What happened in September 2025 – and what it means for your choice today | May 2026 | 13 min read – Kit vs MailerLite 2026

Disclosure: PassiveKit earns commissions on Kit and MailerLite referrals. Both tools are reviewed independently – this article recommends MailerLite in specific situations where it genuinely wins.

What Happened in September 2025

Two things changed simultaneously in September 2025 that most comparison articles have not yet fully processed.

Kit increased its free Newsletter plan from 1,000 to 10,000 subscribers. In the same month, MailerLite cut its free plan from 1,000 to 500 subscribers. One platform made its free tier 10x more generous. The other made its free tier 50% smaller.

The result: Kit free now covers 10,000 subscribers. MailerLite free covers 500. The gap between them at the free tier went from zero to 20x in a single month. Any comparison article written before September 2025 is describing a different product landscape.

This is the fact that changes the comparison. Everything below explains the nuances – but the starting point is this: for anyone with under 10,000 subscribers who has not yet chosen a platform, Kit free is the default recommendation by a significant margin.

Who Wins – The Verdict Table

Pricing – The Full Picture

Subscribers	Kit Newsletter (free)	Kit Creator (paid)	MailerLite free	MailerLite Growing Business
Up to 500	$0	$33/mo	$0	–
Up to 1,000	$0	$33/mo	$0 (was 1k, now 500)	$10/mo
Up to 2,500	$0	$33/mo	–	$15/mo
Up to 5,000	$0	$79/mo	–	$32/mo
Up to 10,000	$0	$111/mo	–	$54/mo
Up to 25,000	Paid required	$179/mo	–	$109/mo
Up to 50,000	Paid required	$279/mo	–	$194/mo

The pricing story has two distinct chapters separated by the 10,000 subscriber mark.

Under 10,000 subscribers: Kit free wins by default. $0 versus $0 – but Kit covers 10,000 subscribers and MailerLite covers 500. This is not a close comparison at the free tier.

Over 10,000 subscribers: MailerLite becomes meaningfully cheaper. At 10,000 subscribers on paid plans, MailerLite Growing Business costs $54/month versus Kit Creator at $111/month. At 25,000 subscribers, MailerLite costs $109/month versus Kit at $179/month. If you are a pure email marketer with no plans to sell digital products or use Creator Network, the $57–70/month saving at scale is real.

Feature Comparison – What Each Plan Actually Includes

Feature	Kit Newsletter (free)	Kit Creator $33/mo	MailerLite free	MailerLite Growing $10/mo
Subscribers	10,000	From 1,000 (scales)	500	From 1,000 (scales)
Email sends	Unlimited	Unlimited	12,000/mo	Unlimited
Automations	1 basic sequence	Unlimited visual	Yes – multi-step on free	Yes – unlimited
Landing pages	Unlimited	Unlimited	1 (free tier)	Unlimited
Digital product selling	Yes – native	Yes – full suite	No	No
Paid newsletter subscriptions	Yes (0% Kit fee)	Yes (0% Kit fee)	No native tool	No native tool
Creator Network	Partial	Full access	No	No
Email design	Plain-text focused	Plain-text focused	Drag-and-drop builder	Drag-and-drop builder
Deliverability	Strong	Strong	Variable – known issues	Variable – known issues
Account approval	Straightforward	Straightforward	Strict – rejection risk	Strict – rejection risk
Remove platform branding	No – Kit branded	Yes	No – ML branded	Yes ($10/mo plan removes)
App integrations	No	100+	No	Limited on free

Where Kit Wins

The free plan – 20x the subscriber capacity

Kit Newsletter free covers 10,000 subscribers with unlimited emails, unlimited landing pages, and the ability to sell digital products. MailerLite free covers 500 subscribers with 12,000 monthly emails. For anyone starting a newsletter today, the free tier decision is not a comparison – it is a default. Kit.

Digital product selling – MailerLite cannot do this

Kit Creator includes native digital product selling: upload a PDF, set a price, and sell it to your list directly through Kit’s checkout. MailerLite has no equivalent. For solopreneurs who sell ebooks, templates, courses, or digital downloads, MailerLite requires integrating a separate tool – Gumroad, Lemonsqueezy, or Stripe directly – adding cost and friction. Kit Creator handles email and product sales in one platform.

Paid newsletter subscriptions

Kit Creator supports paid subscription tiers with 0% platform fee – Stripe processing fees apply but Kit takes nothing. MailerLite has no paid newsletter functionality at any plan level. For newsletter creators who plan to monetize through subscriptions, MailerLite is simply the wrong platform.

Creator Network – growth through recommendations

Kit’s Creator Network lets other Kit creators recommend your newsletter to their audiences, sending you new subscribers through trusted referrals. MailerLite has no equivalent cross-promotion network. For solopreneurs whose primary growth challenge is audience acquisition, this network adds genuine value that MailerLite cannot match.

Account approval – MailerLite rejects without explanation

MailerLite has a notoriously strict manual account review process. New accounts are reviewed before you can send campaigns. Accounts with new domains, certain content categories, or business types outside their acceptable use policy get rejected – often without a clear explanation of why. This is consistently the most-cited complaint across MailerLite reviews on Trustpilot and Capterra. Kit’s approval process is straightforward and does not present this risk.

Where MailerLite Wins

Price at scale – significantly cheaper above 10,000 subscribers

At 10,000 subscribers on paid plans, MailerLite Growing Business costs $54/month versus Kit Creator at $111/month – a $57/month or $684/year difference. At 25,000 subscribers the gap is $70/month or $840/year. For solopreneurs who have already passed 10,000 subscribers, primarily send newsletters, and do not need digital product selling or Creator Network, the MailerLite saving is real and meaningful.

Drag-and-drop email builder

Kit’s email editor is deliberately plain-text focused – the design philosophy is that text-based emails deliver better than designed templates. This is defensible on deliverability grounds but frustrating for creators who want visual emails with columns, images, and branded layouts. MailerLite’s drag-and-drop builder is one of the best in the market at any price point. If email design matters to you, MailerLite produces better-looking emails.

Multi-step automations on the free plan

MailerLite includes multi-step automation sequences on its free plan – a feature most email platforms reserve for paid tiers. This is genuinely useful for solopreneurs who want a welcome sequence running before they commit to paying for anything. Kit free includes 1 basic sequence, which covers the most common welcome automation use case, but MailerLite’s automation capability on the free tier is more flexible.

The MailerLite Deliverability and Rejection Problem

This section belongs in any honest comparison of MailerLite. Two issues appear consistently across user reviews and are not isolated complaints:

Account rejection without explanation

MailerLite’s manual approval process rejects accounts for opaque reasons – new domains, niche content, affiliate marketing references in emails, or simply appearing outside their expected customer profile. Users report submitting appeals and receiving no response. For a solopreneur who has already set up their newsletter infrastructure and then gets rejected, this is a significant operational risk. Kit does not have an equivalent problem.

Deliverability variability

Independent deliverability testing across 2025–2026 shows MailerLite emails landing in Gmail’s Promotions tab and occasionally Spam at higher rates than competitors including Kit. This is not universal – many MailerLite users report strong deliverability – but the pattern appears often enough in user reports to be worth flagging. Poor deliverability on a growing list can undermine months of audience-building work.

These issues do not disqualify MailerLite – plenty of solopreneurs use it without problems. But going in with eyes open to these risks is part of making an informed decision.

The Upgrade Path – When to Move Between Platforms

Starting on Kit free → upgrading to Kit Creator

The natural progression: you build your list on Kit free (up to 10,000 subscribers, $0), launch a product or paid newsletter, and upgrade to Creator at $33/month when you need unlimited automations or want to remove Kit branding. This is the smoothest upgrade path in email marketing – same platform, no migration.

Starting on MailerLite → considering Kit

If you are on MailerLite Growing Business and want to add digital product selling, paid subscriptions, or Creator Network growth, migrating to Kit Creator is worth doing. Export your subscriber list as CSV from MailerLite, import into Kit, and rebuild your automation sequences – typically under 2 hours for a list under 5,000 subscribers.

Over 10,000 subscribers, email-only needs

If you have passed Kit’s free tier ceiling and primarily need email marketing without products or paid subscriptions, MailerLite Growing Business at $54/month for 10,000 subscribers is cheaper than Kit Creator at $111/month. This is the clearest case where MailerLite wins on pure value – the $57/month saving is real if you genuinely will not use Kit’s creator features.

Frequently Asked Questions