Email is arguably the most important marketing tool for any online business because it provides a direct link to your audience. There are a hundred different SaaS products you can choose between for your email platform, and we’ve researched plenty of them. Six years ago we switched our email platform to ConvertKit, and we’ve been glad we made the transition ever since.
While we’ve discussed switching from ConvertKit to platforms like Flodesk, we’ve stuck with ConvertKit because the platform is feature-rich, easy-to-use, and they’ve remained dedicated to providing high email deliverability.
What is ConvertKit?
ConvertKit is an email marketing platform that provides tools for building, managing, and emailing your mailing list. It’s easy to use yet feature-rich, provides a great visual campaign builder, and makes it easy for you to monetize your subscribers. It’s perfect for bloggers, digital creators, and course creators. It can even be used to create a paid newsletter (it’s a great alternative to Substack).
Due to ConvertKit’s flexibility, all sorts of businesses benefit from using ConvertKit like podcasters, coaches, musicians, authors, designers, photographers, and other creative entrepreneurs.
We’ve detailed everything we love about ConvertKit below.
Our Favorite ConvertKit Features
Below you will find a list of some of our favorite ConvertKit features. Not every feature is listed here, but hopefully you’ll get an idea of why we’ve recommended ConvertKit for over five years now.
1. Build and send beautiful emails…
If you’ve used any sort of email platform before, you know that writing an email is only half the battle. You also have to design it. With ConvertKit’s email templates, all you have to do is insert your content where you want it. You can also add buttons, images, and videos to increase interaction with your readers.
If you want to create a custom email template or include specific design elements, ConvertKit allows custom HTML and CSS. They offer basic guidance on inserting code snippets here, and you can find more advanced information with a quick Google search.
ConvertKit helps you create two different kinds of marketing emails.
Email Broadcasts
An email broadcast is a single email. It’s what you’d use to make an announcement, create a newsletter, or share a sale. After writing a broadcast you can send it immediately or schedule it to go out later.
Automated Emails
Email funnel, email sequence, automated emails… no matter what you call them, they’re a staple in your business. ConvertKit allows you to connect events, actions, and conditions to design a custom path for your audience to take.
Sequence creation is unbelievably intuitive. Every email has its own tab, and you just drag and drop emails in the order you want them to be sent and adjust the amount of time you want in between each.
Their visual email sequence builder makes it incredibly easy to string together an email sequence. We’ve used plenty of other email platforms like Ontraport and Keap—trust us when we say that ConvertKit’s email sequence builder is far easier to use!
2. Target subscribers with tags and segments
To make the most out of your email list, you want to send highly targeted content. With ConvertKit, you can segment your subscribers based on specific tags. We generally tag people by their interests and the way they found us. We also create list segments based on different criteria.
By sending personalized content that interests different types of people in your audience, you’ll also experience higher open and click rates.
3. Easily build landing pages and forms
A strong landing page is essential for growing your email list. If you don’t have a website, or don’t have the time to add a new landing page to your website, ConvertKit’s landing pages are a goldmine.
ConvertKit offers dozens of landing page templates that fall under four uses:
- lead magnet
- coming soon feature
- biographical profile
- course sign up
All of the templates are fully customizable, and ConvertKit integrates with Unsplash to provide access to more than 100,000 free stock images. You can also choose a custom domain for each page so it doesn’t show as a ConvertKit URL.
They also have plenty of different form options to help you generate leads on your website.
4. You can learn anything you want about ConvertKit.
One of my favorite things about ConvertKit is that they want you and your business to succeed. Seriously.
There are several resources to help you understand the platform, including the Knowledgebase filled with tutorials and a chat board space called the Community.
However, the education that ConvertKit provides goes far beyond basic use. Their how-to guides feature topics like ‘How to create and launch your first online course’ and ‘How to create and sell your ebook online for free.’ They also have three different podcasts, live and on-demand workshops, and an annual conference designed to inspire all sorts of creators.
5. Monetize your email list using ConvertKit
With the Commerce feature, you can sell music, Ebooks, coaching services, presets, templates, and other online products. You can also offer subscriptions to paid newsletters.
You also have the ability to turn on a tip jar. While you can embed the link almost anywhere– like in your website, blog, or link page– one of the best places to share it is within your weekly newsletter. Many readers understand the effort it takes to curate a newsletter, and they want to express their appreciation in a monetary form.
How much does ConvertKit cost?
There are three ConvertKit plans to choose from.
The Free plan is a great way to get started and figure out the basics as you grow your list. It comes with unlimited forms, landing pages, and broadcasts. You’re also able to sell digital products and subscriptions. However, the Free plan caps out at a thousand subscribers.
The Creator plan also comes with all of the unlimited options, as well as other helpful features like the visual automation builder and automated email sequences.
The Pro plan includes a few additional features that are designed for growth– unlimited team members, priority support, a newsletter referral system, subscriber scoring, and advanced reporting.
ConvertKit Pros and Cons
Although we enjoy using ConvertKit, there is always room for improvement.
Pros of using ConvertKit…
ConvertKit has proven to be a consistent and reliable email marketing platform. They consistently roll out with new features, and their customer support team has always been responsive and helpful. Plus, after using it for 5+ years, I have experienced minimal downtime.
Here are some of the other pros of using ConvertKit…
- Easy-to-use email builder
- New and improved features are consistently released
- Advanced metrics, easy to drill-down on subscriber activity/engagement
- Landing page and form builder
- Reputation for good email deliverability (more on that below)
- Customer service is quick and helpful
Cons of using ConvertKit…
Of course, no platform is perfect. While we have stuck with ConvertKit, there have been features of other email marketing platforms that have come close to luring us away. Flodesk’s stunning email builder, for instance, is one of them. Here are some cons of using ConvertKit…
- While you can design attractive emails, it’s not as designer-friendly as Flodesk
- The cost increases with the amount of subscribers
- There is a cost increase to get access to features like advanced metrics
Ultimately the cost concerns are not deal-breakers. As your list grows, your revenue should grow, too.
ConvertKit’s Email Deliverability
Email deliverability measures whether emails actually make it to someone’s inbox. Email service providers like Gmail use advanced algorithms to determine whether an email should be filtered to spam.
It’s critical to choose an email marketing platform that is committed to maintaining high email deliverability.
Fortunately, ConvertKit has a stellar reputation when it comes to email deliverability. ConvertKit boasts a deliverability rate of 99+% on over a billion emails sent last month. If you’re wondering what that means, it means you can be pretty confident that emails sent with ConvertKit make it to people’s inbox.
What are some ConvertKit Alternatives?
Like we’ve mentioned, we’ve used quite a few ConvertKit alternatives like:
- MailChimp
- Flodesk
- MailPoet
- Ontraport
- Keap
We’ve even compared ConvertKit to Flodesk and other platforms. If we had to choose another platform, it would probably be Flodesk. Flodesk is closest to ConvertKit in terms of feature set and who they target as users.
Platforms like Ontraport and Keap are suitable for businesses that need their email platform to also act as a CRM or sales tool. While they are more feature-rich then ConvertKit, they tend to be way more than what an average business needs in a email marketing tool (plus they’re expensive and one might argue they suffer from feature-bloat).
Do we recommend ConvertKit?
Without a doubt. There’s a reason we have remained with ConvertKit for over 6 years now. Whether you’re looking to start your email list or considering switching to a new platform, ConvertKit is a clear winner in our books.
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