Mailchimp vs ConvertKit vs Beehiiv

If you are comparing Mailchimp vs ConvertKit vs Beehiiv, you are probably deciding between three very different ideas of what an email platform should be. Mailchimp is the broad marketing platform with a long history, ConvertKit—now branded as Kit—focuses on creators building audience and selling digital products, and Beehiiv is built around newsletter growth, monetization, and publication-style publishing. All three can send email. The real question is which one matches how you plan to grow.

This comparison focuses on official pricing pages and the practical tradeoffs that matter once you move beyond a simple feature checklist. We are looking at subscriber limits, sending limits, automation depth, monetization tools, websites and landing pages, analytics, support, and who each tool serves best. If you want a broader view of software selection frameworks, see our productivity app comparison guide. If you are also comparing collaboration tooling around your marketing stack, these guides on Trello vs Asana vs Monday and Slack vs Microsoft Teams are useful companion reads.

Core Feature Comparison

Pricing Comparison

Pricing is where these tools diverge the most. Mailchimp still uses a more variable pricing model tied closely to contacts and plan selection, while ConvertKit and Beehiiv make stronger product promises around creator and newsletter growth. The official pages also reveal something important: ConvertKit and Beehiiv are much more explicit about what you get at each tier, while Mailchimp frames pricing more around plan families and growth stages.

Mailchimp: Best for Broader Marketing Use Cases

Mailchimp is the most familiar name in this comparison, and that matters because many teams are not just buying a newsletter tool. They are buying something that can support email campaigns, forms, templates, customer journeys, and a wider marketing motion. On its official pricing page, Mailchimp positions Standard as the plan for selling more with automations, personalization, and optimization tools, while Premium emphasizes phone and priority support, popup forms, multivariate and A/B testing, enhanced automation flows, predictive segmentation, and dedicated onboarding.

The free plan is the smallest here in pure contact count: under 250 contacts. That makes Mailchimp less generous for audience-first businesses at the earliest stage, especially compared with ConvertKit's 10,000-subscriber free Newsletter plan and Beehiiv's 2,500-subscriber Launch plan. But Mailchimp is not trying to win only on free generosity. It is trying to win on maturity, brand familiarity, and the sense that you are buying into a platform designed for more traditional marketing teams, not just individual creators.

Where Mailchimp stands out

Mailchimp makes the most sense when your email program sits inside a broader business workflow. If you care about popup forms, onboarding support, multivariate testing, and predictive segmentation, Mailchimp feels closer to a classic marketing stack than the other two options. It is often easier to justify inside a company that already thinks in terms of campaigns, segments, and brand templates rather than creator funnels or publication monetization.

Where Mailchimp is weaker

For pure newsletter operators, Mailchimp looks less generous and less purpose-built. The fetched pricing content does not expose as much transparent plan detail as ConvertKit and Beehiiv, and the free plan's 250-contact ceiling is restrictive. If your business model depends on audience growth, creator monetization, or running multiple publication-style properties, Mailchimp is harder to argue for unless you specifically need its broader marketing orientation.

ConvertKit (Kit): Best for Creators Selling to an Audience

ConvertKit, now branded publicly as Kit on its pricing page, is still one of the clearest creator-first products in this category. The official pricing page lays out the value proposition directly. The Newsletter plan starts at $0 per month. Creator is listed at $33 per month when billed yearly, and Pro at $66 per month billed yearly. The fetched page also shows up to 10,000 subscribers, unlimited landing pages, unlimited forms, a newsletter feed and website, custom domains, recommendations, tagging, segmentation, automated email sequences, visual automation, product selling, paid newsletters, recurring subscriptions, and tip jars.

This is the most creator-native option of the three. Instead of assuming a traditional marketing department, ConvertKit assumes you are building an audience and may want to earn directly from it. Paid newsletters, recurring subscriptions, digital products, and a lightweight website are not side features here. They are central. That makes ConvertKit especially attractive for solo operators, coaches, writers, educators, and niche media businesses that need email, product sales, and automations without buying multiple tools.

Where ConvertKit stands out

The biggest strength is balance. ConvertKit gives creators a relatively generous entry point, a strong automation story, and built-in monetization paths. The visual automation builder is a major differentiator because it lets you move from basic broadcasts into behavior-based journeys without the feel of an enterprise platform. The pricing page also makes user allowances clear: 1 user on Newsletter, 2 on Creator, unlimited on Pro. That matters once a creator business becomes a team.

Where ConvertKit is weaker

ConvertKit is not trying to be the broadest all-purpose marketing cloud or the most aggressively growth-engineered newsletter publication stack. If your business depends on ad network revenue, multi-publication scale, or publication-level media operations, Beehiiv may look more specialized. If you need the conventional language and features of a more established business marketing platform, Mailchimp may fit better. ConvertKit sits in the middle: focused, creator-first, and practical, but not as media-centric as Beehiiv.

Beehiiv: Best for Newsletter Growth and Media-Style Publishing

Beehiiv is the most opinionated product in this comparison. Its pricing page is written for newsletter operators who care about growth loops, monetization, publications, and scale. Launch is free at up to 2,500 subscribers. Scale is $43 per month billed annually. Max is $96 per month billed annually. Enterprise is custom. The official pricing content also highlights the ad network, boosts network, 0% take rate on paid subscriptions, digital products, surveys and polls, webhooks, advanced website analytics, multiple publications, team seats, and monetization tools.

Beehiiv feels less like a generic email tool and more like an operating system for running a newsletter business. Recommendation network, boosts, sponsorship storefronts, audio newsletters, RSS to send, and multiple publications are all signals that the product is designed for publication growth, not just sending campaigns. For people building a newsletter as a business, that matters more than raw email capability because growth and monetization are usually the real constraint.

Where Beehiiv stands out

Beehiiv has the strongest newsletter-business orientation of the three. The free plan is more generous than Mailchimp's, and the higher tiers are explicit about publications, teams, monetization, and advanced analytics. The Scale plan includes ads, boosts, paid subscriptions with a 0% take rate, automations, and human support. Max adds branding removal, sponsorship storefront, audio newsletters, up to 10 publications, unlimited seats, and priority support. If you think like a publisher, Beehiiv is immediately intuitive.

Where Beehiiv is weaker

Beehiiv is less universal than Mailchimp and less creator-product-centric than ConvertKit. If your model is not publication-driven, some of Beehiiv's strengths may feel like extra surface area. Businesses that need standard marketing-team workflows may prefer Mailchimp, while solo creators whose core monetization is courses, memberships, or downloads rather than a publication business may prefer ConvertKit's product and subscriber management balance.

Which Platform Is Best for Different Use Cases?

Best for small businesses with broader marketing needs: Mailchimp

Choose Mailchimp if email is one piece of a broader marketing operation and you care more about classic campaign management, optimization, forms, templates, and support than about newsletter monetization mechanics. It is the safest choice for teams that want a familiar business marketing platform.

Best for creators, educators, and solo operators: ConvertKit

Choose ConvertKit if you are building an audience you may also sell to directly. It offers the strongest all-around package for creators who need broadcasts, forms, landing pages, automations, paid newsletters, digital products, and subscriptions in one place without moving into enterprise complexity.

Best for newsletter businesses and modern media brands: Beehiiv

Choose Beehiiv if your newsletter is the business. If acquisition loops, referrals, recommendations, ads, sponsorships, and running one or more publications are central to your model, Beehiiv is the most purpose-built platform here.

Final Verdict