Is Kit (ConvertKit) Free? Yes, to 10,000 Subscribers, With Selling Included

Yes. Kit has a free plan with no time limit, and it is the largest free plan in our email category that also lets you sell. "The Free plan costs $0 per month for as long as you stay under 10,000 subscribers." ^[6]. People search for the ConvertKit free plan about 110 times a month in the United States. This page explains what the plan includes, what it leaves out, how it differs from the trial, and when it stops being enough, from Kit's own help centre read on 9 October 2026.

The short answer

Kit Free covers up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited forms, landing pages and broadcasts, tags and segments, A/B tests on broadcasts, digital products and subscriptions, recommendations through the Creator Network, and API access ^[6]. It does not include visual automations, email sequences, rules, RSS campaigns, AI Connectors, paid apps or earnings from paid recommendations ^[6]. You can build a list and sell to it for free; you cannot automate the welcome or the launch.

## What is included

• Up to 10,000 subscribers. Confirmed subscribers, the same measure Kit bills on ^[4].
• Unlimited broadcasts. No sending allowance; Kit's billing never depends on emails sent ^[4].
• Unlimited forms and landing pages.
• Tags and segments for organising subscribers.
• A/B testing on broadcasts.
• Digital products and subscriptions, "so you can sell straight from your list" ^[6].
• Free and Smart Recommendations through the Creator Network, with five Smart Recommendation slots ^[6].
• API access ^[6], including the V4 API with its Broadcast API ^[56].
• Support, answered in order within 24 hours ^[6].
• Free apps from the Kit App Store; paid apps show an upgrade prompt ^[55].

What is not included

Visual automations and the template library, email sequences, rules and RSS campaigns, AI Connectors, paid apps, and earning from paid recommendations all need Creator or Pro ^[6]. You can open the automation and sequence pages and look around; when you try to create one, Kit shows the upgrade options ^[6]. Kit branding stays on free emails, and a custom domain needs Creator ^[3].

## Selling on the free plan

This is the part that sets Kit apart. A free account can sell an ebook, a template, a course or a paid newsletter. Kit charges 3.5% plus 30 cents per sale, a figure its pricing page says includes card processing, so "Kit only takes 0.6% of the total fees" ^[2]. A subscription can bill monthly, quarterly or yearly, and a paid newsletter is sent as broadcasts filtered to the people subscribed to it ^[26].

Worked example. A free account with 3,000 subscribers sells a $29 guide to 2% of the list: 60 sales, $1,740. Kit's fee is 3.5% plus 30 cents on each, about $79, leaving $1,661. There is no plan fee. Our arithmetic on the published fee.

What the free plan cannot do is follow up automatically: a buyer gets the product, but a post-purchase sequence needs Creator.

What a free creator business looks like on Kit

Take a writer who teaches photography. On Kit Free she builds a landing page offering a free guide to camera settings, collects addresses with double opt-in, tags each subscriber by the guide they chose, sends a weekly broadcast, and sells a $49 editing preset pack as a digital product. Every piece of that is on the free plan ^[6]. Kit takes 3.5% plus 30 cents on each preset sale ^[2], and nothing else.

What she cannot do on Free is send the guide automatically through a five-email welcome sequence, or follow each purchase with a sequence of tips. Those are the first reasons most creators upgrade, and they explain the line Kit draws: Free is for growing and selling, Creator for automating ^[6].

The Creator Network on Free

Every account is enrolled in the Creator Network at sign-up, so other creators can recommend your newsletter and you can recommend theirs ^[6]. On Free you get five Smart Recommendation slots, which fill automatically with similar creators and stay editable, and you can be featured in other creators' recommendations. Paid plans get priority and a larger share of those recommendations ^[6]. You can switch recommendations off at any time without changing anything else about your plan ^[6].

For a new list this is the free plan's growth engine: every new subscriber elsewhere in the network is a chance to be recommended.

Support on the free plan

"Support is available on every Kit plan, Free included." ^[6]. Requests from free accounts are answered in the order they arrive, within 24 hours ^[6]. That is more than most free plans in our category: beehiiv's free accounts use a chatbot, and Mailchimp's free plan had email support only for the first thirty days in our measurement ^[49].

Free against other free plans

Platform	Free ceiling	Selling on free
Kit	10,000 subscribers	Products and subscriptions
beehiiv	2,500 subscribers	One digital product, no subscriptions
MailerLite	250 subscribers	Limited
Mailchimp	250 contacts	No
Substack	No plan fee	Subscriptions at 10%

From each vendor's pages ^{[6] [44] [50] [49] [51]}. Kit's free plan holds four times beehiiv's and forty times MailerLite's and Mailchimp's.

Apps and Zapier on Free: two answers

Kit's free plan article says paid apps need a paid plan and "Free apps are still available to you" ^[6]. Its Zapier article is stricter: it needs "a paid Kit account to connect with Zapier and all other apps" ^[57]. The two cannot both be right for every app. If an integration matters to your free setup, install it before relying on it; Zapier, by Kit's own account, needs a paid plan.

A free paid newsletter: Kit Free against Substack

A writer charging $6 a month to 150 readers on a list of 4,000 brings in $10,800 a year. On Kit Free the fee is 3.5% plus 30 cents per charge, about $918 a year, with card processing included and no plan fee ^{[2] [6]}. On Substack, 10% is $1,080 before card fees, which Substack passes on ^[51]. Kit Free keeps the writer at least $162 a year better off before Substack's card fees, and more after them. Our arithmetic. What Substack adds is its reader network; what Kit Free lacks is automation.

The trial is not the free plan

Kit also offers a 14-day trial of its paid plans with no card ^[3]. Reviewers say the two are easy to confuse; one reports that a support rep "did acknowledge the trial-versus-free-plan distinction was unclear and refunded a charge" ^[9]. The practical difference: if you switch from a trial to Free, paid features end immediately; from a paid plan, at the end of the billing period ^[6]. Anything built on a paid plan stays in the account, but automations and sequences stop running on Free ^[6].

Verification applies to free accounts too

Every new account, free or paid, must be verified before it can send: "We ask that all new accounts send us a link to their blog before we enable email sending." ^[7]. Kit wants to see that you are a real person who owns the domain and publishes content people asked for. Send the link early.

When you pass 10,000 subscribers

Kit says you must "upgrade to a paid plan to keep sending." ^[6]. Everything you built stays where it is. The cheapest paid option at that size is Creator at the 15,000 band: $169 a month or $1,690 a year ^[2]. A free list that grows past 10,000 moves straight to that band, not to the $39 entry price, because the price follows the subscriber count.

Worked example. A free account at 9,800 subscribers gains 400 in a giveaway. It now needs a paid plan, at the 15,000 band, $169 a month. Pruning 300 inactive subscribers first would keep it on Free. Our arithmetic.

How to stay on Free longer

1. Keep double opt-in on; it is Kit's default and keeps unconfirmed addresses off the count ^[65].
2. Prune inactive subscribers about every six months, as Kit itself advises ^[5].
3. Run separate audiences as separate free accounts, which Kit recommends anyway ^[22]: each gets its own 10,000.
4. Use the Creator Network's free recommendations to grow, rather than paid ones ^[6].

Upgrading from Free, and what it costs

Your list	Creator monthly	Creator yearly	What you gain
Up to 1,000	$39	$390	Automations, sequences, custom domain, branding removed
Up to 3,000	$59	$590	The same, at the 3,000 band
Up to 5,000	$89	$890	The same, at the 5,000 band
Up to 10,000	$139	$1,390	The same, at the 10,000 band

From the pricing page's script ^[2]. The price follows the list, not the feature set: a free account with 6,000 subscribers that upgrades pays the 8,000 band, $119 a month, from the first day.

When to upgrade. When a welcome or launch sequence would earn more than the plan costs. A sequence that turns 1% more of 5,000 subscribers into buyers of a $49 product earns $2,450, about two and a half years of Creator at the 5,000 band on annual billing. Our arithmetic.

Free plan rules worth knowing

• Double opt-in is the default. Unconfirmed subscribers do not count toward the 10,000 ^{[65] [4]}.
• Large imports can pause sending. Tell Kit before importing a big list ^[5].
• One audience per account is Kit's advice ^[22], and each free account has its own 10,000.
• GDPR transfers for EU, UK and Swiss subscribers are covered by Kit's Data Processing Addendum ^[64].

Quick answers about the free plan

Is there a card required? Not for Free, and not for the 14-day trial of a paid plan ^[3].

Does Free expire? No; it costs nothing while you stay under 10,000 subscribers ^[6].

Can I remove Kit branding on Free? No. Removing the Built with Kit branding is a Creator feature ^[3].

Can I use my own domain? A custom domain is listed among Creator features in Kit's plan comparison ^[3].

Do unconfirmed sign-ups count? No. Kit bills, and counts toward the free limit, confirmed subscribers ^[4].

Our verdict on the free plan

Kit Free is the most useful free plan in our email category for anyone who intends to sell. It is not the most generous for automation, which MailerLite's tiny free plan includes and Kit's does not. The right test is simple: if the list will buy something this year, start on Kit Free.

## Is the free plan enough?

Yes, if you send broadcasts, sell products without follow-up sequences, and stay under 10,000 subscribers.

No, if your business depends on a welcome sequence, a launch funnel, a custom domain or removing Kit branding. That is Creator, $39 a month or $390 a year at up to 1,000 subscribers ^[3].

Our composite score for Kit is 3.79, second in the email category, and the free plan is the main reason its value score, 3.7, sits near the top of the category.