Mailchimp vs Kit (ConvertKit) vs ActiveCampaign: 2025 Comparison
Mailchimp vs Kit vs ActiveCampaign is still the most common three way choice in email marketing. But almost everything about it changed in the last eighteen months.
ConvertKit is now called Kit. Mailchimp cut its free plan twice, and ActiveCampaign changed how it bills your contacts.
So the advice from 2025 no longer holds. This guide compares all three on 2026 pricing, free plans, automation and ease of use.
Quick verdict:
- Kit is the best pick for bloggers, creators and newsletter writers. Its free plan holds 10,000 subscribers.
- Mailchimp is the best pick for online stores and design led brands. It is easy to learn, but no longer cheap.
- ActiveCampaign is the best pick for serious automation and B2B sales. It has no free plan and costs the most.
In this comparison
- Mailchimp vs Kit vs ActiveCampaign at a glance
- What changed since 2025
- Pricing by list size
- Free plans compared
- The hidden cost: how contacts are counted
- Features compared
- Who should choose which
- Switching between platforms
- FAQ
Mailchimp vs Kit vs ActiveCampaign at a Glance
| What matters | Mailchimp | Kit | ActiveCampaign |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built for | Small businesses and online stores | Bloggers, creators, newsletter writers | Growing businesses and sales teams |
| Free plan | 250 contacts, 500 emails a month | 10,000 subscribers, unlimited emails | None. 14 day trial only |
| Cheapest paid plan (monthly billing) | Essentials, $13 for 500 contacts | Creator, $39 for 1,000 subscribers | Starter, $19 for 1,000 contacts |
| First plan with full automation | Standard, from $20 | Creator, from $39 | Plus, from $59 |
| Automation on the cheapest tier | None on Free, 4 steps on Essentials | 1 basic automation on Free | 5 actions on Starter |
| Email design | Drag and drop, design rich | Simple, text first | Drag and drop, solid templates |
| Built in sales CRM | No | No | Yes, with pipelines and deals |
| Sell digital products | Needs a separate tool | Built in, 3.5% + $0.30 per sale | Needs a separate tool |
| Bills for unsubscribed contacts | Yes, unless archived | No | Yes, on newer accounts |
| Learning curve | Gentle | Gentle | Steep |
Prices are in US dollars on monthly billing and were checked in October 2026. Confirm on Mailchimp, Kit and ActiveCampaign before you buy.
What Changed Since 2025
If you read an older version of this comparison, most of the numbers are now wrong. Here is what moved.
- ConvertKit became Kit. The rebrand happened in October 2024, and the product is the same.
- Kit raised its paid prices. The Creator plan went from $29 to $39 a month at 1,000 subscribers in September 2025.
- Mailchimp shrank its free plan. In February 2026 it dropped from 500 contacts to 250, and from 1,000 monthly emails to 500.
- ActiveCampaign changed its billing. Accounts opened after 3 November 2025 are charged for unsubscribed and bounced contacts too.
The pattern is clear. Free plans are shrinking and entry prices are rising across the industry.
Kit is the exception on free plans. We track every limit in our guide to the best free email marketing tools.
Pricing by List Size
All three tools charge by list size. But the advertised entry price tells you very little.
The cheapest plan on each platform limits automation. So we show two tables: the cheapest way in, and the plan you actually need.
The cheapest plan at each list size
| Contacts | Mailchimp Essentials | Kit Newsletter | ActiveCampaign Starter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | $13 | $0 | $19 |
| 2,500 | $45 | $0 | $49 |
| 5,000 | $75 | $0 | $99 |
| 10,000 | $110 | $0 | $189 |
Kit wins this table without a contest. Its free Newsletter plan runs all the way to 10,000 subscribers.
Mailchimp also has a free plan, but it stops at 250 contacts. ActiveCampaign Starter is priced from its 1,000 contact tier, so small lists pay for room they do not use.
The plan with full automation
This is the fair comparison. These are the tiers that unlock branching workflows on each platform.
| Contacts | Mailchimp Standard | Kit Creator | ActiveCampaign Plus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry tier | $20 (500 contacts) | $39 (1,000 subscribers) | $59 (1,000 contacts) |
| 2,500 | $60 | $59 (3,000 tier) | $119 |
| 5,000 | $100 | $89 | $179 |
| 10,000 | $135 | $139 | $239 |
Monthly billing, US dollars. Sources: official pricing pages plus EmailTooltester’s Mailchimp breakdown and EmailVendorSelection’s ActiveCampaign breakdown. Checked October 2026.
What the gap costs you over a year
At 5,000 contacts, Mailchimp Standard and Kit Creator are close. Kit costs $1,068 a year and Mailchimp costs $1,200.
ActiveCampaign Plus costs $2,148 a year at the same size. That is $948 more than Mailchimp and $1,080 more than Kit.
Put another way, ActiveCampaign Plus costs 79% more than Mailchimp Standard at 5,000 contacts. You are paying for the automation engine and the CRM.
Paying yearly? Kit Creator drops to about $33 a month at 1,000 subscribers on annual billing. ActiveCampaign drops to $15 on Starter and $49 on Plus, so its yearly discount is the biggest of the three.
Winner: Kit for anyone under 10,000 subscribers. Mailchimp wins on entry price for paid automation, and ActiveCampaign is the most expensive at every size.
Free Plans Compared
Only two of the three have a free plan. And those two are nothing alike.
| Free plan feature | Mailchimp Free | Kit Newsletter | ActiveCampaign |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contacts | 250 | 10,000 | No free plan |
| Emails per month | 500 (250 a day) | Unlimited | Limited during the trial |
| Automation | None | 1 basic automation | Trial access only |
| Forms and landing pages | Included | Unlimited | Trial access only |
| Tool branding on emails | Yes | Yes | Not applicable |
| How long it lasts | Forever | Forever | 14 days |
Do the maths on Mailchimp. With 250 contacts and 500 emails, you can email your full list twice a month.
Kit’s free plan holds 40 times more subscribers and has no send cap. For a new blog or newsletter, that decides the contest.
Winner: Kit, by a wide margin. We go deeper on this in Kit vs Mailchimp.
The Hidden Cost: How Each Tool Counts Contacts
This is the detail most pricing pages skip. It can change your bill more than the plan price does.
Kit bills for active subscribers only. One reader is one subscriber, no matter how many forms they fill in.
Mailchimp counts unsubscribed contacts toward your limit until you archive them. It also counts the same person twice if they sit in two audiences.
ActiveCampaign now bills for unsubscribed, bounced and unconfirmed contacts on accounts opened after 3 November 2025. Older accounts are still billed on active contacts only.
Here is a simple example. A list of 4,600 active readers plus 600 old unsubscribes is billed as 4,600 on Kit and 5,200 on the other two.
That pushes you into the next price band without a single new reader. Clean your list every month if you use Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign.
Send limits on paid plans
- Mailchimp: 10 times your contact limit on Essentials and 12 times on Standard.
- Kit: unlimited emails on every plan.
- ActiveCampaign: 10 times your contact limit on Starter and Plus.
Features Compared
Price is only half the story. Here is what you get for the money.
Ease of use
Kit is the simplest of the three. You write your email like a blog post and hit send.
Mailchimp is friendly too, but it has grown into a wide marketing platform. New users often feel lost among ads, social posts and website tools.
ActiveCampaign has the steepest learning curve. Plan a weekend to set it up properly, not an afternoon.
Winner: Kit, with Mailchimp close behind.
Email design and templates
Mailchimp leads here. Its drag and drop builder has the biggest template library and the most polished designs.
ActiveCampaign offers solid templates with good customisation. Kit keeps design plain on purpose, with only a handful of templates.
Winner: Mailchimp. See the editor in our Mailchimp review.
Automation
Automation is where the money sits. Automated emails make up about 2% of sends but drive about 37% of email revenue, according to Omnisend’s benchmark data.
ActiveCampaign is the clear leader. Plus gives you unlimited actions, goals, loops, lead scoring and automations that hand contacts to each other.
Kit’s visual builder is simpler but strong. You link forms, tags and sequences on one clean canvas from the Creator plan.
Mailchimp branches from the Standard plan, with up to 200 steps per flow. It cannot match ActiveCampaign’s goals or lead scoring.
Watch the cheap plans. Mailchimp Essentials caps flows at 4 steps, and ActiveCampaign Starter caps automations at 5 actions. Neither can run a proper welcome series.
Winner: ActiveCampaign. We built the same three workflows in both tools in ActiveCampaign vs Mailchimp.
New to automation? Start with our guide to email automation workflows that convert.
Ecommerce and selling
Mailchimp is the strongest for physical products. Abandoned cart emails, product recommendations and revenue reports are its home ground.
ActiveCampaign is a close second for stores that want deeper lifecycle automation. It needs more setup to get there.
Kit wins for digital products. You can sell ebooks, courses and paid newsletters inside Kit for 3.5% plus $0.30 per sale.
Winner: Mailchimp for stores, Kit for creators. Store owners should also read our guide to the best email marketing software for Shopify.
CRM and sales tools
ActiveCampaign is the only one of the three with a real sales CRM. Deal pipelines and stages can be moved by your automations.
Mailchimp has audience tools but no pipeline. Kit has neither, because it is built for creators and not for sales teams.
Winner: ActiveCampaign. Our ActiveCampaign review covers the CRM in detail.
Integrations
ActiveCampaign lists more than 870 integrations. Mailchimp connects to more than 300 apps, and almost every tool supports it first.
Kit covers around 100 integrations. They focus on creator tools like course platforms and membership sites.
Winner: ActiveCampaign on count, Mailchimp on how widely it is supported.
Deliverability
A cheap tool is poor value if your emails land in spam. Independent tests do not show a clear winner between these three.
In EmailTooltester’s deliverability tests, the last numeric round in January 2024 gave Mailchimp an 89.5% inbox rate. The average across tools in that round was 83.1%.
Your own setup matters more than the logo. Authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, and keep your list clean.
Winner: tie.
Team seats and support
Mailchimp Standard includes five user seats. ActiveCampaign Plus includes one, so a second login means moving up to Pro.
Kit’s free plan has ticket based support only. Paid plans on all three add faster help.
Winner: Mailchimp for small teams.
Who Should Choose Which?
Mailchimp if
- You run a Shopify or WooCommerce store.
- You want polished, image rich emails.
- More than one person needs an account.
- You want to be sending this afternoon.
Kit if
- You are a blogger, creator or newsletter writer.
- You want to grow to 10,000 readers for free.
- You plan to sell ebooks, courses or paid newsletters.
- You send text based emails.
ActiveCampaign if
- Your flows branch, loop or end when someone buys.
- You track leads through sales stages.
- You will use lead scoring and site tracking.
- You can budget $59 a month or more from day one.
By business type
- Online stores: Mailchimp, with ActiveCampaign as the upgrade path.
- Bloggers and creators: Kit.
- B2B and service businesses: ActiveCampaign.
- Tight budgets that need paid automation: none of these three. Read our MailerLite review first.
MailerLite undercuts all three on paid plans. See how it compares in MailerLite vs Mailchimp and MailerLite vs Kit.
Switching Between Platforms
You are not locked in. Contacts and tags move between all three as a simple export and import.
Automations do not transfer. You rebuild them by hand on the new platform.
- Moving to Kit: Kit can import your Mailchimp contacts directly.
- Moving to ActiveCampaign: it offers a free migration service on paid plans.
- Moving to Mailchimp: expect to do the work yourself with a CSV file.
Clean your list before you move. There is no reason to pay your new tool for contacts who already left.
The Bottom Line
Email is still one of the best returns in marketing. Litmus puts the average return at about $36 for every $1 spent.
There is no single winner in Mailchimp vs Kit vs ActiveCampaign. Each one is built for a different kind of sender.
Start with Kit if you are building an audience. You can reach 10,000 subscribers before you pay anything.
Choose Mailchimp if you run a store or need designed emails. Budget for the Standard plan, because Essentials will not automate.
Go with ActiveCampaign if automation and sales are the whole point. Budget for Plus, because Starter stops at five actions.
Ready to test them yourself? Kit and Mailchimp have free plans, and ActiveCampaign has a 14 day trial.Try Kit freeTry Mailchimp freeTry ActiveCampaign for 14 days
Want the full picture first? Read our Kit review, Mailchimp review and ActiveCampaign review.
Mailchimp vs Kit vs ActiveCampaign FAQ
Which is cheapest: Mailchimp, Kit or ActiveCampaign?
Kit is cheapest for most people, because its free plan covers 10,000 subscribers. For paid automation at 5,000 contacts, Kit Creator is $89 a month, Mailchimp Standard is $100 and ActiveCampaign Plus is $179.
Is Kit the same as ConvertKit?
Yes. ConvertKit rebranded to Kit in October 2024, and the product is the same.
Which has the best free plan?
Kit. Its free plan covers 10,000 subscribers with unlimited emails, while Mailchimp covers 250 contacts and ActiveCampaign has no free plan.
Which is best for automation?
ActiveCampaign. Its Plus plan supports unlimited actions, goals, lead scoring and a built in sales CRM.
Which is best for beginners?
Kit for writers and creators, and Mailchimp for small businesses and stores. ActiveCampaign takes the longest to learn.
Does ActiveCampaign have a free plan?
No. ActiveCampaign offers a 14 day free trial only.
Can I switch between these platforms later?
Yes. Contacts and tags export and import easily, but you rebuild your automations by hand.
Prices and plan limits were checked in October 2026 and are shown in US dollars on monthly billing. Providers change pricing often, so confirm on the official pages before you buy. This post links to products we have tested, and if we earn a commission it costs you nothing extra. See our affiliate disclosure.
About Vincencia Anyango
IT graduate and freelance web specialist who has built WordPress sites and run email campaigns for clients since 2020. Every review on SoftwareStackPro is based on hands on testing. More about how I review →
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