These three are not competitors so much as tools for different jobs. Klaviyo is built for selling products, Kit for publishing to an audience, and Mailchimp for general small business use.
Choose on what your business does rather than on the monthly price, because migrating an email platform means rebuilding your automations and briefly risking your deliverability.
Quick Info
Creators and publishers
Kit, formerly ConvertKit
General small business
Mailchimp, or Brevo on cost
Cheapest at 5,000 subscribers
Brevo or MailerLite, both worth considering
Hardest to migrate away from
Klaviyo, because of the integration depth
What matters more than the tool
Your list and your sending habits
What all of them do
—Broadcast sends with a visual editor and templates.
—Signup forms and landing pages.
—Segmentation by behaviour and attributes.
—Automation builders for welcome, abandonment and follow-up sequences.
—A/B testing on subject lines and content.
—Authentication support for SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
—Reasonable deliverability if you send responsibly.
On the core job, any of them is adequate. The differences are in depth, ecosystem and price at scale.
Klaviyo
Built for e-commerce and clearly the best in that category. If you sell products through Shopify or WooCommerce, this is the default answer.
Strengths
—The deepest e-commerce integration available: purchase history, browse behaviour, product feeds, revenue attribution per email.
—Automation depth that the others do not attempt. Complex branching flows, predictive analytics, replenishment timing.
—Revenue reporting per flow and per campaign, which makes the business case obvious.
—SMS in the same platform, which matters for retail.
Weaknesses
—Expensive, and the price scales with both list size and message volume. At 25,000 contacts it is a serious line item.
—Overwhelming for a service business. Most of what you pay for is product-centric.
—The interface assumes you are technical enough to enjoy it.
Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
Built for people who publish: writers, coaches, consultants, course sellers. The tool I would choose for anybody whose email is primarily content.
Strengths
—Plain-text-first design, which matches what actually performs for content email.
—Excellent tagging and sequence model, easy to reason about.
—Good landing pages and forms without needing a separate tool.
—Creator-focused features: paid newsletters, recommendations, digital product sales.
—Genuinely usable free tier for small lists.
Weaknesses
—Weak for e-commerce. The product integrations exist and are shallow compared with Klaviyo.
—Design flexibility is limited, deliberately. Fine if you agree with the philosophy, frustrating if you do not.
—Reporting is adequate rather than rich.
Mailchimp
The general-purpose option and still the most widely used. Fine for a small business that wants to send a monthly note and run a couple of automations.
Strengths
—Easiest to start with. Almost everybody has used it and every tool integrates with it.
—Good templates and a comfortable editor for people who want design control.
—Broad feature set: forms, landing pages, basic CRM, ads.
—Reliable deliverability infrastructure.
Weaknesses
—Pricing has risen substantially and the free tier has narrowed. It is no longer the cheap option.
—Counts unsubscribed contacts towards your plan on some tiers, which surprises people.
—Automation is shallower than Klaviyo and less elegant than Kit.
—The interface has accumulated a lot of features nobody asked for.
The two worth adding to the shortlist
—Brevo: substantially cheaper at volume, priced on emails sent rather than contacts held. Good for large lists mailed occasionally. Interface is less polished.
—MailerLite: the best value for a straightforward small business list. Clean, capable, inexpensive, and it does the job most people actually need.
—For most small businesses I speak to, MailerLite is the honest recommendation and Mailchimp is the one they have already signed up for.
What it actually costs
Approximate monthly costs at 5,000 subscribers with normal sending, as of 2026. Check current pricing, because all of them change it.
—MailerLite: around £25 to £35.
—Brevo: around £25 to £40, depending on send volume.
—Kit: around £50 to £70.
—Mailchimp: around £60 to £90 depending on tier.
—Klaviyo: around £90 to £130, more with SMS.
At 25,000 subscribers the gaps widen considerably, which is when people start migrating. Consider the cost at the list size you expect in two years rather than today's.
How to decide
01You sell physical products online: Klaviyo. The revenue attribution alone justifies it.
02You publish content and sell courses or consulting: Kit.
03You are a general small business sending a monthly note and a few automations: MailerLite for value, Mailchimp for familiarity.
04You have a very large list you mail infrequently: Brevo, on the send-based pricing.
05You are already on one and it works: stay. Migration costs more than the price difference.
The tool is not why your email works. Your list quality and your sending habits are. Pick a competent one and stop researching.
If you do migrate
01Export your list with tags, segments and consent records intact.
02Rebuild your automations before switching, not after. They do not transfer.
03Warm up the new platform: send to your most engaged segment first, then widen over two weeks.
04Set up authentication on the new sending domain before the first send.
05Keep the old account for a month so you can check historical reporting.
06Expect a temporary dip in deliverability. Warming up is what prevents it becoming permanent.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which email tool is best for a small business?
MailerLite for value or Mailchimp for familiarity, unless you sell products online, in which case Klaviyo, or publish content, in which case Kit.
Is Klaviyo worth the price?
For e-commerce with real revenue, yes. Its attribution and flow depth pay for themselves. For a service business it is expensive for features you will not use.
Is Mailchimp still good in 2026?
It is competent and no longer cheap. Fine if you are already on it; not the value choice for a new list.
What is the cheapest decent option?
MailerLite for most small lists, Brevo if you have a large list you mail infrequently and want send-based pricing.
Does the platform affect deliverability?
Reputable platforms all have good infrastructure. Your own sending habits, list hygiene and authentication matter far more than the choice between them.
How hard is it to switch platforms?
The list moves easily; the automations do not. Budget a day or two of rebuilding and warm the new platform up gradually.
Before You Go
Match the tool to what your business sells: products, content or services. Then stop comparing and go and write the welcome sequence, which is worth more than any feature on any of these lists.
The automations worth building are the same on all five platforms.
Match the tool to the business. Then stop researching.
WRITTEN BY TARIQ SALLAM
Marketing Consultant. Entrepreneur. Content Creator.
I'm a marketing consultant, entrepreneur and content creator. I help businesses grow through practical marketing, websites, SEO, content and AI.
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