ConvertKit vs Drip
Side-by-side total cost of ownership: subscription fees, labor, hidden costs, and AI alternatives.
Published pricing
The subscription is only part of the cost.
| ConvertKit | Drip | |
|---|---|---|
| Published rate | $33/seat/mo | $39/seat/mo |
| Team size modeled | 1 | 3 |
| Annual subscription | $396/yr | $1,404/yr |
What the invoice doesn't show
ConvertKit
Kit's Newsletter plan (free) supports up to 10,000 subscribers but blocks visual automations, sequences, and third-party integrations. The features that make email marketing effective require Creator ($39/mo, up 35% since September 2025) or Creator Pro ($79/mo).
Pricing scales steeply with subscriber count after the September 2025 increase. At 25,000 subscribers, Creator costs $99/mo and Creator Pro $166/mo. At 55,000 subscribers, Creator Pro hits $340/mo — well into enterprise tool pricing for what remains a creator-focused platform.
Kit lacks built-in A/B testing for email content (only subject lines). There's no send-time optimization, no multivariate testing, and limited segmentation compared to marketing automation platforms at similar price points.
Kit's visual automation builder, while praised for simplicity, can't handle complex conditional logic. Users report needing to build workarounds with tags and segments for workflows that tools like ActiveCampaign handle natively.
Drip
Peak-period 'high-watermark' billing — Drip charges the highest active subscriber count reached during a billing period, not end-of-cycle. A promotional list import followed by hygiene pruning still triggers the elevated rate, potentially adding $50–$215 to a single month's invoice without any change in your usable list.
Steep tier jumps punish organic list growth — $39/month at 2,500 contacts becomes $154/month at 10,000 and $699/month at 50,000. The move from 10,000 to 25,000 contacts alone adds approximately $215/month — a 140% price increase for 2.5× the list size, before a single additional email is sent.
SMS marketing is permanently unavailable to new accounts — Drip restricts its SMS feature to legacy accounts created before the cutoff date. Any business signing up today cannot access email + SMS within Drip at any price, forcing a separate tool (typically $39+/month) alongside a full Drip subscription.
No free plan; trial caps at 100 email sends in 14 days — unlike Omnisend (free to 250 contacts, 500 emails/month) or MailerLite (free to 250 subscribers), Drip offers no permanent free tier. Its trial limits new accounts to 2,500 contacts and just 100 total email sends — too little to validate any meaningful automation sequence before committing to paid.
What teams are switching to
Replacing ConvertKit
Beehiiv
Free (2.5K subs), $49/mo (Scale), $109/mo (Max)
Newsletter platform built for growth with AI writing tools, built-in referral program, and ad network for monetization. Free plan includes unlimited sends and up to 2,500 subscribers. Designed for the creator economy Kit pioneered.
MailerLite
Free (500 subs), $10/mo Growing Business, $20/mo Advanced
Full visual automation on paid plans starting at $10/mo vs Kit's $29/mo. AI writing assistant, A/B testing (not just subject lines), and send-time optimization included. More features at a lower price point.
Buttondown
Free (100 subs), $9/mo (Basic), $29/mo (Professional)
Minimalist newsletter tool for writers who want clean design without bloat. Markdown-native editor, built-in analytics, and paid subscription support. Free for up to 100 subscribers.
Replacing Drip
Omnisend
Free to 250 contacts (500 emails/month); Standard from $16/month; Pro from $59/month with unlimited email sends and bundled SMS credits
Ecommerce-native email and SMS with AI-powered segmentation, a built-in product recommender, and Forms AI. Only bills for 'billable contacts' — unsubscribed contacts are excluded automatically — so list hygiene reduces invoices directly. Standard plan reaches 10,000 contacts for approximately $115/month versus Drip's $154.
Brevo
Free (300 emails/day); Starter from $9/month (5,000 emails/month); Business plans from $18/month
Charges by email volume sent, not contact headcount — store unlimited contacts and pay only for what you send. A large, partially dormant list costs nothing extra to maintain; you pay only when you run a campaign. Includes automation, segmentation, and transactional email in a single subscription with no legacy-tier gatekeeping on SMS.
MailerLite
Free to 250 subscribers; Comfort from $12/month; Power from $25/month (unlimited automations, unlimited sends)
Subscriber-based pricing that runs roughly half of Drip's cost at equivalent list sizes — $73/month for 10,000 subscribers versus Drip's $154. AI writing assistant and smart sending are included on the Power plan. Unlimited automations and unlimited email sends make high-frequency ecommerce sequences affordable without tier traps.
StackCut doesn't sell or recommend any of these tools. We show them for context. The decision is yours.
Total Cost of Ownership
Subscription fees plus labor and error costs, modeled at $50/hr loaded rate (BLS ECEC).
| Cost Component | ConvertKit | Drip |
|---|---|---|
| Annual subscription | $396 | $1,404 |
| Labor cost | $9,000 | $9,000 |
| Error & rework cost | $1,200 | $1,200 |
| Total Cost of Ownership | $10,596/yr | $11,604/yr |
| Est. AI alternative | $5,088/yr | $5,088/yr |
Labor rate based on BLS ECEC June 2025 ($45.65/hr private industry total compensation, rounded to $50). Team sizes differ because each vendor targets different market segments. Your actual numbers depend on team size, role mix, and usage. Run it with your own data.
Which one fits your team?
Both ConvertKit and Dripcost more than their published pricing suggests. The right choice depends on your team size and how you weigh each tool's trade-offs.
ConvertKit starts at $33/seat/mo , but watch for Kit's Newsletter plan (free) supports up to 10,000 subscribers but blocks visual automations, sequences, and third-party integrations. The features that make email marketing effective require Creator ($39/mo, up 35% since September 2025) or Creator Pro ($79/mo).
Drip starts at $39/seat/mo , but watch for Peak-period 'high-watermark' billing — Drip charges the highest active subscriber count reached during a billing period, not end-of-cycle. A promotional list import followed by hygiene pruning still triggers the elevated rate, potentially adding $50–$215 to a single month's invoice without any change in your usable list.
An AI-native alternative may replace the workflow at a fraction of the TCO.
See all SaaS cost comparisonsBrowse alternatives for every tool
FAQ
ConvertKit vs Drip: quick answers
Is ConvertKit or Drip cheaper?
On total cost of ownership, ConvertKit runs about $10,596/year (1-person team) versus $11,604/year for Drip (3-person team) once labor and hidden costs are counted, not just the published subscription. Adjust the inputs to your own team to compare them directly.
What can replace ConvertKit or Drip?
ConvertKit is often replaced by Beehiiv and MailerLite; Drip by Omnisend and Brevo. StackCut shows the cost case for each AI-first alternative without taking referral fees.
What are the hidden costs of ConvertKit and Drip?
ConvertKit: Kit's Newsletter plan (free) supports up to 10,000 subscribers but blocks visual automations, sequences, and third-party integrations. The features that make email marketing effective require Creator ($39/mo, up 35% since September 2025) or Creator Pro ($79/mo). Drip: Peak-period 'high-watermark' billing — Drip charges the highest active subscriber count reached during a billing period, not end-of-cycle. A promotional list import followed by hygiene pruning still triggers the elevated rate, potentially adding $50–$215 to a single month's invoice without any change in your usable list.
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