If you’re an online course or e-book creator, a coach, or a webinar specialist, you understand how crucial effective communication with your audience is. Email marketing is one of the most powerful tools that allows you to build relationships, increase sales, and automate processes. However, choosing the right email marketing tool can be challenging, especially when so many popular options are available on the market. If you’re currently debating about MailerLite vs ConvertKit, you’ve come to the right place. Both of these tools have their unique features, advantages, and drawbacks, which are worth considering before making a final decision.
In this article, we’ll analyze which of these two platforms might be a better choice for creators like you. You’ll also learn how to practically use email marketing and discover some proven tips for creating effective sales funnels.
MailerLite vs ConvertKit — What to Consider?
Yes, the choice is indeed difficult. MailerLite and ConvertKit are two of the most popular email marketing platforms. Both tools offer a range of features that will help you achieve your goals.
Start by considering what matters most to you. What do you need, and what features are crucial for you? List the features you’re interested in and evaluate each one.
Intuitive Interface
If you’re just starting with email marketing, you’ll appreciate a simple and intuitive interface. Ease of use and clear navigation will help you quickly learn how to use the tool and fully leverage its potential.
This is particularly important when you’re planning to send your first newsletters. Newsletters are an effective way to maintain regular contact with your subscribers and clients. In these emails, you can share industry news, and your achievements, and even sneak in information about upcoming webinars or promotions in your store.
You don’t need much to create newsletters. Both MailerLite and ConvertKit have sufficiently intuitive interfaces to handle this task. But we’ll get back to that.
Segmentation
With the segmentation feature, you can easily choose which content to send to which subscribers. It may seem straightforward, but you’ll see that advanced segmentation can work wonders. For example, you can segment your subscribers by their interests, the products they’ve purchased, or even by age and location. This gives you unlimited possibilities. You can create one email, change just one sentence, and save time by sending the first version to Segment A and the second version to Segment B. It’s important that creating segmentation is quick and intuitive, which, as you’ll soon see, isn’t always obvious.
Automation
Automation is another must-have. Once created, automation will work for you 24/7. All you need to do is prepare the email content and set the appropriate conditions, and the email system will do the work for you. For instance, when someone signs up for your list to download a free e-book, automation will deliver the product immediately after signup. The same automation can send a request for feedback or a one-time offer a few days later (which you can read about in one of our recent articles). This feature will save you time and, if used correctly, will earn you money in real time.
Analytics
Thanks to the analytics feature, you can study your emails, and see what works and what doesn’t. You can, for example, thoroughly analyze each email sent, see where subscribers lingered the longest, which links they clicked, and even how long it took them to read the message. Based on this data, your future emails can be even more effective!
Integrations with External Tools
It’s important that our email system easily integrates with external tools, allowing you to connect it to your online store, analytics program, or funnel-building tools like Apresly, giving you even more options. With Apresly, you can create a one-time offer, captivate subscribers with emotional messaging, and add unique, personalized countdown timers to your emails. Ease of integration is crucial because the market offers a vast selection of tools in various categories that can further streamline our work.
MailerLite vs ConvertKit — Plan Comparison
Before we discuss specific differences, let’s first focus on the aspects of the plans and available options. In both tools, pricing depends on the number of subscribers.
MailerLite is generally considered a solution for beginners. It offers a free plan, which is more than sufficient to start with. The free option includes a drag-and-drop editor, automation creator, the ability to create websites and 10 landing pages, and signup forms and pop-ups.
You can check the details here.
ConvertKit is undoubtedly a platform designed with professional content creators in mind — bloggers, authors, podcasters, and online course creators. It has more expensive plans but offers significantly more features. A free version is also available — however, unlike MailerLite, ConvertKit imposes more restrictions, such as only one basic automation and one email sequence. On the other hand, it offers unlimited landing pages, unlimited opt-in forms, unlimited email broadcasts, tagging and segmentation of subscribers, sales of digital products, paid newsletters and subscriptions, RSS feeds and websites, free and smart recommendations, and 24/7 support.
You can check the details here.
MailerLite as the Ideal Tool for Beginners
MailerLite is an email marketing platform that has gained popularity due to its ease of use and attractive pricing. It’s an excellent solution for beginners and those who value intuitiveness and functionality. With MailerLite, you can create and manage email campaigns, segment your subscriber list, and use automation to deliver personalized content at the right time.
Advantages of MailerLite
There are quite a few advantages, but ultimately you need to reconsider what matters most to you.
Intuitive User Interface
MailerLite is known for its clear and easy-to-use interface. Even if you’re just starting with email marketing, you’ll have no trouble navigating this environment. The drag-and-drop editor, in particular, deserves attention, allowing you to easily design visually appealing emails. During the email creation process, users can choose which editor they want to work with.
If they opt for drag-and-drop, they can use the widgets offered by MailerLite and design their template. Users have access to numerous options, including font and color editors. If the email content requires it, you can use the built-in survey feature, eliminating the need for external tools.
Attractive Pricing
Compared to other tools on the market, MailerLite offers very competitive pricing, making it an ideal choice for those on a budget. As mentioned earlier, pricing depends on the number of subscribers, and the plans offer a wide range of options and features. Initially, the free version will be more than sufficient, but over time, you’ll likely find that upgrading is a natural step as you’ll want to fully exploit the potential of this tool.
Advanced Automation Features
MailerLite offers a wide range of automation tools that allow you to create advanced marketing scenarios. And this is available even in the free plan. For example, you can send automated emails in response to subscriber actions, such as opening an email or clicking a link. The automation creator itself is quite simple. When creating a new automation, users can even use available templates to make it easier. However, it can be problematic that each type of automation must be initiated by the same visual automation creator, which can slow down the process. If you want to quickly create a new, similar automation, you can duplicate an existing one and edit it.
Built-In Landing Page Editor
MailerLite has a built-in tool for creating landing pages, which is extremely useful if you want to quickly build a page for a specific campaign. The available templates make the work much easier.
Integration with Other Tools
Smart integrations with the most popular tools were a must. You can connect MailerLite with over 140 apps and programs to further streamline your work and ensure smooth information flow. Importantly, you can also integrate MailerLite with Apresly and automate sales with Tripwire Funnels, Video Sales Letters, or Autowebinars.
Advanced Analytics
Let’s be honest — both MailerLite and ConvertKit aren’t the only choices when it comes to analytics, but the former performs better. In MailerLite, we can experience heatmaps of email messages and see where users are clicking. We can also analyze, using graphs, what time subscribers opened specific campaigns.
Disadvantages of MailerLite
As for the disadvantages, it’s subjective. We can assume that the more novice the user, the fewer the demands. If you’re a niche creator and don’t expect your list to grow into the hundreds of thousands, the following disadvantages won’t be as significant.
Limited Advanced Segmentation
While MailerLite offers subscriber list segmentation, it’s not as advanced as ConvertKit (which we’ll discuss later). The segmentation process is also less clear and straightforward. This could be a limitation for more demanding marketers, but if you’re a beginner and don’t have extensive requirements regarding segmentation, MailerLite will have sufficient functionality in this area.
ConvertKit: A Tool for Content Creators
ConvertKit is a platform designed for professionals. Of course, this doesn’t mean that beginners can’t use it, but the interface is a bit more complex compared to MailerLite. Those who are just starting might not be able to fully leverage this tool’s potential. Professional content creators — such as bloggers or online course creators who seek broad functionality in an email system — should be 100% satisfied. Importantly, ConvertKit places a strong emphasis on building relationships with your audience by offering advanced segmentation and automation tools.
Advantages of ConvertKit
It might seem that the choice is quite straightforward depending on your level of expertise, but it turns out that’s not necessarily the case.
Advanced Segmentation
ConvertKit stands out for its highly developed segmentation options, allowing for precise targeting of content to the right audience groups. You can create complex rules that consider various subscriber actions, enabling personalized communication. The tool replaces the traditional list with tags. Segmenting subscribers using tags is more flexible and makes it easier to create new, custom groups for each email campaign.
Features Designed for Content Creators
ConvertKit is designed with content creators in mind, which is evident in its functionalities, such as easy funnel creation and management or integration with popular creator platforms.
If you plan to monetize your email list, ConvertKit will help you with that. Thanks to the integrated commerce solution — ConvertKit Commerce, you can easily set up digital product sales and receive payments for them. Among the income-generating possibilities ConvertKit offers, you can find:
- Upselling to subscribers of a paid newsletter,
- Promoting other newsletters within the ConvertKit Creator Network,
- Placing sponsored ads in emails, facilitated by ConvertKit’s sponsor network,
- Tip jars that allow your audience to support you financially.
ConvertKit also features a potential earnings calculator, which enables you to estimate earnings when various monetization features are enabled, depending on the size and growth rate of your email list.
Clear Automation
Although automations are not available in the free version of ConvertKit, they’re worth mentioning because they are truly interesting in the paid plans and, most importantly — easy and quick to create. ConvertKit uses a slightly different approach than MailerLite and divides automation into three functions:
- Rules: Simple rules for tagging subscribers when specific events occur.
- Sequences: Multiple emails sent in order, at flexible intervals.
- Visual Automations: Useful for creating advanced sales funnels that combine rules, email sequences, triggers, and integrations.
So, in just a few seconds, you can create a simple ConvertKit automation using rules.
Robust Integrations
Like MailerLite, ConvertKit offers many available integrations with other tools and does not fall short in functionality compared to the previous system.
Disadvantages of ConvertKit
In this case, for some people, the drawbacks may turn out to be advantages, making it difficult to objectively assess the tool.
Higher Price
ConvertKit is a more expensive solution compared to MailerLite, which might be a barrier for those with a smaller budget. If you’re looking for a free plan but want to use automation, you’ll be forced to rule out ConvertKit and choose another tool.
Less Flexibility in Email Design
ConvertKit focuses more on functionality than on the visual aspects of emails. If you care about beautifully designed messages, you might feel some limitations. However, can we officially consider this a drawback?
According to research conducted by ConvertKit, emails that are less adorned and more focused on content have much higher deliverability. Let’s not kid ourselves — what’s the point of a beautifully designed email if it ends up in spam?
Lower-Level Analytics
When it comes to analytics, ConvertKit is weaker compared to MailerLite. In the free version, you can see statistics for individual emails as well as for each email within an automation. However, if you pay for the higher Pro plan, ConvertKit provides deliverability reports showing how many emails reach their destination. We remind you that MailerLite includes these features in its free version.
Steeper Learning Curve
Due to its more advanced features, ConvertKit might require more time to fully understand and utilize its potential. The system’s specificity might somewhat deter beginners who are encountering an email system for the first time. However, it’s worth noting that ConvertKit provides 24-hour support in case of issues with handling functionalities.
Conclusion: MailerLite vs ConvertKit: Which to Choose?
There’s no single right answer. It all depends on what matters most to you and whether you’re a beginner or more advanced. MailerLite is an ideal choice if you’re just starting with email marketing or have a limited budget. Its simplicity and intuitiveness make it perfect for those who don’t need advanced segmentation and automation features. MailerLite is also suitable if you value the ability to quickly create landing pages without the need for external tools.
On the other hand, ConvertKit is the ideal and rightful solution for creators who want to focus on building deeper relationships with their audience through personalized communication. If you’re looking for advanced segmentation, tagging, and automation, and you’re willing to invest more time and money, ConvertKit will be the perfect choice for you. This tool will be especially appreciated by content creators who need more advanced marketing solutions and additional sales options.
Regardless of whether you choose MailerLite or ConvertKit, it’s worth considering using a tool for creating effective sales funnels, such as Apresly. Apresly allows you to create One Time Offers (OTOs) with countdown timers that are synchronized in the email and on the sales page, creating a sense of urgency and motivating action. With integration into both MailerLite and ConvertKit, Apresly can be the ideal complement to your effective marketing strategy.
