Home › Guides › Kit vs MailerLite
Updated October 6, 2026 · Prices verified from vendor pricing pages: Kit's plan prices re-read from its official pricing page, October 2, 2026; MailerLite's ten-band ladder read September 21, 2026, re-verified through nightly checks, October 6, 2026 · Affiliate disclosure
Kit prices attention: it gives the audience away and taxes the revenue. MailerLite prices storage: it charges for the list and throws in the toolset. Both are legitimate, and both pages are honest about their own numbers — but they answer different questions, and the arithmetic below shows where each one stops being the cheap option.
One transparency note before the tables: MailerLite publishes a price for every band it serves — ten of them, $12 to $229 a month on the Comfort plan. Kit publishes two plan prices (Creator and Pro) at the 1,000-subscriber view, a free-plan ceiling at 10,000 subscribers, and nothing else on a static page; every larger list size sits behind an on-page slider. That asymmetry shapes this whole comparison: above 10,000 subscribers, one side of the table simply has no printed number, and we leave it blank rather than guessing.
| Subscribers | Kit (free plan) | MailerLite Comfort, monthly billing | MailerLite Comfort, billed yearly (10% off) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | $0 | $12/mo · $144 a year | $10.80/mo · $129.60 a year |
| 2,500 | $0 | $33/mo · $396 a year | $29.70/mo · $356.40 a year |
| 10,000 | $0 | $89/mo · $1,068 a year | $80.10/mo · $961.20 a year |
Every Kit cell in that table is $0 because 10,000 subscribers is exactly where Kit's free plan ends — its own page states the ceiling, unlimited landing pages, forms and broadcasts on the free tier. The MailerLite figures come from its published Comfort ladder, both cycles included. The free plans beneath the table are not equivalent either: Kit's covers 40 times as many subscribers (10,000 against 250), while MailerLite's allows 2,500 emails a month on two seats against Kit's unlimited sends on one.
Kit's plan prices, read from its own pricing page: paid plans start at $39 a month (Creator) or $79 a month (Pro) at the 1,000-subscriber view on monthly billing — $390 and $790 billed yearly. The page itself prints those cards as "$33 /mo — $390 billed yearly — save $78" and "$66 /mo — $790 billed yearly — save $158": the printed figures are the yearly bills divided by twelve ($32.50 and $65.83, rounded), and the monthly-billing prices are the ones the printed savings reconcile against ($468 − $390 = $78 at $39 a month; $948 − $790 = $158 at $79). All of this matters the moment you compare Kit's sticker against MailerLite's monthly column — the two $-figures are not the same billing cycle.
Then there is the revenue side, which no plan price captures. Selling digital products through Kit costs 3.5% plus $0.30 per sale on every plan, free included. The arithmetic on a modest launch: a $20 product sold 100 times in a month is $2,000 of revenue and $100 of Kit fees — $70 of percentage fees plus $30 of per-sale fees, $1,200 a year on the same run rate. Earnings paid through Kit's Paid Recommendations network carry a separate 23.5% fee. A buyer doing no commerce pays none of this; a buyer running a paid newsletter or course pays it on every transaction, on top of any plan.
The operational traps are quieter. Crossing a subscriber threshold upgrades the plan automatically — convenient mid-launch, expensive if you import a stale list. Downgrades go the other direction manually: Kit's support requires an email before your bill shrinks after a list cleanup. And above 10,000 subscribers the published numbers stop; the ladder lives in a 45-position slider, so a 25,000-subscriber quote is something you discover in the product, not on the page. What that wall looks like from the Mailchimp side is in our Kit vs Mailchimp comparison, which prices the same free ceiling against Mailchimp's 250-contact cap.
MailerLite's Comfort ladder is the most readable in the category — $12 at 500 subscribers, $19 at 1,000, $33 at 2,500, $49 at 5,000, $69 at 8,000, $89 at 10,000, then $129, $159, $179 and $229 to 30,000 — with the full feature set on every paid plan and 10% off every annual bill. Readability has a price too: the cliffs are printed right there. Subscriber 1,001 moves the bill from $19 to $33, $168 a year for one name. Subscriber 10,001 lands on the 15,000 band at $129, $480 a year, because no band exists between 10,000 and 15,000. The full ladder and its counting rules are in our MailerLite pricing deep-dive.
Three more terms decide whether the cheap rung stays cheap. The subscriber count is cumulative inside each billing cycle — addresses deleted mid-cycle keep counting until the billing anniversary, so a cleaned list can keep billing at its old band. The 10% annual discount locks the term: the plan cannot convert to monthly until it expires, downgrades apply from the next cycle, and the discount does not stack with promotions. And transactional email is not in the plan at all — it is sold as a separate product, MailerSend, while Kit's sending is unlimited on every tier.
At zero revenue, Kit wins every size up to 10,000 subscribers and it is not close: $0 against $144, $396 or $1,068 a year. The ranking flips with commerce attached, because Kit's fees scale with sales while MailerLite's bill scales with list size. The break-even from our own rate table: the $100-a-month fee bill on $2,000 of monthly sales (100 transactions at $20) already exceeds MailerLite Comfort's $33 a month at 2,500 subscribers — $1,200 a year against $396. Add a second seat, a documented price above 10,000 subscribers, or transactional sending, and the case widens. Kit's counter-case is the audience business with little or no per-sale revenue: for a pure newsletter under 10,000 subscribers, MailerLite cannot match free, and even its yearly rate ($129.60 at 500 subscribers) is a cost Kit never charges. The nearest ladder-vs-ladder pairing, where both free plans stop at 250, is in our Klaviyo vs MailerLite comparison.
Kit's plan prices, free-plan ceiling, per-sale fees and Paid Recommendations split were read from Kit's own pricing page on October 2, 2026, including the card arithmetic that prints $33 and $66 against yearly bills of $390 and $790. MailerLite's ten Comfort bands and its yearly rates were read from its own pricing page on September 21, 2026, and re-verified through our nightly price checks with no changes through October 6, 2026. Where a vendor publishes no figure at a list size — everything above Kit's 10,000-subscriber ceiling — the cell stays empty rather than estimated. Our methodology page explains the full process. To price your own list size across every vendor we can verify, the list-size cost calculator holds the published bands side by side, and our free-plan comparison prices the first paid year at 500, 2,500 and 10,000 subscribers for six vendors.
Yes, per Kit's own pricing page (re-read October 2, 2026): up to 10,000 subscribers, unlimited landing pages, forms and broadcasts, unlimited sending, on one user seat. The real limits are the single seat and selling fees — 3.5% plus $0.30 per digital-product sale on every plan, and 23.5% of Paid Recommendations earnings.
On monthly billing, $12 a month at 500 subscribers, $33 at 2,500 and $89 at 10,000 — $144, $396 and $1,068 a year. On the 10%-off yearly rate, $129.60, $356.40 and $961.20. Every paid band carries the full feature set.
The card renders the yearly cycle: "$33 /mo — $390 billed yearly — save $78 per year." $390 ÷ 12 is $32.50, printed as $33, and the $78 saving only reconciles against a $468 twelve-month total — $39 a month. Pro is the same shape: $66 printed against $79 on monthly billing, $790 billed yearly.
Once selling starts. $2,000 of monthly sales across 100 transactions carries $100 a month of Kit fees — $1,200 a year — against $396 a year for MailerLite Comfort at 2,500 subscribers. MailerLite also wins on seats (two on free against one), on printed prices at every band, and on documented pricing above 10,000 subscribers.
The published prices stop: larger sizes sit behind an interactive slider, and the account upgrades automatically rather than pausing. MailerLite prints the rung — subscriber 10,001 lands Comfort on the 15,000 band at $129 a month, $480 a year more than the 10,000 band. Kit downgrades are manual (email support); MailerLite's apply from the next cycle on annual plans.