent before legally sending a subscriber an email. 

ConvertKit offers you two options to help you receive consent from new subs.

Option 1: show all subscribers a popup after they opt in.

In your ConvertKit settings tab, the GDPR setting enables you to show all new opt-ins a popup after they opt-in (see screenshot below).

After they fill in their email address and click the subscribe button, they see a popup with the GDPR consent questions (see screenshot below). 

When someone enters their email address and agrees to one or both checkboxes, ConvertKit will automatically add one or two tags. The next time you send a newsletter, you exclude all contacts that don’t have these tags.

The problem you might encounter with this popup is that you can’t change anything you see on the popup, including the language. Multiple posts in ConvertKit’s community ask how they can modify or translate the text on the popup. Some of these community posts are from 2019, i.e., implementing such an editing feature isn’t a high priority to ConvertKit.

Option 2: add GDPR consent checkboxes to your opt-in forms

You can add a new field to the opt-in form when creating a form or landing page. Then, you can show them a dropdown or checkboxes for consent for more emails/newsletters later down the line. You can see an example of using checkboxes below. The advantage of doing it this way is that you can decide what text you want to use instead of using the default text.

You can see an example of using a dropdown below.

Then, when sending a newsletter, you can segment your audience so you only send emails to the subscribers who gave you consent. Every month or so, you can delete the subscribers from your list that didn’t give you consent since you aren’t legally allowed to email them anyway.

Double-opt-in setup

Every sign up form or landing page has the same double-opt-in settings page (see screenshot below). When enabling the send incentive email, a contact who signs up for one of your forms/landing pages will receive a confirmation email. 

If you enabled the double-opt-in setting, everyone signing up would receive the email below. It’s called the confirmation email. The double-opt-in setup aims to prevent typos, fake subscribers, spammers, and bots. Remember that you only send newsletters to the ones that confirm their email addresses if you enable the double-opt-in setup.

You can change the above email to your liking, e.g., if you promote a free ebook with your sign up form, then the below confirmation email might make more sense to your subscriber. Note that you can also change the button text if you’d like.

ConvertKit makes it easy for you to distribute a free ebook because you easily upload a file to their servers and that file will open once your new subscriber clicks on the confirm my subscription button.

For further reading, check out the pages below on ConvertKit’s website:

• The Incentive Email
• The All Important Double Opt-in 

ConvertKit Review: Support

• No support in the free plan
• ConvertKit offers excellent support through live chat

Its first premium plan (Creator) offers live chat (with the helpdesk software Intercom) and email support. The second premium plan (Creator Pro) offers priority live chat and email support. 

I was a ConvertKit’s Creator customer, and of my last three support requests using the live chat, an employee responded within a few minutes to my question no matter what time I sent them a message. Offering live chat support 24/7 is a must because it’s very annoying when getting stuck while setting up your email marketing. ConvertKit does a great job in its support.

ConvertKit Review: Reporting

Keep track of subscriber growth

• The dashboard to keep track of subscriber growth is available on all plans, including the free plan

ConvertKit offers one of the best reports to keep track of your subscriber growth. Firstly, you can select a custom period. Secondly, you can see how many new subscribers joined, how many unsubscribed, and the total net result. Lastly, you also have a nice graph that visually displays it.

If you’re only interested in seeing the total subscribers in your account, you can use the graph in the screenshot below. Here as well, you can select a custom period.

If you’re only interested in seeing the results of a particular segment, form, tag, etcetera, you use the filter feature. Sadly, there’s no comparison feature to compare X with Y.

Email reporting

Sadly, ConvertKit doesn’t offer an overview of how many emails you sent in a given period as it does with your subscriber growth. I want a similar dashboard where I can customize the period to see how many newsletters I have sent.

Why is there a need for this information? Knowing what’s happening is the best way to improve your business. That includes how many emails you sent, how many got opened, how much revenue you generated through your emails, etcetera. Especially when deciding where to invest new/more recourses, you must have access to this information.

ConvertKit does show an overview of your latest campaigns, but it doesn’t offer a complete overview.

To give you an example of what I mean, Sendinblue does offer an excellent overview of how many emails I have sent in a custom period (see the screenshot below of Sendinblue’s dashboard). Click here to read my Sendinblue review.

Signup form & landing page reports

The screenshot below shows the reporting dashboard of your forms and landing pages. When hovering your mouse over the graph, you can see that every block represents a specific form or landing page. It also shows the number of subscribers for that given month for that form/landing page. 

I can’t say that I’m a big fan of how ConvertKit presents this data since it makes it unclear when you have many different forms and landing pages – I would rather see a list I can sort. 

Moreover, there’s no way to see the total number of opt-ins for a custom period. I can only see the number of sign ups for a specific landing page or sign up form. So yes, I can see roughly how much it is, following the horizontal line to the Y-axis, but I prefer to see the actual number.

There’s a workaround for seeing the total number of subscribers for your forms or landing pages, and that’s using the dashboard and filter features I showed you in the Keep track of subscriber growth section.

All-in-all, I feel ConvertKit should improve its reporting features for its sign up forms and landing pages.

Transactional emails

ConvertKit’s tool isn’t for transactional emails.

ConvertKit’s History

ConvertKit was founded in January 2013 by Nathan Barry. Two years later, their monthly recurring revenue was somewhat around $5,000. Then somewhere in the second to the third quarter of 2015, something changed, and they jumped to $42,000 in recurring monthly revenue, and after that moment, the revenue kept going up and up.

In October 2020, they had a monthly recurring revenue of slightly more than $2,000,000. 

ConvertKit grew hard thanks to an influencer

What happened in 2015 when ConvertKit suddenly grew that hard is thanks to Pat Flynn of SmartPassiveIncome.com. He hopped on board and became an early adopter and affiliate of ConvertKit. Pat Flynn had a massive following online in the making money online niche, and most of them followed his advice; start an email list, grow your email list, and use ConvertKit. He had a lot of influence in the space ConvertKit tried to enter, which had a massive impact on its growth.

Pat Flynn launched podcast episodes, blog posts, and YouTube videos about ConvertKit’s product and story. On October 19, 2015, Pat Flynn published a blog post about why he switched from AWeber to Infusionsoft to ConvertKit.

On October 29, 2015, Pat Flynn published a podcast episode where he interviewed the founder of ConvertKit to tell his story about how he built ConvertKit and what problem he’s solving for its customers.

From that moment on, Pat Flynn kept promoting ConvertKit like a sales machine, resulting in many new customers for ConvertKit.

It’s a great case of an influencer marketing success story. Of course, if ConvertKit didn’t deliver on all the promises Pat Flynn made, it wouldn’t be as successful as today, so definitely, kudos to Nathan Barry and all its colleagues of ConvertKit. But still, without the help of Pat Flynn, who had a massive following online, who knows what would’ve happened to ConvertKit? Such a great lesson that influencer marketing is vital for companies, especially in those early years, and even more when the founder bootstrapped the company as Nathan did, without big investors’ help.

ConvertKit’s founder and CEO, Nathan Barry, aims to build ConvertKit into a billion-dollar company. You can see the screenshot below of one of his personal blogs.

ConvertKits annual revenue is $30 million

How much is ConvertKit worth? There’s no definite answer to that question; therefore, we can look at another recently sold company.

On September 13, 2021, MailChimp announced that Intuit acquired MailChimp for $12 billion. According to a Forbes article, MailChimp was on track to cross the $1 billion revenue mark in 2021. So, MailChimp’s valuation is a multiple of 12 of its annual revenue.

ConvertKit’s annual revenue is around $29 million. If we do the same multiplier of 12, the total valuation of ConvertKit is $348 million. Building a billion-dollar company requires more customers and/or a higher average revenue per user. To accomplish that goal, they need to expand horizontally and vertically, i.e., adding new products to the mix to reach a broader audience. Besides that, they also need to add more features to the ConvertKit arsenal if they want to raise their prices or add extra plans. And that’s what they’re doing. At the beginning of 2020, ConvertKit launched Creator Pro, an additional, more expensive premium plan. Furthermore, they added ConvertKit Commerce to their feature list. 

Click here to visit ConvertKit’s website.

Read more: ConvertKit vs MailerLite

Frequently asked questions

ConvertKit alternatives

If you’re looking for a great free email marketing tool, I suggest MailerLite. MailerLite offers the best free plan in the market. Remember, MailerLite is also an excellent solution if you’re looking for a low-budget email marketing tool with great features. Read our MailerLite review here.

If user-friendliness, the best product, and the most comprehensive marketing automation features are essential to you, I suggest ActiveCampaign (ActiveCampaign review). A cheaper alternative to ActiveCampaign, with still great automation features, is GetResponse (GetResponse review).

If you’re looking for an email marketing tool with SMS functionalities build for ecommerce companies, check out Klaviyo.

If you only send one or two monthly newsletters, Sendinblue might be a great fit since it offers an excellent price for the ones that don’t send that many emails. Aside from the price, it also provides a great set of features. Read our Sendinblue review here.

Read/watch more:

Check out our ConvertKit vs MailerLite video below or read our article.

Check out our ConvertKit vs Mailchimp video below or read our article.

What is the best email marketing software? I’ve thoroughly tested the 10 most popular email marketing tools. Read out my FULL roundup review here or watch the video below.