Kit

Kit, formerly ConvertKit, is the email marketing platform that decided creators deserve a tool built around their actual workflow rather than a repurposed enterprise ESP. You get newsletters, tag-based segmentation, visual automations, landing pages, and a Creator Network for cross-recommendations. Paid subscriptions and digital products sit alongside the email features, so you can run a paid newsletter or sell a course without adding another tool.

The tag and sequence model is what differentiates it from Mailchimp-style list thinking. Subscribers live on one list, tagged by interest and behavior, and automations run based on tags rather than moving people between lists. For a creator running multiple projects (newsletter plus course plus coaching), this maps to how you think about your audience. The visual automation builder is one of the cleanest in the category.

Honest downsides: the free tier caps at 10,000 subscribers but the paid tiers get expensive as your list scales, and Kit's templates and editor are intentionally minimal. If you want heavily designed HTML emails, Mailchimp or Beehiiv templates feel richer. Reporting is adequate rather than deep. For creators who want the platform's opinion to match theirs (text-first emails, audience-first thinking), it's the right fit; creators who want flashy newsletters may prefer Beehiiv or Substack.