AWeber vs Kit (ConvertKit): which one fits creators?

If you're a creator building on YouTube, TikTok or Instagram, your email list is the one asset an algorithm change can't take from you overnight. When creators go looking for an email tool built with them in mind, it usually comes down to two names: Kit (the platform formerly known as ConvertKit) and AWeber.

Both cover what creators actually need: tags, a sign-up form, a lead magnet delivered on autopilot, and a way to sell a digital product. The short version of our verdict: Kit is the better pick if your list will grow past a few hundred people before it earns anything, because its free plan runs to 10,000 subscribers, and if you want branching automations or Kit's Creator Network for growth. AWeber is the better pick if you want simpler automations, RSS-to-email for a blog, podcast or YouTube channel, and a support desk you can reach by phone.

Automation: a visual canvas vs a straight line

Kit built its reputation on a visual automation builder. You map the logic on a canvas: click link A and get tag X; don't click it, wait three days and get email B instead. For a launch with several products and several entry points, it is a genuinely nice interface to plan in, and you can see the whole funnel at once. The catch is that visual automations and email sequences sit on Kit's paid Creator plan; the free plan sends broadcasts and runs forms and landing pages, but it won't drip a sequence.

AWeber's version, called Campaigns, is more of a straight line: pick a trigger, stack actions underneath it (send a message, wait two days, apply a tag), and let tags hand subscribers from one campaign to the next. It won't draw an elaborate decision tree, but a five-email welcome sequence takes about twenty minutes to build and there is far less to accidentally break. The limit to know is on Lite, which allows three automations and one list. Plus removes both caps.

Here is where the difference shows in practice. Say you sell a $49 template pack and want buyers out of the sales emails the moment they purchase, non-buyers to get a discount on day five, and everyone who clicked but didn't buy to get one extra reminder. In Kit that is a single visual automation with two condition steps, and you can see every path on one screen. In AWeber it is three campaigns joined by tags: the sales campaign, a discount campaign that starts when a "no purchase" tag lands, and a reminder triggered by a click tag. It works, and each campaign is simpler to read, but the logic lives in your head rather than on a canvas. If your launches look like that every month, Kit's builder earns its keep. If you run one welcome sequence and a weekly broadcast, AWeber's straight lines are easier to live with.

How each organises your subscribers

The two tools also think about a list differently. Kit keeps every subscriber in one pool and sorts them with tags and saved segments, so the same person can sit in several segments without ever being counted twice. AWeber uses separate lists plus tags inside each list. Lists are useful when you run two genuinely separate audiences, say a podcast and a client newsletter, but a person on both lists counts twice toward your subscriber total. If you expect overlap, keep one AWeber list and use tags instead, which is what most AWeber users end up doing anyway.

The free plans are not close

This is Kit's biggest advantage and it deserves to be said plainly. Kit's free Newsletter plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited landing pages, forms and broadcasts, and it lets you sell digital products. AWeber's free plan stops at 500 subscribers and 3,000 sends a month, with one landing page and one automation.

A creator who is still building an audience and isn't selling anything yet can run on Kit for free far longer. The moment you need an automated welcome sequence, though, Kit's free plan stops being enough, and the comparison moves to the paid tiers. That point usually arrives sooner than people expect: a lead magnet that delivers a PDF and then goes quiet wastes the one moment a new subscriber is paying attention, and both platforms put that follow-up behind a paid plan.

What you pay at 1,000 subscribers

Both platforms price by list size, so here is the same list on each, taken from the two pricing pages. Both get more expensive as the list grows.

Read honestly, AWeber Lite is the cheapest way to get automated sequences at this size, as long as three automations and one list are enough. If they aren't, Kit Creator undercuts AWeber Plus by a few dollars a month. Neither gap is large enough to decide the choice on its own; what you get for the money matters more.

Selling products and paid newsletters

Kit charges 3.5% plus 30 cents on digital product sales, and that figure includes card processing. AWeber charges its own 0.6% on Plus or 1% on Lite on top of Stripe's processing fee, which for a US card is 2.9% plus 30 cents. On Plus the two land in the same place; on Lite AWeber costs a little more per sale. Kit adds paid newsletter subscriptions on its paid plans, which AWeber doesn't offer as a built-in product. AWeber's checkout lives on its landing pages, which suits a coaching call or a workshop seat better than a recurring paid publication.

Feature comparison for creators

Beyond automations and price, the two pull apart for different reasons: Kit is built around growing inside its own creator network, AWeber around keeping an existing audience warm with as little upkeep as possible.

Support, and why it matters more for one-person businesses

Kit's help comes through chat and email, with 24/7 priority support reserved for the Pro plan. There is no phone number on any tier. AWeber answers live chat and email around the clock on every plan and runs a US phone line from 8am to 8pm Eastern. If something goes sideways with a send late in the evening, a broken merge tag or a sequence that fired twice, both can be reached by chat; only AWeber lets you pick up the phone during the day and talk it through with someone who can see your account.

For a creator with a team, that matters less. For one person running a list alongside everything else, it is often the deciding factor, and it is the thing long-time AWeber customers mention most in reviews.

Which one should you actually pick?

Pick Kit if you are growing a list that won't make money for a while and want to stay on a free plan as long as possible, if you will use the Creator Network to trade recommendations with other newsletters, or if you are planning a launch funnel with several branches and want the visual canvas to build it on. If you're weighing Kit against a newsletter-first platform instead, our AWeber vs beehiiv comparison covers that side.

Pick AWeber if you want the cheapest route to an automated welcome sequence, if you publish a blog, podcast or YouTube channel and want each new post emailed without touching it, or if a phone line matters to you. You can try either before committing: AWeber gives 14 days of full plan features, and Kit's free plan is a trial with no end date.