MailerLite vs. Kit: Which email marketing tool is better?

Discover the pros and cons of MailerLite and Kit in our detailed review. Find out which email marketing tool suits your business needs best.

Choosing the right email marketing software can make all the difference in managing your campaigns efficiently and effectively.

In this comparison, we explore MailerLite and Kit—two popular platforms among small businesses and digital marketers.

MailerLite vs. Kit: At a Glance

Criteria	MailerLite	Kit	Winner
SMB Guide’s Rating	8.2/10	7.6/10	MailerLite
Marketing Automation Capabilities	Basic automation	Advanced automation	Kit
Email Builder	Intuitive, easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder	Text-based, visual editor	MailerLite
Personalization & Customization	Basic personalization	Highly personalized	Kit
Campaign Performance Tracking	More advanced	Detailed metrics	Tie
Email Deliverability	✅	✅	Tie
List Management	Easy to manage	More advanced segmentation and tagging	Kit
A/B Testing	✅	✅	MailerLite
Advanced Reporting & Insights	Detailed reports	Advanced Insights	Tie
Compliance & Security	✅	✅	Tie
User Experience and User Interface	User-friendly interface	Minimalistic interface	MailerLite
Integrations and Compatibility	130+ integrations	300+ integrations	Kit
Customer Support	Live chat and email	Limited support	MailerLite
Pricing	Free – $2,599/mo	Free – $1,600/mo	Kit
Scalability	✅	✅	Kit

MailerLite: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

MailerLite is a strong email marketing platform that can help a wide variety of businesses, from small businesses to large corporations.

Key features include:

• Email marketing
• Automation
• Integrations
• Forms and popups
• Analytics and reporting

Pros & Cons

Pricing

• Free: $0 for up to 1,000 subscribers
• Growing Business: Starts at $9/month and scales until you hit 50,000 subscribers
• Advanced: Starts at $18/month and scales until you hit 500,000 subscribers – then you must go to a custom-priced enterprise plan
• Enterprise: Custom pricing for businesses with over 100,000 subscribers.

Kit: Key Features, Pros, Cons, & Pricing

Kit is an email marketing tool, targeted specifically at content creators. Key features include:

• Powerful automation
• Customizable forms and landing forms
• Strong targeting and segmentation

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)

Marketing Automation Capabilities

MailerLite provides a range of automation features, including automated workflows, trigger-based emails, and drip campaigns.

It also offers a visual drag-and-drop editor for easily building and visualizing automation sequences.

Kit excels in automation, particularly with its visual automation builder, which allows you to create complex workflows easily.

It includes features like tagging, segmentation, and sequences to provide a highly personalized experience for your subscribers.

✅ Winner: Kit

Email Builder

MailerLite’s email builder is user-friendly, with a drag-and-drop interface that makes creating visually appealing emails a breeze.

It also offers a variety of templates to get you started quickly.

Kit focuses more on simplicity and text-based emails, although it has recently introduced a drag-and-drop builder.

While it’s less flashy than MailerLite, it aligns well with its focus on content creators.

✅ Winner: MailerLite

Personalization & Customization

MailerLite supports basic personalization, including merge tags for names and other subscriber data. You can also segment your audience based on behavior or demographic information.

Kit takes personalization to the next level with custom fields, segments, and tags.

This allows for highly targeted campaigns tailored to individual subscribers’ preferences and actions.

✅ Winner: Kit

Campaign Performance Tracking

MailerLite offers comprehensive campaign performance metrics, such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion tracking. Its dashboard is intuitive and easy to understand.

Kit provides detailed analytics and reporting, including subscriber growth, engagement metrics, and revenue tracking for ecommerce integrations.

✅ Winner: Tie

Email Deliverability

MailerLite has a strong reputation for high deliverability rates, with built-in tools to ensure your emails land in the inbox rather than the spam folder.

Kit also boasts excellent deliverability rates, focusing on maintaining a clean IP reputation and using authentication protocols like DKIM and SPF.

✅ Winner: Tie

List Management

MailerLite offers robust list management features, including segmentation, tagging, and the ability to organize subscribers into groups.

Kit’s list management is highly flexible, allowing you to segment and tag subscribers based on multiple criteria.

It also supports advanced conditional logic for targeting specific segments.

✅ Winner: Kit

A/B Testing

MailerLite includes A/B testing for subject lines, email content, and send times, allowing you to optimize your campaigns for better performance.

Kit offers A/B testing primarily for subject lines, with limited options for testing email content and other variables.

✅ Winner: MailerLite

Advanced Reporting & Insights

MailerLite provides detailed reports and insights on campaign performance, subscriber engagement, and more.

It also offers heat maps showing where subscribers click within your emails.

Kit delivers in-depth analytics and insights, particularly for tracking subscriber journeys and revenue attribution.

✅ Winner: Kit

Compliance and Security

MailerLite is fully GDPR-compliant and offers features like double opt-in, data protection, and regular security updates.

Kit also ensures GDPR compliance, along with strong data encryption and secure data storage practices to protect subscriber information.

✅ Winner: Tie

User Interface and User Experience

MailerLite is known for its clean, intuitive interface that makes it easy for beginners to get started while still offering advanced features for experienced users.

Kit’s interface is straightforward and geared towards content creators, with a focus on simplicity and ease of use.

✅ Winner: MailerLite

Integrations and Compatibility

MailerLite offers a great selection of integrations, including popular tools like WordPress, Shopify and Zapier.

This makes it easier to connect it with your existing tools and workflows. They offer an API for custom integrations, ensuring you can tailor the platform to meet your needs.

Kit also supports numerous integrations, particularly with content management systems (CMS) and e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce and Shopify.

Kit’s focus is on helping creators build audiences through integrations with membership sites and course platforms like Teachable. Their API further enhances customization options.

✅ Winner: Kit

Customer Support

MailerLite provides 24/7 email support and live chat support during business hours. They also offer a comprehensive knowledge base filled with tutorials, guides, and FAQs to help you troubleshoot issues independently.

Kit offers email support and live chat during business hours. Their knowledge base includes detailed guides and video tutorials.

Kit also provides a community forum where users can share tips and get advice from fellow users.

✅ Winner: MailerLite

Pricing

MailerLite is known for its affordability. It offers a free plan for up to 1,000 subscribers with basic features. Paid plans start at $10/month and scale based on the number of subscribers and additional features, making it a budget-friendly option for small businesses.

Kit offers a free plan for up to 300 subscribers, which includes landing pages and email broadcasts.

Their paid plans start at $29/month and scale based on your subscriber count. While Kit’s pricing is higher, it reflects the advanced features tailored to content creators and digital marketers.

✅ Winner: MailerLite

Scalability

MailerLite is designed to grow with your business. Its scalable pricing and features make it suitable for businesses of all sizes.

The platform’s user-friendly interface ensures that as your subscriber list grows, you can easily manage and organize your campaigns.

Kit is built with scalability in mind. Its advanced automation and segmentation features are particularly beneficial for businesses looking to scale their email marketing efforts.

Kit’s focus on helping creators monetize their audience makes it an excellent choice for growing digital marketers.

Both platforms are scalable, but Kit’s advanced automation features better suit digital marketers planning rapid growth.

✅ Winner: Tie

Standout Features of MailerLite

Landing page creator

One standout feature of MailerLite is its built-in landing page builder, which allows users to create high-converting landing pages without needing external tools. This feature particularly benefits businesses aiming to capture leads and drive sign-ups.

Kit, on the other hand, offers limited landing page functionality and primarily directs users to third-party tools for those needs, which may complicate the user experience.

Pop-up forms

MailerLite provides various pop-up forms, including embedded forms, pop-up lightboxes, and promotional bars, designed to enhance lead generation. These tools are highly customizable and can be easily integrated into any website.

Kit does have form options, but its pop-up capabilities are relatively basic, limiting user engagement opportunities.

Stand-Out Features of Kit

Advanced automation

Kit offers sophisticated automation features that allow users to create complex workflows based on subscriber actions, such as tagging users or sending targeted emails based on their interactions.

This level of automation helps streamline marketing efforts and enhances engagement.

Enhanced tagging system

Kit’s tagging system is particularly robust, enabling users to segment their audience more effectively. Users can tag subscribers based on their behavior and preferences, allowing for highly personalized email marketing strategies.

MailerLite vs. Kit: SMB Guide’s Verdict

MailerLite is the winner for small businesses thanks to its affordability, user-friendly interface, and 24/7 email support. It is ideal for small businesses looking to start email marketing without breaking the bank. 

Kit is best for digital marketers because it has advanced features tailored to content creators.

Kit’s higher pricing is justified by its extensive automation, integration, and scalability options if you’re a digital marketer looking to build and monetize an audience.