Kit (Formerly ConvertKit) Review: After Testing it for 1 Year

ConvertKit is one of the highly recommended email marketing software among bloggers and digital marketers. But how good is it?

Out of the box, ConvertKit has an intuitive user interface that allows you to create email campaigns (both broadcasts and automated sequences), manage your list, and monetize it by selling digital products directly from its platform. Additionally, it has a visual automation builder that comes with pre-built automation templates that allow you to quickly build email funnels to nurture your leads and convert them.

I’ve been using ConvertKit for some time now and tested it from every angle and aspect to see where it thrives and lacks.

In this detailed ConvertKit review, I will share my hands-on experience using the platform and also show you how it stacks up when it comes to:

• Landing pages and form-building
• Building email automations
• List management
• Reporting and analytics
• Email deliverability
• Pricing

And much more.

Let’s get started.

ConverKit Review: User Experience

Strikes a balance between user-friendliness and functionality.

ConvertKit has an intuitive and clutter-free dashboard that makes it easy to build your email campaigns. The dashboard loads fast and looks modern with well-designed layouts and vibrant colors that feel warm and welcoming.  

Its menu items are neatly organized at the dashboard’s top navigation section, making it easy to find what you need without getting overwhelmed.

For example, if you want to create your automation funnel you don’t need to sift through multiple tabs to find it.

Just hit the “Automate” menu item, and then “Visual Automation” at the top navigation bar and you’ll the launch its automation builder.

So if you’re looking for email marketing software that strikes a balance between simplicity and functionality, you’ll immediately fall in love with ConvertKit.

ConvertKit Review: Forms and Landing Page Building

ConvertKit comes with built-in form and landing page builders that can replace most specialized lead-capturing software such as Convertflow. But how do they measure up? Let’s find out.

ConvertKit can create different form formats including inline, modal, slide-in, and sticky bars that can be quickly added to your website.

Many email marketing software limits you to a few form layouts such as inline forms—which can be embedded in your website pages,  but ConvertKit goes beyond that allowing you to create modal popups, slide-ins, and sticky bars. 

Each form layout comes with prebuilt templates that are well designed and you can customize them to match your lead generation needs.  

You have the option to design a straightforward opt-in form to grow your subscriber list or a content upgrade form that delivers incentives like PDFs, videos, templates, or cheat sheets as soon as users sign up.

Pop-ups and sticky bars come with versatile display settings, such as exit intent, scroll percentage, or based on the time spent on the page. You can also tailor the form’s visibility on different devices and control the frequency with which visitors see the form.

Its opt-in forms have limited custom fields.

The ConvertKit form builder enables you to tailor your opt-in forms to align closely with your brand and lead generation needs. With a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, you can add various elements to your form, such as images, videos, or countdown timers, which can enhance conversion rates.

However ConvertKit form buldert limits you to only three custom fields which include subscriber name, email, and phone number. 

Meanwhile, its competitors such as MailChimp go beyond that allowing you to add more custom fields including, subscribers’ location, birthday date, and website URLs enabling you to collect more information about your leads and create campaigns that better target them.

Tons of templates, but limited in design customization.

ConvertKit comes with over 60 landing page templates across different funnel types including newsletters, podcasts, webinars, and podcasts.

The templates are simple, lightweight, and look modern. You can customize the pages to personalize your messaging to your needs.  You can also use its drag-and-drop editor to add different elements to your page including blockquotes, testimonials, images, videos, a gallery, countdown timer, just to mention a few. 

However, it lacks the design control offered by most marketing automation builders like ClickFunnels. You’re limited to the customization options provided by the template you select which makes it hard to design a page unique to you.  The editor does not support individual element styling with CSS or spacing adjustments between sections, rows, columns, and text, which are crucial for controlling the visual hierarchy on your landing page.

Additionally, ConvertKit lacks the feature to preview designs on mobile and tablet devices, making it challenging to ensure your design is optimized for these screens.

Editor’s Take: Since the email marketing software is targeted to creators its simplicity makes sense. Its wide selection of templates and minimalistic design allows you to quickly begin collecting leads without getting bogged down with the idea of creating visually appealing designs. This allows you to concentrate more of your efforts on what matters most—creating compelling content for your audience and monetizing it. 

ConvertKit Review: Newsletter and Automation Building

The email template designer is easy to use for most users.

ConvertKit makes it easy to design your first email template—thanks to its intuitive drag-and-drop interface.

You can get started with its wide selection of 10+ email templates designed for different purposes, including newsletters, welcome emails, and sales promotions.  

The templates are optimized to look great on any device, so you can get started quickly and easily.  You can customize the template’s design by changing change colors, fonts, and layouts to match your brand needs.

The email content editor is intuitive and easy to use. You can add and arrange text, images, buttons, and other interactive elements such as videos and countdown timers to your email. elements without needing any coding knowledge.  

You can further preview your emails across desktop, phone, and tablet and also send a test email to see how your email appears and reads to your recipients.

Can A/B test your emails but it only allows you to test subject lines.

ConvertKit allows you to test different subject lines which can help boost your email open rates. You can create two variations of your subject line and send them to a small test group.  

ConvertKit then analyzes which subject line has a higher open rate and automatically sends the winning version to the rest of your list.  This helps you optimize your email campaigns for maximum engagement right from the start.

Meanwhile, the A/B testing capability doesn’t extend to other email elements like content, calls to action, or design variations. This means you can’t test different versions of your entire email body to see which performs better.

Its email automation workflow builder can replace specialized autoresponders.

ConvertKit lets you design advanced automated email funnels that automatically send emails based on user behavior, and it does so in a way that’s easy to use, even for users with less experience building email funnels. 

The software uses a drag-and-drop Visual Automation builder that uses a flow chart layout to build funnels allowing you to visualize every stage your leads get taken to.

You can decide to start from scratch or choose from its wide selection of 15+ pre-built automation templates for common scenarios, like welcoming new subscribers, promoting a new product launch to interested users, or re-engaging inactive subscribers. 

 ConvertKit goes a step further by allowing you to set conditional split paths where you can direct your subscribers down different paths based on their behaviors or criteria that you define. For example, you can segment your subscribers in your automated sequence based on whether they have made a purchase, or attended a webinar, among others.

This allows you to effectively segment your email subscribers and send them email campaigns that matter to them which can boost your conversion rates. 

ConvertKit automation rules can create multi-trigger workflows with parallel actions.

ConvertKit allows you to build workflow automation based on user behavior using a simple “if-then” logic. You can define the trigger (the “if” part) – like when a subscriber clicks a link —  and the action (the “then” part) – adding to a tag. 

Now the best thing about ConvertKit automation rules is that you’re not limited to one single linear type of workflow where you can only add a single trigger to a single action. In fact, you can create multi-trigger workflows with parallel actions where you can link:

• Multiple triggers to a single action
• Multiple triggers to multiple actions

Instead of a sequential order, the linked actions in these workflows can be executed concurrently. This means multiple actions can happen at the same time, potentially speeding up the automation process.

For example, a workflow can be triggered by a visitor signing up for a form and clicking a link in your email. ConvertKit then executes parallel actions:

The actions will be executed simultaneously, than one by one.

 ConvertKit Review:  List Management

One-click import from your previous email marketing platform + free migration from the experts.

ConvertKit makes it easy to import your email list from your previous email marketing platforms including MailChimp, Drip, MailerLite, AWeber, and more. 

Migrating from some platforms like Drip and MailChimp gets even easier as you can directly import your email in a few clicks without any manual steps using their API integration. 

However other platforms like AWeber will require you to import your list manually via a CSV file. 

Moreover, ConvertKit only accepts CSV file formats when importing your subscriber’s list. It does not accept other formats like .xsl from Excel—which will require going a step further to convert the file format. 

However, if you’re on one of its paid plans, the ConvertKit team offers free migration from their experts—so don’t have to. Besides importing your list, they’ll also replicate your opt-in forms, email automation workflows, and templates.

This is a service that most email marketing platforms don’t—which speaks volumes of the lengths that ConvertKit is willing to go to help its customers.

Uses tags and segments to organize your subscribers—which allows you to create dynamic subscriber profiles based on their behaviors & interests.

Traditional list-based systems can become difficult to manage as your audience grows and their interests become more diverse. 

In such systems, subscribers can only belong to one list at a time, making it challenging to reach them effectively and with the right message.

However, ConvertKit’s tag system provides a more flexible way to organize subscribers. 

With tags, you can categorize subscribers based on their past behavior, such as clicking a link in your emails or purchasing a product. 

You can assign multiple tags to each subscriber based on specific actions, interests, or any relevant data point. 

This system allows for highly targeted segments for your emails, reaching the right people with the right message at the right time. 

ConvertKit’s segments help you group subscribers based on specific filter conditions, such as forms they’ve signed up from, tags added to them, sequences they are in, or the products they’ve purchased. This way, you can further refine your targeted messaging and improve your email marketing performance.

For example, you can create a segment for subscribers who haven’t purchased anything in the past six months and send them re-engagement campaigns.

Overall, I found ConvertKit’s way of list management robust and super intuitive. You don’t have to create a list of subscribers to organize them. Just create tags and segments, fire up an automation and ConvertKit will handle the rest for you.

ConvertKit Pricing Review: Value for Money

Has a higher pricing tag but gives you access to all its essential tools on its paid plans.

ConvertKit offers a free plan and two paid plans – Creator and Creator Pro. The price of these plans depends on the number of subscribers you have on your list. The free plan is limited to 1000 subscribers and allows you to create unlimited landing pages and forms. You can also sell digital products through its platform.

The Creator plan starts at $15 per month for 300 email subscribers. The Creator Pro plan starts at $29 for the same number of email subscribers, but it comes with additional features like subscriber engagement scoring, deliverability reporting, and priority live chat and email support. 

Although the price is higher than competitors like MailerLite and AWeber, it is still reasonable. However, as your list grows, the cost can become expensive. For example, it will cost you $79 per month or $790 annually for an email list of 5000 subscribers on the Creator Plan. A platform like MailerLite provides nearly the same plan for only $39 per month.

However, unlike its competitors, ConvertKit provides more value as it doesn’t hide most of its features behind high-tiered plans. You can send unlimited broadcasts, get access to all its landing page templates, and also create as many automation workflows as you can handle.

ConvertKit Pros and Cons 

ConvertKit Review: Final Verdict

After using and testing ConvertKit and comparing it to some of its competitors it’s evident the email marketing platform is not meant for every business or entrepreneur looking to build an email list or marketing automation workflows.

ConvertKit excels in creating email funnels and email marketing in general. It has an intuitive yet robust Visual Automation builder that allows you to create email workflows and map your subscriber’s journey. You also get access to a selection of automation rules that you can use to perform certain actions in your workflows such as adding tags when users click a link—which can aid in segmentation. 

On the flip side, ConvertKit has basic tracking and testing features. You can view how your emails perform including broadcasts but you can’t visualize a contact’s conversion lifecycle. Moreover, it lacks better conversion optimization features where you’re limited to A/B testing email subject lines. You can’t test variations of email and its content such as a button vs a link or even different versions of your landing pages to see which converts better.

With that in mind, choose ConvertKit if: 

• You’re a creator looking for a simple yet effective email marketing platform to build and monetize your list
• You’re new to email marketing and are looking for a platform that’s easy to use.
• You want powerful segmentation and automation to create targeted campaigns based on subscriber interests and behavior.
• You plan to sell digital products like ebooks, courses, and other downloadable content.

Try ConverKit 14 days for Free.