Which one will you choose among ConvertKit & MailerLite? A Little bit confused, Right? Yeah! Both MailerLite & ConvertKit are great email marketing tools. And they are pretty different email marketing software. So, it really depends on what exactly you want for your specific business. MailerLite is more focused on Small businesses and ConvertKit is mainly focused on bloggers and content marketers. I tested both email marketing tools. Below is a complete review of ConvertKit Vs MailerLite. By the end of this comparison, you can decide which one is the right option for you.
Quick Summary
ConvertKit
- Text-based Emails
- Built-in lead capture pages
- High deliverability rate
- Built-in email Sequences
- The free version is Available Forever with limited features.
- Good for content Marketers, Bloggers, & Single Business owners
- Website: https://convertkit.com
MailerLite
- Drag & Drop email builder
- More integrations
- Better analytics & Reporting
- Split testing for different versions
- Better customer support
- Affordable
- Free version available. It includes 14 -a day free trial with premium features features
- Good for small corporate business
- Website: https://www.mailerlite.com/
What is ConvertKit?
Convertkit is one of the fastest-growing email marketing companies in the world. It’s easy to use, its visual automation workflow is great, and so many other features make ConvertKit unique. They are providing customizable landing pages and sign-up forms.
Who uses: Single business owners, Bloggers, Content marketers.
What is MailerLite?
MailerLite is one of the best and most affordable email marketing tools in the Market. Its interface is pretty cool and it is easy to use. You will get most of the features of email marketing in its free version. MailerLite focused on providing more features at a low cost to its customers.
Who uses: Beginners, Small business organizations
FAQs
Why you should use ConvertKit over MailerLite
- They have Built-in lead capture pages: ConvertKit has customizable and attractive landing pages for capturing leads. You can save some money by not having Lead Pageservices like Unbounce, Leadpages, Instapage, etc.
- Built-in email Sequences: To create something like ConvertKit’s Sequences on MailerLite, you have to manually create an Automation, which is an inconvenient process compared to ConvertKit’s Sequence builder.
- It has an easy-to-use editor for simple emails. ConvertKit makes it very easy to compose plain emails or text-based emails.
Why you should use MailerLite over ConvertKit
- More email templates: If you want many design options for email templates, MailerLite easily beat ConvertKit.
- MailerLite is more affordable than ConvertKit.
- In its free version, you will get most of the features. And also they are providing a 14-days free trial with most of the premium features like Newsletter templates, Promotion pop-ups, Click maps, Live chat, etc. within the free plan.
- It is easy to use and easy to set up.
- Analytics and reporting are better in MailerLite compared to ConvertKit.
- There are some special blocks like Coupons, Countdown, applications, events, etc. present in the Email builder.
- Automation is available in the free version.
Difference Between ConvertKit & MailerLite
- MailerLite is more affordable than ConvertKit. You will get so many important features for a low price in MailerLite than ConvertKit.
- MailerLite has more templates than ConvertKit. ConvertKit is mainly focused on Text-based templates.
- MailerLite has a drag and drop feature in the email editor and Landing page editor that ConvertKit doesn’t have.
- MailerLite has more integration compared to ConvertKit.
- Customer support is better in MailerLite compared to ConvertKit.
- ConvertKit has more Landing page templates than in MailerLite.
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Some of the common features of ConvertKit and MailerLite & their rating are given below.
| Email Marketing Features | ConvertKit | MailerLite |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of use |  5Easy to use. Best for beginners. | 5 Easy to use. Best for small businesses. |
| A/B Split Testing | 3 Only for the subject line | 4.5 For different versions like subject line, content, name, etc. |
| Apps & Integration | 4 | 4.5 |
| Automation | 4.5 Great visual automation. | 5 Great visual automation. |
| Analytics & Report | 3 Basic reporting | 4 Better reporting |
| Contact Management | 5 | 5 |
| Deliverability | 5 Around 99% deliverability rate | 4 |
| Email Builder | 4 Limited customization option | 5 With a lot of features like Countdown, coupons, etc. |
| Landing pages | 4 Around 60 templates. No drag and drop feature in the editor. | 4.5 Around 15 templates. Drag and drop editor with a lot of features. |
| Templates & Designs | 3.5 A limited number of templates | 4.5 Plenty of beautiful templates |
| List segmentation | 5 | 5 |
| Customer support | 3 | 5 Better customer support |
| Value for money | 4.5 | 5 Affordable. |
Let’s check out these comparisons also.
1. Contact Management
>> ConvertKit
ConvertKit allows you to add only one subscriber’s list. But you can organize the subscribers by segments and tag. You can give tags to the subscribers based on your interest. And also you can create segments of contacts with similar characteristics. If you import more contacts, they all will go to the same previous list. You can add subscribers in the ConvertKit using 3 ways. You can simply add the subscribers manually, you can import CSV files or you can import the contacts from another provider like Mailchimp, Mailerlite, etc. You can also create segments and give tags to the contacts. List management in ConvertKit is given below.
>> MailerLite
Adding subscribers to MailerLite is simple. You can add it in different ways. You can add a single subscriber, you can import from a CSV or TXT file, you can copy & paste from an excel sheet, and you can import from Mailchimp also. You can also group different lists.
MailerLite also provides you with list segmenting. You can segment your customers according to their behavior like signup source, location, date, etc.
Key Take-Aways: Contact Management in ConvertKit is easy. It has both tagging & segmentation options and also you can import from other tools like MailChimp, MailerLite, etc. In MailerLite, you can import from MailChimp only. And also, the contact group option and segmentation option will confuse us in Mailerlite
Winner of Contact Management: ConvertKit
ConvertKit : 1 – 0 : MailerLite
2. Templates & Design
>> ConvertKit
ConvertKit is mainly focused on text-only emails. There are mainly 3 options for templates in ConvertKit. They are Classic, Modern, and Text only. Among these, text-only is only focusing on the text. So there are only 2 templates. We can only change the appearance of the font by changing font style, font color, etc. and we can add images and links also. If you are an expert, you can code your own email templates using HTML editor. ConvertKit is not a design-centric email marketing tool. But the studies are saying that the deliverability of the emails is high for non-design-centric emails. A text-based email will most likely end up in the inbox and not in the Spam folder.
>> MailerLite
Templates of MailerLite are templates-based. It provides you with around 80 templates. All are good-looking and attractive templates. These templates are categorized into different sections like E-Commerce, Announcements, Deals & offers, etc.
Key Take-Aways: MailerLite has plenty of templated compared to ConvertKit. All are beautiful templates. In ConvertKit there are only a few templates. All of them are text-based. Customization options are also limited in ConvertKit.
Winner of Templates & Design: MailerLite
ConvertKit : 1 – 1 : MailerLite
3. Campaigns
>> ConvertKit
The campaign of ConvertKit comes under the send option. You can send broadcasts and also sequences. Broadcast is a one-time email to your customers. By sequences, you can create multiple emails that can be sent in a specific interval of time. In ConvertKit, the email campaign is called Broadcast.
You can create an A/B test from the editor itself. There the A/B test is for the subject line. You can create 2 subject lines and test which subject line is performing better.
>> MailerLite
Campaign creation is an easy process in MailerLite. What you have to do is click the campaign option and just create the campaign. In MailerLite, Campaigns are categorized into different types. Regular Campaigns, A/B split campaigns, auto resend, and RSS campaigns. In a Regular campaign, you have to give the Campaign name, Subject, and Sender Name.
You can perform A/B split test for Name, Subject line, and Content. MailerLite allows you to perform the split tests for landing pages also.
After creating the campaign, it will lead you to the email design page. There you can select drag & drop editor, rich text editor, or custom HTML editor. Or you can select the templates also. Custom HTML is not available in the free version.
Key Take-Aways: MailerLite has more campaign creation options when compared to ConvertKit. There are regular campaigns, A/B split campaigns, RSS campaigns, etc.
Winner of Campaigns: MailerLite
ConvertKit : 1 – 2 : MailerLite
4. Email Builder
>> ConvertKit
Creating a broadcast in ConvertKit is very easy. And also the email builder is easy to use. There are only limited options present in the editor section. The email builders are text-based. So, the customization of only the text like changing font size, font color, and adding images is available. There are no drag and drop options available in the ConvertKit.
>> MailerLite
MailerLite has a drag & drop email builder. It contains several blocks like Gallery, Content, Button, E-commerce, special, etc. In its special block, there are so many unique features. They are Countdown, Accordion, Coupon/ Voucher, etc. It also allows you to sell digital products. You can also add products in the Email.
Key Take-Aways: The email builder of MailerLite has so many features. You can customize the email in your own way. You can add different blocks like Images, Coupons, Count downs, Tables, etc. But ConvertKit’s email builder is very simple. It is text-based. You can add only text, images & links. (Note: Both of them have their own uniqueness. Studies are saying that the deliverability of the emails is high for non-design-centric emails). MailerLite won because it has a lot of features in email builder.
Winner of Email Builder: MailerLite
ConvertKit : 1 – 3 : MailerLite
5. Automation Workflow
>> ConvertKit
ConvertKit also has a great visual automation workflow. You can create your own automation workflow as well as you can use templates. There are so many options available for ConvertKit such as Event, Action, and Condition. Automation is available in the $9 and higher plan and not available in the free version.
>> MailerLite
MailerLite also provides you with a visual automation workflow. It has drag and drop triggers. There are six trigger options. They are “When a subscriber joins a group, completes a form or clicks a link, when the subscriber field is updated, and trigger for a specific date”. Automations are available in the Free version.
Key Take-Aways: Both of them provide you with a visual automation workflow. The difference is that, in ConvertKit, we can add triggers and conditions from within the workflow itself. But in MailerLite, we have to drag and drop the triggers and conditions.
Winner of Automation: Its a tie
ConvertKit : 2 – 4 : MailerLite
6. Analytics & Report
>> ConvertKit
ConvertKit is providing only the basic analytics & Report. You can only see the Open rate, Click rate, and Unsubscribers rate. If you are connected to an eCommerce store, you won’t even get the conversion rate. You can’t get the social media conversion and also bounce rate.
>> MailerLite
MailerLite provides you with better analytics & Report compared to ConvertKit. You can see Spam complaints, Hard bounce, Soft bounce, reading environment, Opens by location, etc. You can also see the basic reporting like open rate, click rate, and unsubscribed rate.
Key Take-Aways: MailerLite has better Analytics & reports compared to ConvertKit. It provides more reports like spam complaints, opens by location, reading environment, etc. other than basic reporting. ConvertKit provides you only basic reporting like open rate, click rate, and unsubscribed rate.
Winner of Analytics & Reporting: MailerLite
ConvertKit : 2 – 5 : MailerLite
7. Landing Pages & Website Builder
>> ConvertKit
ConvertKit has its own landing page builder. Also, it provides you with around 60 Landing page templates. The templates are categorized into Events, Links, newsletters, podcasts, etc. There are no drag and drop options available in the Landing page builder also. What you can do is customize the font and edit the images. The editing option is limited.
>> MailerLite
There are around 15 templates are available on the Landing page of MailerLite. The drag and drop option is available in the editor and also there are so many blocks are there. You can add text, images, links, sign-up forms, surveys, quizzes, count dows, etc. You can also edit and customize the image and font style.
Key Take-Aways: The number of templates is higher in ConvertKit. But its customization options are limited. In MailerLite, you will get drag and drop editor with a lot of features.
Winner of Landing page & Website Builder: MailerLite
ConvertKit : 2 – 6 : MailerLite
8. Pricing Comparison
>> ConvertKit
ConvertKit has a free version and as well a paid version. But its free version is very limited. The Pricing plan of ConvertKit is given below.
Free: Up to 1000 subscribers, Unlimited landing pages & forms, Send email broadcasts, Sell digital products & Subscription, Community support
Creator: $9 /month Features of Free plan + Free migration from another tool, Automated funnels & Sequences.
Creator Pro: $25 /month Creator plan features + Facebook custom audience, Newsletter referral system, Subscriber scoring. Advanced reporting.
>> MailerLite
MailerLite is one of the affordable email marketing tools. Its pricing depends on the number of subscribers. It has a Free version and also paid version. We will get most of the features in its free version itself. And also in its free plan, they are providing a 14-day free trial with the premium features like Newsletter templates, Auto Resend, Promotion pop-ups, Click maps, and Live chat. The pricing plan of MailerLite is given below.
Free: Drag & Drop editor, Landing pages, Email automation, Segmentation, A/B testing, Email Campaign reports, Integration, etc.
Premium Plan: A/B split testing, Unlimited domains, Create templates, Click maps, Open by location, Auto-resend, Promotional pop-ups, Newsletter templates, etc.
The Pricing Comparison of ConvertKit and MailerLite based on features is given below.
| Features | ConvertKit ($9 /mo) | MailerLite ($10 /mo) |
|---|---|---|
| Number of Subscribers | 300 | 1000 |
| Create Landing pages | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Drag & Drop editor |  |  |
| Rich Text Editor | | |
| Templates | Only limited-text based templates | |
| Create customized templates | | |
| A/B Testing | For subject line only | For different versions |
| Use custom domains | | Unlimited |
| Unlimited traffic | | |
| Create signup forms | Unlimited | |
| Subscriber management | | |
| Advanced tagging & Segmentation | | |
| Facebook custom audiences | For $25 /mo | You have to integrate with Zapier. |
| Send email | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Visual automation funnels | | |
| 70+ direct integrations & API | | |
| Deliverability reporting | For $25 /mo | |
| Run a paid newsletter | | You have to integrate with Stripe. |
| Mobile-friendly email newsletters | | |
| Priority live chat & email support | $25 /mo | $100 /mo |
| Mobile-optimized landing pages | | |
| Survey and quiz | | |
| Built-in photo editing | | |
| File Manager | | |
| Auto resend | For broadcast option only. | |
| Deliver by time zone | | |
| Multi-user accounts | 1 User | |
Key Take-Aways: MailerLite is affordable when compared to ConvertKit. Both of them have a free version. But ConvertKit’s free version is available with limited features. MailerLite’s free version contains more features including automation. And also, its free version includes a 14-days free trial with most of the premium features.
ConvertKit : 2 – 7 : MailerLite
9. Integration
>> ConvertKit
ConvertKit has around 100 integrations. It is integrated with popular apps and websites like Shopify, Squarespace, WordPress, Zapier, Woocommerce, etc. But they are not integrated with big CRMs. The list of some integration in ConvertKit is given below.
>> MailerLite
MailerLite has around 130 integrations. Integrations are categorized into Automation, Sign-up forms, Tools & Reports, Project management, etc. It is also integrated with popular apps and websites like Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce, Zapier, etc.
Key Take-Aways: Both of them have more than 100 integrations. They both are integrated with Zapier also. You can connect to more than 3000 apps using Zapier.
Winner of Integration: Its a Tie
ConvertKit : 3 – 8 : MailerLite
10. Customer Support
>> ConvertKit
ConvertKit offers email support and Live Chat support for all the customers (For free plans and also for higher plans), and also they are providing peer-to-peer support. They are providing limited live chat support on weekends. And also they are providing free quick migration for all plans and free advanced migration for importing 5k+ contacts. But the Customer support of ConvertKit is not that good. Because they are not providing better customer support. They will take time to reply to us.
>> MailerLite
All the support options like Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base, 24/7 (Live Rep), and Chat are available in MailerlIte. 24/7 customer support is available in the free version. In the 14-day free trial of the premium plan, you will get 24/7 live chat support. MailerLite provides you with better customer support.
Key Take-Aways: Customer support is better in MailerLite compared to ConvertKit.
ConvertKit : 3 – 9 : MailerLite
Alternatives of ConvertKit & MailerLite
>> Moosend
>> ActiveCampaign
>> SendInBlue
>> SendPulse
>> AWeber
>> Drip
>> Omnisend
>> Zoho Campaigns
>> Marketo
| ConvertKit | MailerLite | |
|---|---|---|
| Found in | Started in 2013. Headquarted in Boise, Idaho | Started in 2009. Headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania |
| Customer Geography | ConvertKit is getting around 55% traffic from USA and Canada. Given below is the customer geography of ConvertKit.  | MailerLite is getting around 37% traffic from the USA. Given below is the customer geography of MailerLite. |
| Organic Vs paid Traffic | ConvertKit is getting traffic from around 88% organic keywords and around 12% paid keywords. | MailerLite is getting traffic from around 82% organic keywords and around 18% paid keywords. |
| Top Website | The top websites that use ConvertKit is given below. >> Blogging For Devs >> RecipeTin Eats >> Sally's Baking Addiction >> Natasha's Kitchen >> Once Upon a Chef | The top website that uses MailerLite is given below. >> Bored Panda >> CakesDecor >> Design Connected >> KiwiTech >> Home Instead |
Conclusion
Both MailerLite & ConvertKit are good email marketing tools with a lot of features. In some of the features, MailerLite is a step ahead of ConvertKit. But in some are ConvertKit is better. It just depends upon your needs. Both of them provide you refund policy. MailerLite & ConvertKit varies in different factors. If you are a small business owner, non-profit organization, etc, you can opt for MailerLite. Because it is affordable when compared to other tools. ConvertKit is mainly focused sending on text-based emails. You can try both of them for free. ConvertKit has a free version with limited features. But MailerLite’s free version includes most of the features including automation. And also they are providing a 14-days free trial with most of the premium features like Newsletter templates, Promotion pop-ups, Click maps, Live chat, etc. within the free plan.
If you are an author, blogger, or have a small business, use ConvertKit. If you have Small businesses, Non-profit organizations, etc. then you can opt for MailerLite.
Top News of ConvertKit & MailerLite
- ConvertKit acquires FanBridge, doubling down on expansion into the music industry
- MailerLite Integrates With Stripe To Support Paid Email Newsletters
Top Commercials
ConvertKit
MailerLite
They don’t have any commercial ads.
Sophia Gilbert is an Email Marketing Specialist and Web Application Expert with 10+ years of experience. She meticulously tested and used most of the email marketing tools & website builders in the real field. Here she is sharing reviews and comparisons of different email marketing tools based on her past experience through different companies where she has worked.
