ConvertKit vs MailerLite (2026): Cost by List Size and Limits

You are picking an email tool for a creator business, and the choice is down to Kit (the company formerly called ConvertKit) or MailerLite. Two numbers decide it: what each costs at the list size you will actually have this year, and whether the free plan lets you run the welcome sequence you have in mind. Both are below, taken from each company’s own pricing and help pages on October 12, 2026, along with a table that names a pick for each stage of a creator’s list.

Neither tool was tested hands-on for this comparison. Everything below comes from the vendors’ pricing pages, billing rules and help documentation.

The short answer

If a single welcome sequence is all the automation you need, Kit’s free plan is the cheaper tool all the way to 10,000 subscribers, because it costs $0 the whole way. MailerLite’s free plan stops at 250 subscribers.

Once you pay, MailerLite’s Comfort plan is the cheapest option at every size where both companies publish a price, as long as its send cap fits your schedule. That cap works out to about ten emails to your full list per month.

Against MailerLite’s uncapped Power plan, it depends on size and billing. At 1,000 subscribers on annual billing, Kit Creator costs $390 a year and MailerLite Power $421.20. At 2,500, MailerLite Power is cheaper either way.

What Kit and MailerLite cost at 1,000, 2,500, 5,000 and 10,000 subscribers

Prices as of October 2026, collected October 12, 2026 from kit.com/pricing (slider read in a browser at each size), Kit’s billing help, and MailerLite’s pricing tiers. Yearly figures are the full year’s charge. Kit’s 2,500 figure is its 3,000-subscriber tier, the one a 2,500 list falls into.

Where the numbers come from: Kit Creator is $39 a month at the 1,000 tier and $59 at the 3,000 tier, and Kit’s annual plans give 12 months for the price of 10. Kit’s pricing page shows the same thing from the other side: $390 billed yearly, “save $78 per year”. MailerLite’s tier table lists every price above, with yearly billing at 10% off.

Kit publishes the 1,000 and 3,000 tiers in its help center, but its prices at 5,000 and 10,000 appear only on the slider of its pricing page, so those four cells are a reading of that slider on October 12, 2026. One result surprised us: at 10,000 subscribers on yearly billing, Kit Creator ($1,390) and MailerLite Power ($1,393.20) land within a few dollars of each other. Recheck the slider before you decide, because a slider can change without a dated announcement.

What the table shows is a split decision. MailerLite Comfort is the cheapest paid plan wherever both companies publish a price, at roughly half of Kit Creator at 1,000 and 2,500. Kit’s free plan beats both MailerLite plans everywhere up to 10,000, as long as one automation is enough. And at 1,000 subscribers on annual billing, Kit Creator undercuts MailerLite Power by $31.20 a year.

For six tools priced the same way, including beehiiv, Mailchimp and Buttondown, see the email marketing tools comparison for creators.

Monthly or annual: the discount that changes the answer

The two companies discount annual billing differently, and that gap is larger than most people expect.

Kit’s annual plans are 12 months for the price of 10. That is about 17% off, which matches the “save 17%” label on its pricing page. At the 1,000 tier you save $78 a year; at the 3,000 tier, $118.

MailerLite’s annual discount is 10%. At 1,000 subscribers that saves $22.80 a year on Comfort and $46.80 on Power.

That is why the 1,000-subscriber comparison flips. Month to month, Kit Creator and MailerLite Power are both $39. Paid yearly, Kit is cheaper.

Before you commit to a year, read the refund terms. Kit refunds payments made within the last 30 days on cancellation and does not refund or prorate anything older, annual plans included. If you are unsure the tool fits, pay monthly for the first two months and switch once you are sure. Kit lets you move from monthly to annual in account settings; going back from annual to monthly takes effect only at the end of the annual cycle.

Kit Pro, the tier above Creator, starts at $79 a month for up to 1,000 subscribers. As of October 2026 its pricing page shows a first-year promotion on yearly Pro, $593 for the first year, renewing at the standard rate after that.

Free plans and automation limits side by side

Free-plan limits as of October 2026, from Kit’s Newsletter plan help article and pricing page and MailerLite’s pricing page and billing help.

Paid automation limits are simpler. Kit’s paid plans include unlimited visual automations and sequences, plus rules and integrations. MailerLite Comfort allows 50 active automations of up to 100 steps; Power removes the automation cap, keeps 100 steps, and adds multiple triggers per automation.

One wrinkle on Kit. Its pricing page grid shows a dash for visual automations and sequences on the free plan, while the help center article on the free plan says one basic automation and one sequence are included. This page follows the help center, which is more specific. If that single sequence is the reason you are choosing Kit, build it in the first week and confirm it sends.

The practical reading: MailerLite’s free plan gives you more automations but almost no list. Kit’s free plan gives you a large list but one automation. A creator with a single freebie and a five-email welcome series fits Kit’s free plan comfortably. A creator who wants a separate sequence per lead magnet will hit Kit’s limit on day one, and MailerLite’s subscriber cap within weeks if the freebie works.

How each one bills you as the list grows

The sticker price is only half of what you pay. The other half is how each company counts subscribers and what happens when you cross a tier.

MailerLite counts unique subscribers with an active status, and it uses a cumulative count for the billing cycle. Anyone who was active at any point during the cycle counts, even if you delete them later that month. Cleaning your list lowers next cycle’s bill, not this one. Unsubscribed and bounced contacts do not count.

MailerLite also upgrades you automatically when you pass your tier, and on Comfort it upgrades you if you pass the email limit. That limit is ten times your tier’s ceiling per month. On the 2,500 tier, that is 25,000 emails, or ten sends to the whole list. A weekly newsletter uses four or five of those. Add a launch week with a daily email and you are over. After an email-limit upgrade, MailerLite returns you to the tier that matches your subscriber count at renewal.

Kit bills on confirmed, active subscribers, not on emails sent. When you pass your tier, Kit upgrades you automatically and prorates. Its help center walks through a monthly account moving from $39 to $59 with 10 days left in the period: a $12.67 credit, a $19.67 charge, and a next bill of $66. Downgrades are manual. You switch to a lower tier yourself once your count is below its limit, and the lower price starts on the next billing date.

If your list grows in bursts, after a video does well or a collaboration runs, both tools will move you up without asking. Kit will not move you back down on its own.

Automation: tags and sequences vs one workflow builder

The two tools think about automation differently, and the difference matters more than the feature checklists suggest.

Kit splits the job into pieces. Sequences are timed series of emails. Visual automations route subscribers into them, and rules handle single “when this happens, tag them” steps without a full workflow. Rules arrive with the paid plans, and paid plans have no cap on automations or sequences.

MailerLite puts everything in one workflow builder. Each automation holds its own emails, delays and conditions, up to 100 steps on paid plans. Comfort caps you at 50 active automations, and multiple triggers per workflow are a Power feature.

Which works better depends on how many products you sell. A creator with one ebook and one welcome series will not feel the difference. A creator running three lead magnets, a course launch and a post-purchase series is where they part ways. Kit’s tags-plus-sequences model is built for subscribers who belong to several funnels at once. MailerLite’s single builder is easier to read when each funnel stands on its own. If your funnels overlap, lean Kit; if they don’t, MailerLite’s lower price is hard to argue with.

The reason to care about this at all is that automation is what keeps selling when you stop pushing. When I sold an ebook, sales stopped once I stopped paying for ads, and I closed it. What I did not have was anything that kept working after the ads were off. A welcome sequence that pitches the product to every new subscriber is the cheapest version of that, and it is the one thing to check each free plan against.

Selling an ebook or course: fees per sale

Both tools let you sell through Stripe. The fee structures differ.

Kit charges 3.5% + $0.30 per US-dollar transaction and says this is the only cost of selling through Kit; Stripe processes the payment. Commerce is available on every Kit plan, including the free one.

MailerLite says it takes zero commission on digital products and subscriptions and charges only the monthly plan fee. Stripe’s standard US fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per successful card charge applies. MailerLite’s pricing page lists 1 digital product on Free, 5 on Comfort and unlimited on Power, while its help article on Stripe products describes selling under the Comfort or Power plan.

On a $20 ebook, that is $1.00 to Kit against $0.88 to Stripe through MailerLite. On a $49 course, $2.02 against $1.72. Over 100 sales of the $49 course, MailerLite’s route keeps $29.40 more. International cards add 1.5% at Stripe.

That gap is real but small. At 100 sales a year, it is less than one month of either paid plan. The bigger number is still the subscription fee in the cost table. Choose on automation and list size, and treat the sales fee as a tiebreaker. For setting the price itself, see how to price a digital product.

Which one at which stage

A pick for each stage of a creator’s list, using the prices and limits above (as of October 2026).

Two rows deserve a comment. For a YouTuber whose list sits behind the channel, the second row is the one. Kit’s free plan covers the landing page, the freebie and one welcome sequence at no cost until the list is large enough to justify paying, which is why that row points to Kit’s free plan. The setup steps are in how to build an email list from YouTube.

For a creator who sends often and watches every dollar, MailerLite Power beats Kit Creator at 2,500 on published prices, and Comfort wins outright if the send cap fits. Kit is not the cheaper paid tool in that case, whatever its free plan suggests.

If the newsletter itself is the product rather than a sales channel, the comparison that matters is a different one: see Kit vs beehiiv. More tool comparisons are in the tool stack category.

Write down your expected list size twelve months from now and how many emails you plan to send in your busiest week. Find that row in the stage table, then open the matching pricing page and confirm the number before you import a single contact.