Flodesk vs Kit vs beehiiv: The Ultimate Email Marketing Platform Comparison

Choosing the right email marketing tool for your business can be a mammoth task. There are many to choose from; some are free, some charge a monthly fee, and each comes with different benefits for creators.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, it’s hardly surprising! We’ve decided to tackle this problem and make comparing email platforms a little bit easier. In this comprehensive comparison guide, we’ll compare top email marketing tools including Kit, Flodesk, and beehiiv to see which are the best email platforms for your business.

Keep reading to learn about each of these three platforms, including their key features, pricing, and ultimately which one is going to work the best for your brand.

Table of Contents

• Flodesk vs Kit vs beehiiv: Overview

  • What is Flodesk?

  • What is Kit (ConvertKit)?

  • What is beehiiv?

• Key Features Comparison: Flodesk vs Kit vs beehiiv

  • Email Automation and Workflows

  • Email Design and Templates

  • Subscriber Management

  • Analytics and Reporting

  • Pricing: Flodesk vs Kit vs beehiiv

  • Flodesk Pricing

  • Kit (ConvertKit) Pricing 

  • beehiiv Pricing

    • Why beehiiv is the Best Choice for Creators and Businesses

  • Superior Audience Growth Tools

  • Seamless Monetization Options

  • Simple and Efficient User Interface

• Google’s People Also Ask Questions:

  • What is cheaper than ConvertKit?

  • How to switch from ConvertKit to Flodesk?

  • Which is best Mailchimp or ConvertKit?

  • How much does Flodesk cost per month?

Flodesk vs Kit vs beehiiv: Overview

First, let’s take a deep dive into an overview of Flodesk, Kit, and beehiiv and their role in the email marketing ecosystem. We’ll discuss which audiences each platform is geared towards, with a rough idea of the types of features each tool offers.

What is Flodesk?

Flodesk is a design-driven email marketing tool primarily geared toward creative entrepreneurs who value aesthetics and simplicity.

Launched in 2019, they’re relatively new to the email marketing space and were built from the ground up without funding or Public Relations (PR). They’ve become famous for their flat rate pricing system which doesn’t increase in price based on subscriber numbers, and their software that is easy to use, with email and sales functionality all in one place. 

What is Kit (ConvertKit)?

Kit, formerly ConvertKit, is an email marketing platform specifically designed for creators, offering powerful automation and tools to help users grow their audience.

Founded in 2013, Kit is one of the oldest and perhaps most well-known email marketing platforms out there. They focus on improving work processes via automation and link with a range of other apps including Shopify, Patreon, Mighty, and Zapier.

What is beehiiv?

beehiiv is a newsletter-centric platform designed for creators and entrepreneurs. They offer powerful tools focusing on monetization, building subscriber numbers, and managing audiences via segmentation.

Having launched in 2021 by early employees of Morning Brew, they focus on how email marketing can provide an ever-growing, engaged audience. As creators themselves, they want to help other creators build their email marketing lists and monetize them to help their customers grow and build their own brands.

Key Features Comparison: Flodesk vs Kit vs beehiiv

Now that we know a little bit about each email marketing tool, let’s delve a bit deeper.

We’ll analyze the key features of Flodesk, Kit, and beehiiv, focusing on automation, design, subscriber management, and analytics. This should help you figure out what’s important for your brand when it comes to email marketing, and which platform will suit you best!

Email Automation and Workflows

Email automation and workflows can make your business significantly more efficient, automating certain areas of your marketing to save time for employees while removing human error in the process.

For example, you could set up an automation that sends emails to subscribers who have abandoned their shopping cart and haven’t made a purchase. This can help improve conversions via email marketing and save time for your team in manually sending these emails.

For each of the three platforms we’re comparing target automation/workflows in different ways.

Flodesk’s automation set-up is well-designed and visually appealing, making it easy to use and create workflows. 

Unfortunately, it’s fairly limited - you can set up a welcome series and a post-purchase follow-up, but their system doesn’t go too much further than this. The system is certainly modern and user-friendly but struggles to compete when it comes to more advanced automation opportunities.

Kit offers more robust automation options for creators, with increased triggers, actions, and events to make your email marketing quicker and more seamless. Their Visual Automation system is also more customizable, allowing you to tailor it to your brand and workflows. 

Kit focuses on allowing you to send targeted content to the right people at the right time, fully customizing the journey of a subscriber based on their behavior to maximize conversion potential. 

However, their system isn’t the most visually appealing and could do with a design refresh to keep it in line with newer systems.

beehiiv strikes the best balance between a user-friendly workflow that helps creators focus on growing their audience while engaging them efficiently. Automation with beehiiv is fully personalized to build a loyal subscriber base and will grow with your mailing list no matter the size, helping creators to scale their marketing efforts. 

The system is easy to use via a simple grid builder, allowing users to add steps, time delays, and conditional branches. Engaging emails can be crafted for each step in the automation flow, creating a more personal experience for subscribers and increasing conversion rates. 

They also offer high levels of analytics with their automations, tracking subscriber progress at all stages to understand where creators can further optimize their email marketing efforts.

Email Design and Templates

When it comes to email design and templates, platforms need to make it easy for creators to edit a pre-made design so that emails can be designed quickly, without sacrificing a beautiful template that will wow their subscribers.

Let’s start with Flodesk. They’re well known for their wide range of visually appealing templates, with the ability to customize text, fonts, and colors. The templates are super easy to use, and Flodesk excels at making the process of using a template easy for new users with a range of prompts to help customize the template to your liking. 

However, the system can feel a little clunky to more experienced users, particularly if they have set preferences that they want to come back to again and again.

Kit offers a more functional platform, with dozens of templates to choose from. This is ideal if you know the type of template you like and want minimal editing to make sending super efficient.

Unfortunately while quick and easy to use, Kit’s templates are lacking in flexible, customizable design. It’s more difficult to make a template unique, and some templates are expensive at $39 a pop.

beehiiv is more focused on conversion when it comes to its email templates. They guide creators through the best routes for completing aims and goals in their templates, predominantly via CTA buttons and other conversion opportunities. Their templates are designed beautifully, combining aesthetic appeal with functionality, making it easier for creators to build professional-looking newsletters without sacrificing ease of use.

Their focus on conversion with their email design and templates sets them apart from other email marketing tools, giving creators the confidence that they’ve chosen a template that has already been pre-proven to succeed when it comes to good conversion rates.

Subscriber Management

Subscriber management is a deeper level of email marketing that allows you to drill down into subscriber data to better understand how users behave. Also known as audience segmentation, it can be a highly effective technique in improving conversion rates by delivering tailored content to subscribers.

All three of the email marketing platforms we’re comparing provide subscriber management through audience segmentation, but vary in terms of the detail creators can access with these features.

Flodesk offers basic segmentation functionality, with the ability to separate subscribers by behavior, demographic, and interests.

Kit takes this a little further, providing the ability to sort subscribers by subscription date and add filters for email addresses that contain specific text. 

beehiiv stands out with its intuitive subscriber growth tools, with a focus on helping users build and segment audiences in a more streamlined way. For example, audiences can be segmented by engagement rate, unsubscribes, and responses to polls/surveys to separate engaged subscribers from those who may need a little bit of TLC.

You can also use beehiiv’s dynamic segments to automatically refresh audience segments, adding or removing subscribers based on their activity/attributes. Segments can be set up manually as with Kit and Flodesk, or you can set up static segments which are more set in stone.

The beehiiv segments dashboard is easy to use, with each segment having its own dashboard providing metrics such as open rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribe rate. You can easily update a segment, add new subscribers, or include the segment in automation to make your workflows more efficient.

Analytics and Reporting

What is an email marketing tool without a comprehensive reporting system?

If you don’t know how your emails are performing, it's super difficult to make strategic decisions moving forward. The best email marketing platforms offer creators an intuitive analytics dashboard with clear, actionable insights. So how do our Flodesk, Kit, and beehiiv fare when it comes to analytics and reporting?

Flodesk offers a fairly basic reporting system, focusing on core metrics such as click-through rates and open rates. While their analytics platform is easy-to-read and aesthetically pleasing, it’s lacking in more advanced analytics features that more seasoned email marketers may be used to delving into.

Kit has recently launched its new Kit Insights dashboard which provides data on segments, emails, and revenue, giving a more comprehensive view of how your email campaigns are performing. You can integrate Google Analytics with Kit too which is useful if you want to see all your metrics in one place.

However, Kit’s reporting capabilities are still behind similar alternatives - such as beehiiv.

beehiiv delivers in-depth, actionable insights tailored specifically for newsletter creators, giving users the data they need to optimize their growth and engagement strategies.

3D Analytics is beehiiv’s comprehensive reporting system that provides separate data on posts and subscribers, giving creators insights into how posts are performing and how engaged subscribers may be. 

It uses beehiiv’s attribution data to understand the acquisition of each subscriber, helping to determine which marketing channels are working best for your brand and even evaluate the ROI (Return On Investment) of specific acquisition strategies.

Why Listen to Me? I have been working in the digital marketing space for nearly 10 years, predominantly helping brands with their email marketing and online presence. I now specialize in creating great content for beehiiv to help people nail their email strategies!

Pricing: Flodesk vs Kit vs beehiiv

While price isn’t everything, it’s certainly an important factor when it comes to considering your email marketing platform, especially if you’re a start-up or on a tight budget.

In this section of our guide, we’ll provide a detailed breakdown of the pricing models of each system, explaining what users get with each platform. Some email marketing tools charge per subscriber amount, while others offer a more flat-rate system - read on to see which of the three marketing tools we’re comparing suits you best in terms of price.

Flodesk Pricing

Flodesk is pretty unique in the email marketing world with their pricing in that they offer a flat rate of $35 per month for their basic email marketing plan. This amount doesn’t increase with the growth of subscribers, making it relatively affordable for most types of creators and helping brands grow without being penalized financially. 

This plan includes entry-level features such as unlimited sending, personalized fields, landing pages, and forms.

Flodesk also has advanced e-commerce features that can be added to an existing email marketing plan for an additional $24 per month ($59 total per month). These extra features provide access to sales pages, payment processing, and discount codes, enabling users to generate sales from their email marketing efforts.

Unfortunately, while Flodesk is relatively affordable, it offers fewer advanced features for those looking to scale their email marketing efforts. While their low price may be appealing for smaller creators at the beginning of their email marketing journey, it doesn’t provide an opportunity for advanced features that creators may be prepared to pay for as they grow.

Kit (ConvertKit) Pricing 

Kit offers a more comprehensive range of pricing options, with a tiered range of plans scaling in price based on the number of subscribers. 

While this isn’t appealing for those looking for a flat rate, it does provide more advanced features if you’re happy to pay for them. 

Kit offers creators a free newsletter platform for up to 10,000 subscribers. This entry-level plan provides basic newsletter functionality, however, it includes Kit branding, only 1 user login, and doesn’t offer any automation capabilities.

Their Creator plan starts from $9 per month for up to 300 subscribers (if paid yearly, otherwise it’s $15 per month). This plan includes many extra features from free and paid recommendations to the removal of Kit branding, integration of third-party tools, and RSS campaigns.

The price of the Creator plan increases in line with the number of subscribers creators have. For example, you’d be charged $25 per month for up to 1,000 subscribers and $140 per month for up to 10,000 subscribers. 

Kit has also launched their Creator Pro Plan for brands focused on scaling their business and subscriber numbers. This plan starts from $25 per month for up to 300 subscribers, $50 per month for up to 1,000 subscribers, and $140 per month for up to 10,000 subscribers.

It includes extra features such as Facebook custom audiences, a referral system, an insights dashboard, and 24/7 priority support to fully support creators in driving subscribers and automating their email marketing campaigns.

Unfortunately, Kit can become very expensive for creators with large subscriber lists. While they claim to be focused on helping creators scale their businesses, they are charging large amounts in line with subscriber increases, with monthly costs reaching over $1,000 per month for managing lists larger than 125,000 in size. This may put off brands with large lists as other platforms are more affordable, and offer customized plans to better suit larger creators.

beehiiv Pricing

beehiiv’s pricing is creator-friendly, offering a free plan with essential tools, plus affordable premium options that allow for paid subscriptions, monetization features, and detailed analytics. 

They offer a range of flexible pricing options that suit both small creators and large businesses, ensuring you’re driven to grow subscriber numbers without feeling too burdened by rising costs for subscriber management.

beehiiv has a Free plan called Launch which enables creators to send an unlimited number of newsletters to up to 2,500 subscribers, offering audience segmentation, custom website/domains, API access, and optimized deliverability within this free plan.

Their Scale Plan beehiiv’s lowest-paid plan option, with fees of $39 per month for up to 1,000 subscribers, and $99 per month for up to 10,000 subscribers. This plan includes everything in the free plan, plus additional features such as beehiiv’s Ad Network, paid subscriptions, and boost network, giving creators a range of options for monetizing their newsletter and further growing their subscriber numbers.

beehiiv has also launched its Max Plan which starts at $99 per month for up to 1,000 subscribers, and $199 per month for up to 10,000 subscribers. This plan includes everything in the Scale plan, plus extra features such as the removal of beehiiv branding to allow brands to create truly customizable, branded newsletters, as well as the ability to produce up to 10 publications. You’ll also receive priority support from beehiiv when you choose the Max Plan for your email marketing.

If you have over 100,000 subscribers, beehiiv also offers a custom pricing plan to protect brands from being exploited for their large subscriber lists. This plan is priced on application, offering flexible billing,  concierge onboarding, a dedicated beehiiv account manager, unique IP addresses, and infinite subscriber capabilities.

beehiiv offers many options for both small creators and large businesses, understanding the needs of different creators in terms of both price and advanced functionality.

Why beehiiv is the Best Choice for Creators and Businesses

To conclude, after comparing all three email marketing platforms in this comprehensive guide, it’s clear that beehiiv is the best choice for creators and businesses, particularly when looking to scale and monetize their email marketing.

Here are some stand-out reasons why it outshines Flodesk and Kit.

Superior Audience Growth Tools

beehiiv has a range of built-in tools designed specifically to help creators grow their audiences.

These include beehiiv’s referral program, which can be implemented to offer incentives to some of your most loyal subscribers in return for referring their friends and family to your mailing list. This can not only help to increase your subscriber numbers but also build trust and long-term relationships with your audience members as you show you want to engage and incentivize them to promote your brand.

You can also use beehiiv’s sharing tools to add social sharing to beehiiv signup flows, allowing subscribers to share content directly after sign-up in just one click. 

These features alone can help creators expand their subscriber base more easily than with Flodesk or Kit.

Seamless Monetization Options

Monetization is another aspect through which beehiiv excels. They have a key focus on helping creators grow their businesses financially via their email marketing and have many routes in which they promote this.

beehiiv allows creators to enable paid subscriptions for their newsletters, generating income directly from their publications and allowing users to create exclusive content for specific audience members. They also allow creators access to the beehiiv Ad Network, allowing well-known sponsored brand logos to be added to their newsletters and ultimately generating income via these adverts.

If this isn’t enough, beehiiv Boosts gives creators the ability to recommend their subscribers to other relevant creators and earn money per subscriber in the process. 

These three monetization methods make beehiiv a highly powerful platform for creators seeking to monetize their content in a transparent, but effective way.

Simple and Efficient User Interface

An email marketing platform may be full of bells and whistles, but if it’s not simple and efficient people just won’t use it.

Thankfully beehiiv’s user interface has been designed to make newsletter creation and management easy, offering a cleaner, more intuitive experience compared to Flodesk’s design-heavy but limited UI, and Kit’s more complex, automation-focused dashboard.

beehiiv strikes a fine-tuned balance between a system that appeals to creators without coding experience, and one that offers a plethora of opportunities for customization and automation functionality.

It truly offers a best-of-both-worlds interface that appeals to all kinds of creators and businesses.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up for a free trial with beehiiv today to gain access to all of the above features for a minimum of 30 days, and check your email marketing to the next level!

Google’s People Also Ask Questions:

What is cheaper than ConvertKit?

An email platform that is cheaper than Kit (previously ConvertKit) is beehiiv which charges $99 per month for up to 10,000 subscribers.

While Kit (previously ConvertKit) is known for their free newsletter plan and affordable creator plan of $9 per month, their platform can get very expensive as your subscriber levels grow. For example, Kit charges $140 per month for up to 10,000 subscribers, rising to $210 per month for up to 20,000 subscribers (beehiiv rate: $149 per month for up to 25,000 subscribers).

How to switch from ConvertKit to Flodesk?

To switch from ConvertKit to Flodesk, you’ll need to export your subscribers by tag. This is essentially how ConvertKit segments its audience, determining subscribers by demographic, buying behavior, interests, etc.

Once your subscribers have been exported you will receive an email within a few minutes. You can now import your list into Flodesk to get started.

Which is best Mailchimp or ConvertKit?

The best email marketing platform between Mailchimp and ConvertKit largely depends on your business and what you expect from your email marketing efforts.

ConvertKit is more useful for creators or small businesses, with email automation functionality that is superior to Mailchimp but with a fairly basic reporting system.

Mailchimp is the best email platform if you’re a small or medium-sized business, with advanced reporting features making it easier to analyze data, and a range of templates making email marketing quick and easy.

How much does Flodesk cost per month?

Flodesk offers two email marketing plans to its users. They charge a flat rate of $35 per month for unlimited subscriber numbers, and creators can upgrade to a range of e-commerce features for an additional $24 per month.