Choosing the right email system is a critical matter, especially for those who deal with the sale of digital products such as courses, e-books, or automated webinars. Kit (formerly ConvertKit) and ActiveCampaign are two top-rated email marketing tools that offer advanced automation features but differ in approach and details. If you are considering Kit vs ActiveCampaign and are still determining which of these tools would be best for you, this article will help you make the right decision.
Kit vs ActiveCampaign — what to consider?
Choosing between Kit and ActiveCampaign can be difficult, especially since both platforms are among the most frequently chosen tools for email marketing. Each offers a range of features that will help you succeed in communicating with subscribers. However, deciding which tool to choose depends on your needs. You might also want to check the comparison between MailerLite vs ConvertKit (now Kit) to learn even more about the available and popular email systems. Before you make a decision, consider what is a priority for you. What features are crucial for your business? Make a list of the most important features and compare how each tool meets your expectations.
Intuitive User Interface
When you are just starting with email marketing, the intuitiveness of the interface can be crucial. Kit stands out for its simplicity and clarity, making it an ideal tool for content creators such as bloggers, e-book authors, or online course creators. The entire interface is designed with ease of use in mind, so you can quickly master the basic functions and start sending your first email campaigns. ActiveCampaign, on the other hand, offers a more elaborate interface that may seem a bit more complicated, especially for beginners. However, this greater complexity hides powerful functionality that allows for much more advanced campaigns. For marketers who need more flexibility and advanced automation options, the ActiveCampaign interface may be more suitable, though it requires a longer implementation time.
Mailing List Segmentation
Segmentation is one of the most important elements of successful email campaigns, allowing for precise content targeting. Kit focuses on the simplicity of segmentation using tags. This system enables the creation of easy-to-manage subscriber groups based on their actions and interests, which is a great solution for creators of digital products who want to quickly and efficiently deliver personalized content to their subscribers. ActiveCampaign goes a step further, offering more advanced segmentation tools. In addition to standard tagging, ActiveCampaign allows you to create complex segments based on multiple variables such as user engagement level, purchase history, location, or even the way they navigate your site. Additionally, ActiveCampaign has a lead scoring feature that allows you to assess potential customers and adjust campaigns based on their activity. For example, if someone opened an email but did not click on a purchase link, ActiveCampaign can automatically send them a reminder with a different version of the offer. Such advanced automation helps increase conversions, especially in evergreen campaigns or automated webinars.
Email Campaign Automation
Automation is crucial for scaling marketing efforts, and both tools offer strong features in this area. Kit focuses on the simplicity of automation, making it ideal for users who need an easy tool to create email sequences. You can easily set up automation rules, such as sending messages after signing up for a newsletter, downloading an e-book, or registering for a webinar. ActiveCampaign, on the other hand, offers much more elaborate automation options that allow you to create complex communication paths that react to various user behaviors. This allows you to adjust campaigns depending on how users respond to your emails, what products they have purchased, or how long they have been active on your site. This flexibility makes ActiveCampaign often chosen by more advanced marketers who need maximum control over every interaction.
Analytics and Reporting
Both tools offer solid analytical features that allow you to track the effectiveness of campaigns and draw conclusions for the future. Kit provides basic reports on email openings, clicks, and user activity. These data are sufficient for many creators who need simple indicators to optimize their campaigns. However, ActiveCampaign stands out in this field with more detailed analytics. It offers advanced reports that allow you to track user behaviors not only in emails but also on the website. You can monitor what steps users take on your site after clicking a link, how much time they spend on the page, or how they react to specific offers. This allows for even more precise adjustments to future campaigns.
Integrations with External Tools
Integrations are an integral part of successful marketing campaigns, especially when you use multiple tools at once. Both Kit and ActiveCampaign offer wide possibilities of integration with popular tools such as WordPress, Shopify, WooCommerce, or Zapier. However, ActiveCampaign stands out in this field thanks to more advanced integrations, especially with CRM systems and analytical tools. It allows synchronization with various e-commerce platforms and enables more complex customer relationship management, which is particularly useful for larger companies and sales teams. Kit, although also offering solid integrations, is more focused on simplicity and easy collaboration with tools that are particularly important for creators of digital products. Both Kit and ActiveCampaign must offer integration with the Apresly tool, which opens up new possibilities in terms of sales automation and personalized communication. Thanks to this integration, you can connect your email campaigns with powerful Apresly features, creating more advanced and effective sales funnels. Thanks to these integrations, Kit and ActiveCampaign users can enrich their email campaigns with advanced sales tools, which translates into greater customer engagement and better sales results.
Advanced CRM Features
One of the biggest differentiators of ActiveCampaign is its built-in CRM system. This tool is ideal for those who, in addition to email marketing, want to manage customer relationships in a more organized way. ActiveCampaign CRM allows you to track interactions with customers, assign leads to individual team members, and automatically assign values (lead scoring) based on user behaviors. You will not find such advanced CRM features in ConvertKit, which, however, is not a major disadvantage for those who focus solely on simple email marketing and do not need sophisticated tools for managing sales or a team.
Kit vs ActiveCampaign — Comparison of Plans
Kit and ActiveCampaign have similar prices at the initial levels. For example, for handling 1,000 contacts, Kit in the Creator plan costs $29 per month, while ActiveCampaign in the Plus plan costs $49 per month. However, Kit stands out by offering a free plan that allows free use of the platform at the start, which is particularly beneficial for new users. In contrast, ActiveCampaign offers only a 14-day trial period, which may not be sufficient to fully test all the features of the tool. Kit also has an advantage when it comes to sending messages – it does not impose any limits on the number of emails sent, while ActiveCampaign’s limits are visible. For example, in the Plus plan for 1,000 contacts, you can send a maximum of 10,000 messages per month, which means that each person on the list can receive a maximum of 10 emails per month. As the number of contacts grows, the prices of both tools also change, with ActiveCampaign becoming a more expensive solution. For example, for 5,000 contacts, Kit in the Creator Pro plan costs $111 per month, while in ActiveCampaign, the Pro plan for the same number of subscribers is already $209 per month.
Prices of Kit Plans
Prices of ActiveCampaign Plans
Proposal for a Free 14-Day Trial
Kit Features Details
Kit was designed with digital content creators in mind, such as bloggers, online course authors, podcast creators, and e-book sellers. This tool was created in response to the needs of those who want to focus on creating valuable content instead of spending time learning complicated marketing systems. Kit offers simplified features that, despite their simplicity, are very effective—from automation, through message personalization, to segmentation. This allows creators to quickly implement new email campaigns that promote their products, build subscriber engagement, and contribute to sales growth. Kit also emphasizes easy integration with popular content creator tools, such as WordPress, which facilitates daily work for creators.
Automation Builder
ConvertKit stands out with its intuitive automation builder, which allows users to easily create automated email campaigns, even if they have no marketing experience. Automations are constructed using a simple drag-and-drop visual editor, which means that instead of complicated technical configurations, users have access to a clear interface where they can “draw” their communication path with the recipient. You can set various “triggers,” such as signing up for a mailing list, downloading an e-book, or clicking a link in an email. After this trigger, the system automatically sends a planned series of emails that can be tailored to different recipient actions. This incredibly simple tool means that even novice users can create effective and personalized campaigns without complicated settings.
Segmentation with Tags
One of the main strengths of Kit is its tag-based segmentation system, which moves away from the traditional contact list structure in favor of more flexible subscriber management. Instead of creating separate lists for each campaign, Kit allows you to assign different tags to subscribers based on their actions, interests, or purchase history. This allows you to precisely tailor communication to each recipient. For example, if someone downloaded your marketing e-book, you can assign them a “Marketing” tag and send only messages related to that topic. This solution is especially useful for creators who offer a variety of products or content, as it allows for more precise campaigns without the need to create multiple separate mailing lists.
ActiveCampaign Features — Details
As you’ve probably noticed, ActiveCampaign appears to be a much more advanced tool. And not without reason.
Advanced Automation
ActiveCampaign stands out with its powerful advanced automation feature, which allows for the creation of very complex marketing campaigns. Unlike simpler tools, in ActiveCampaign, you can create multi-stage communication paths with users that respond to almost every action they take. Automation can be dynamically adjusted depending on recipient interactions, such as opening an email, clicking a link, purchasing a product, or abandoning a cart. This tool offers full flexibility—you can design complex sales funnels that automatically adjust their paths based on customer behaviors. Thus, ActiveCampaign is perfectly suited for companies conducting long and elaborate sales campaigns, where every step the user takes matters.
CRM Features
One of the key differentiators of ActiveCampaign is its built-in CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system. With it, you can not only conduct email campaigns but also manage customer relationships at every stage of the sales process. CRM in ActiveCampaign allows you to track user interactions, manage potential customers (leads), and automate the assignment of points (lead scoring), which assess the value of individual contacts based on their engagement. CRM features also allow for managing sales pipelines, tracking at which stage of the sale each customer is, and planning actions that will increase the chance of closing a deal. These advanced features make ActiveCampaign not just an email marketing tool but a comprehensive system for managing the sales process and customer relationships.
Integrations
ActiveCampaign offers extensive integration possibilities with other tools, making it a very flexible solution for different types of businesses. The platform supports hundreds of integrations with popular apps and tools, such as Shopify, WooCommerce, Salesforce, Zapier, Google Analytics, and even social media management tools. This allows you to fully integrate your email campaigns with sales, analytical, and CRM systems, creating a cohesive marketing ecosystem. These integrations allow for tracking customer actions across multiple platforms and automatically transferring this information to ActiveCampaign, providing a complete picture of customer interaction with your brand.
Lead Scoring
Lead scoring is one of the most advanced features of ActiveCampaign, allowing for the assessment of potential customer quality based on their behaviors. Every customer interaction—opening an email, clicking a link, visiting a website—can be automatically scored, indicating how close the customer is to making a purchase. This lead scoring functionality allows for more effective prioritization of contacts and customization of marketing and sales campaigns. The value of points you assign to contacts can be set depending on which actions are key for you, for example, giving more weight to those who have downloaded a product sample than to those who have just opened a message. This feature is particularly useful for companies conducting large sales campaigns and wanting to focus their efforts on the most promising customers, thereby optimizing time and resources.
Kit vs ActiveCampaign, which to choose?
Kit is an excellent choice for creators of online courses, e-books, and other digital products who are looking for a simple, easy-to-use tool. Its interface is intuitive, allowing for quick campaign implementation, even without prior experience with email marketing.
On the other hand, ActiveCampaign is a more advanced solution for companies that conduct more elaborate campaigns, want to manage customer relationships with a built-in CRM, and need advanced personalization and segmentation.
The choice between these two tools depends on your individual needs. If you value simplicity and focus on digital creativity, ConvertKit will be ideal. However, ActiveCampaign offers more advanced tools for those who need full automation, CRM, and advanced analytics.
Regardless of which tool you choose, it’s important to remember that the key to success is a well-designed sales funnel and personalized offers. In this area, Apresly excels—a tool for creating effective sales funnels, one-time offers (OTO) with dynamic counters synchronized in email and on the sales page. Importantly, both mailing systems have integration with Apresly.
