Kit vs. Mailchimp: Which email marketing platform is better?

Looking for a capable email newsletter software for your business? Learn how one of this software can help in this Kit vs. Mailchimp comparison.

Looking for a simpler way to build, market, and monetize your online products like a pro? Start using marketing automation software.

Kit and Mailchimp are the best at it. 

Kit suits creators, while Mailchimp fits growing e-commerce sites. However, how do they compare in terms of functionality?

This Kit vs. Mailchimp comparison digs into it.

Kit vs Mailchimp: At a Glance

Criteria	Kit	Mailchimp	Winner
SMB Guide’s Rating	7.6/10	8/10	Mailchimp
Marketing Automation Capabilities	Advanced automation	Basic automation	Kit
Email Builder	Text-based, visual editor	Intuitive, easy-to-use	Mailchimp
Personalization & Customization	Highly personalized	Basic personalization	Kit
Campaign Performance Tracking	Detailed metrics	Standard metrics	Mailchimp
Email Deliverability	✅	✅	Mailchimp
List Management	More advanced segmentation and tagging	Simple lists	Mailchimp
A/B Testing	✅	✅	Mailchimp
Advanced Reporting & Insights	Advanced Insights	Basic reports	Mailchimp
Compliance & Security	✅	✅	Tie
User Experience and User Interface	Minimalistic interface	User-friendly interface	Mailchimp
Integrations and Compatibility	130+ integrations	300+ integrations	Mailchimp
Customer Support	Live chat and email	Email and phone	Kit
Pricing	Free – $2,599/mo	Free – $1,600/mo	Kit
Scalability	Ideal for scaling businesses	Moderately scalable	Kit

Kit: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

Kit is an email marketing platform ideal for small e-commerce businesses and creators. It excels at providing automation tools like pre-built templates and builders for creating marketing campaigns.

Kit also allows users to tag their subscribers and set custom rules on offers.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

Kit pricing is straightforward. It offers three plans and a forever-free package. The plans are scalable, and the paid packages have a two-week free trial period.

Billing is monthly or annual, with yearly payments getting 2 months off.

Here are the plans:

• Newsletter: Free (max 10K subscribers)
• Creator: $29 monthly or $290 yearly (1K subscribers)
• Pro: $59 monthly or $590 yearly (1K subscribers)

Mailchimp: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

Mailchimp is a marketing automation platform suitable for small to midsize businesses. It excels at offering AI-powered automation tools and a user-friendly system.

Mailchimp also includes a library of templates and 250+ integrations for streamlining campaigns.

Pros & Cons

Pricing

Mailchimp pricing is simple. It offers four scalable plans, including a forever-free package. MailChimp is also running a promo offering 50% off on annual subscriptions.

However, each plan has a cap on the number of emails sent.

Here are the plans:

• Free: $0 (up to 500 subscribers)
• Essentials: $13 monthly, 50% off (500 subscribers)
• Standard: $20 monthly, 50% off (500 subscribers)
• Premium: $175 monthly, 50% off (10K subscribers)

Marketing Automation Capabilities

Kit excels here, offering a more comprehensive range of marketing automation tools. First, it provides 28+ pre-built templates suitable for various purposes. 

It also offers a drag-and-drop builder for creating campaigns and follow-up emails. The best part is that it allows for a ‘Rules’ option for optimizing sequences.

Mailchimp also offers automation tools, but their capability depends on the plan. For example, the standard plan allows time optimization and set up of customer journeys.

However, the Premium plan offers access to all the advanced automation on the software. It includes a visual builder and 102+ templates.

✅ Winner: Kit

Email Builder

Kit’s email builder is easy to use but lacks drag-and-drop capability. It resembles a classic editor, where users can insert blocks, lists, countdown timers, and more.

However, unlike Mailchimp, it lacks flexibility in rearranging the email content when needed.

Mailchimp offers a more capable email builder with advanced elements like surveys and product blocks. It also has a drag-and-drop builder for customization.

Unlike Kit, Mailchimp allows the insertion of HTML code into custom templates.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Personalization & Customization

Kit provides better personalization variables for emails than Mailchimp. It allows users to insert subscribers’ info for segmentation.

Unlike Mailchimp, the platform also offers a template language, ‘Liquid,‘ for advanced personalization like conditional content.

Mailchimp supports simple customizations of email templates via drag-and-drop layout suggestions and content blocks.

It also uses customer data to show personalized product recommendations based on location and behavior. The best part is that it allows updating subscriber profiles for personalized engagement.

✅ Winner: Kit

Campaign Performance Tracking

Kit and Mailchimp both track CTR, ROI, and conversions. However, Mailchimp edges Kit by providing a built-in capability to track sales directly from campaigns.

Unlike Kit, Mailchimp also offers a holistic view of ROI.

With real-time reporting dashboards, both lack a dedicated capability. However, both allow for setting specific campaign goals. Kit has a basic goal tracking based on clicks.

MailChimp offers more in-depth goal tracking and reporting aligned with custom-set goals. For example, e-commerce data includes openings by device and clicking by location.

Regarding A/B testing, Kit allows users to test subject lines only. Mailchimp offers more options, such as send time, subject lines, images, and more.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Email Deliverability

Kit and Mailchimp offer basic spam filter capabilities, where users rely on their knowledge to avoid spam triggers.

Kit provides educational resources, Mailchimp offers a ‘send preview‘ tool. It allows users to see how emails render on various devices.

On sender reputation monitoring, both software tracks spam complaints and bounce rates. However, Mailchimp goes on to offer granular insights and allows segmentation based on engagement.

Kit and Mailchimp allow account owners to modify or revoke emergency access for their team members.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

List Management

Kit uses a tag-based model for segmentation, unlike Mailchimp. The platform tags subscribers, which allows granular segmentation of behavior, demographics, and more.

However, for complex segmentation, it will require more steps.

Mailchimp uses a traditional list model, segmenting subscribers into groups. It means subscribers can only belong to one group at a time. 

Unlike Kit, Mailchimp allows dynamic segmentation depending on subscriber activity and merge tags. It gives it an edge and flexibility.

On list cleaning, both provide tools to remove duplicate subscribers. Mailchimp offers a cleaning domain feature for removing unsubscribed or bounced emails.

Both software also offer opt-in/out to subscribers and update their info often.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

A/B Testing

Kit only allows A/B testing email subject lines. Mailchimp offers more options in the paid plans, allowing testing send times, content, subject lines, and more.

Kit’s UI is simpler when setting the A/B tests. Mailchimp, on the other hand, offers a more comprehensive process where users can define a split percentage of various elements.

Regarding reporting, the Kit report is basic, focussing on win-lose subject lines. It lacks insights on which elements drive engagement.

Mailchimp offers more in-depth reports, such as heat maps, click maps and more.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Advanced Reporting & Insights

Kit offers basic analytics reports on performance metrics like clicks for the tagged segments.

Mailchimp goes beyond and offers detailed reports on segmented campaigns, such as social media performance, sales, click maps, and more.

On conversion tracking and attribution, Mailchimp edges Kit. It provides built-in e-com tracking to see sales from specific touchpoints and email campaigns.

With predictive analytics, Kit lacks built-in functionality. However, Mailchimp offers decent features like audience segmentation and sending time optimization based on behavior.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Compliance and Security

Kit and Mailchimp offer features that facilitate GDPR adherence. These include data processing agreements that outline how they handle info.

Next, consent management tools for the collection and storage of subscriber consent. Lastly, tools to handle data access requests and deletions from subscribers.

On encryption, both software use the standard AES-256 for storage and TLS 1.2 for transmission. 

With permission-based marketing, both platforms adhere to the set principles. It means that users can only email subscribers who have opted to receive communications.

✅ Winner: Kit

User Interface and User Experience

Kit interface is simple and minimalistic, making it suitable for newbies. It also offers a text-based email builder focused on message creation rather than graphic templates.

The email builder is intuitive and allows for the embedding of forms and the integration of landing pages quickly.

Mailchimp offers a more comprehensive UI with a broader range of features. In some situations, it can feel overwhelming for beginners.

It also provides a drag-and-drop editor with more design elements than Kit. The customization options are also extensive, especially on the 100+ templates.

On preview and testing, both software offer the function accessible on mobile and desktop. However, Mailchimp goes on to offer more advanced functionalities, like A/B testing various email elements.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Integrations and Compatibility

Unlike Mailchimp, Kit offers a limited integration stack. The only built-in CRM integration is with KitBoard. Most integrations require connecting them using Zapier.

On the other hand, Mailchimp offers more built-in integrations, including CRMs like Zoho, Outfunnel, and more.

Regarding API, both platforms provide features for custom integration and development. The best part is that they include in-depth documentation on installation.

On e-commerce integration, Kit connects with Gumroad, WooCommerce, and Shopify. However, integrating with other platforms will require additional steps.

Mailchimp also integrates with popular e-comm platforms and allows automatic data sync.

With social media integration, Mailchimp connects with common platforms like X, Facebook, and Instagram. The feature also supports post-scheduling and social listening. 

Kit, on the other hand, requires linking social media accounts using Zapier. Unlike Mailchimp, it lacks advanced tracking capability.

With mobile app functionality, both offer a capable application that allows managing tasks on the go.

✅ Winner: Mailchimp

Customer Support

Kit offers support through email and live chat five days a week. Live chat responds quickly, 3-5 minutes, while email can take up to 3 hours to reply. The support agents are helpful, even on technical issues. 

Mailchimp offers support through a chatbot, email, and phone (premium plan) around the clock. The email response time is slower, taking up to 6 hours. However, the support agents offer helpful feedback, even on technical issues.

✅ Winner: Kit

Pricing

Kit offers a subscriber-based pricing model, including a forever-free plan. Mailchimp also offers a similar pricing structure with a free package. However, the plans vary in terms of features and limitations.

The free Kit plan supports up to 1K subscribers and unlimited email sending. Mailchimp’s free plan supports only 500 subscribers and has a limit of 2500 emails sent. 

On value proposition, Kit unlimited email sending in the free plan makes it attractive.

✅ Winner: Kit

Scalability

With Kit, pricing scales with subscriber growth. However, the plans offer unlimited email sending, making it cost-friendly for high-volume email sends.

Mailchimp plans scale with subscriber count. However, users with larger audiences will pay more compared with Kit.

✅ Winner: Kit

Standout Features of Kit

Kit focuses on streamlining email marketing, making it a good fit for creators. Here are two features that make it stand out.

Tag-based contact segmentation

Users can send targeted emails to specific groups, which benefits personalized campaigns.

Creator-focused tools

It offers integration with WordPress and supports selling digital products, making it suitable for bloggers and creators.

Standout Features of Mailchimp

Mailchimp offers advanced features catering to most small to mid-sized businesses. Here are two features that make it stand out.

Integrations

With an integration stack of 300+ applications, users can find a system to streamline their workflows. Mailchimp also provides an API that allows custom integrations and development.

HTML customization

Mailchimp allows users to customize the design of their emails using HTML. It gives businesses with specific design needs an edge.

Kit vs. Mailchimp: SMB Guide’s Verdict

Our comparison between Kit and Mailchimp shows that both cater to different users. Kit suits creators, while Mailchimp suits small and growing businesses.

However, after a thorough evaluation, Mailchimp wins. Here is why:

Mailchimp offers an all-rounded marketing solution with more integrations and marketing features.

Choose Kit if:

You are a creator and need an affordable, simple email marketing tool.

Choose Mailchimp If:

You need a comprehensive marketing solution with advanced functionality but at a premium.