ConvertKit vs Klaviyo: tags and subscribers against events and profiles
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) costs $75 a month at 5,000 subscribers and Klaviyo costs $100 for 5,000 active profiles; at 25,000 it is $166 against $400. The reason to pay Klaviyo's premium is its data model: every action is an event with properties that can start and branch a flow. Kit works from tags, forms and purchases, which suits creators and is thinner for product events. Klaviyo is $3 cheaper at 1,000 contacts, the smallest size where both publish a price.
By Julian Pryor · Updated 7 Oct 2026
Short answer
Choose Kit if you are a creator or a lean SaaS founder who thinks in subscribers and tags, and you want the lower bill as the list grows. Choose Klaviyo if messages should react to behaviour and billing data, such as trial started, plan changed or payment failed, with properties you can filter on. At 25,000 profiles you pay $234 a month more for that on Klaviyo, about $2,808 a year, so it needs to earn its place.
Price at six list sizes
Kit's readouts are its monthly equivalents on the yearly-billing toggle, read on 7 October 2026. Klaviyo's are the Email plan figures from its pricing calculator on the same day, where price follows the number of active profiles. Kit publishes no Creator price at 500 or 2,500 in what I read, so those cells are blank.
| Contacts | Kit Creator | Klaviyo Email | Klaviyo send allowance | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 | No readout | $20 | 5,000 emails | n/a |
| 1,000 | $33 | $30 | 10,000 emails | Klaviyo $3 lower |
| 2,500 | No readout | $60 | 25,000 emails | n/a |
| 5,000 | $75 | $100 | 50,000 emails | Kit $25 lower |
| 10,000 | $116 | $150 | 100,000 emails | Kit $34 lower |
| 25,000 | $166 | $400 | 250,000 emails | Kit $234 lower |
Kit's Pro plan, with unlimited users, subscriber signals and deliverability reporting, is $158 at 10,000 and $233 at 25,000. Even against Pro, Klaviyo is $167 more at 25,000 (400 minus 233). Both vendors price by audience, but Klaviyo adds a send ceiling of ten times the profile count, while Kit's Free plan lists unlimited broadcasts and Creator lists unlimited sequences.
The free plans solve different problems
Klaviyo's free plan is built to let you try the platform: 250 profiles, 500 emails a month, $5 of mobile messages, a drag-and-drop editor, web forms, built-in reporting and revenue attribution for campaigns. Past 250 profiles you need a paid email plan, starting at $20 for 500. Kit's free plan is built to hold an audience: up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited landing pages, forms and broadcasts, tagging and segmentation, and selling digital products and subscriptions. The trade is that sequences and Visual Automations begin on Creator. For a list of 3,000 beta users that wants a plain monthly update, Kit Free costs $0, while Klaviyo's calculator runs $60 at 2,500 profiles and $100 at 5,000.
Events and properties against tags and purchases
Klaviyo's Events API defines an event as one metric, a profile identified by email, phone or ID, a timestamp, an optional numeric value and a properties object of up to 400 entries. Custom events can start flows, and flows can filter or branch on the properties. Unrecognised metric names create a new metric. For a SaaS product that maps naturally onto Trial Started with plan and trial_end, Payment Failed with amount and attempt count, Plan Changed with old and new tier, and Subscription Cancelled with a reason. Three gotchas from the same page: a 202 response does not guarantee an event was kept, events for addresses at example.com or test.com are silently dropped, and a bulk call with a repeated unique_id is rejected whole.
Kit's building blocks are tags, custom fields, forms and purchases. Its Stripe app turns Stripe buyers into subscribers with a Purchases tab and treats a purchase as an automation entry point after a test purchase exists, but refunds are not supported and the troubleshooting article says it reads charge succeeded and subscription updated only. Kit's API v4 handles tags, custom fields and imported purchase data, so a failed renewal becomes a tag your own server sets. That works, but a trial_end date or an attempt count has to live in a custom field, and branching on it is coarser than a property filter.
What each SaaS event needs
| Billing event | Klaviyo route | Kit route |
|---|---|---|
| Trial started | Your backend posts a Trial Started event with plan and end date | Add a tag and set a custom field for the end date |
| Payment failed | Handler maps invoice.payment_failed to a Payment Failed event | Handler tags the subscriber; Stripe app does not read this event |
| Upgrade or downgrade | Plan Changed event carrying both tiers | Stripe app logs the subscription update; your handler sets a plan tag |
| Cancellation | Subscription Cancelled event with reason property | Remove the paid tag, add a churned tag |
The same warning applies to both: decide whether Stripe's customer emails or your marketing tool sends the card-update message, and keep one of them off.
Moving between them
- Export profiles with consent and unsubscribe status. Kit's pricing page lists free migrations into Kit.
- Going to Klaviyo, send historical Stripe events with the backfill flag and original times before turning flows on, so nobody receives a welcome email for a signup from two years ago.
- Rebuild sequences as flows and keep the old ones running for one cycle on a small cohort.
- Check that each new sending domain has DKIM and SPF records before the first mailing.
Which to choose
- Kit fits writers, educators and small software founders who sell to an audience and send on a rhythm. It is the cheaper bill from 5,000 up.
- Klaviyo fits a product or store whose emails depend on what each person did, and who will send Stripe or app events through the API.
- Mind the profile count on Klaviyo: its price steps up with active profiles, from $60 at 2,500 to $100 at 5,000 and $150 at 10,000.
Related reading: all comparisons, Loops vs Klaviyo, Mailchimp vs Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign vs Klaviyo, Klaviyo vs Brevo and Loops vs ConvertKit.
ConvertKit vs Klaviyo: common questions
Which is cheaper at 10,000 contacts, Kit or Klaviyo?
Kit Creator, at $116 against Klaviyo's $150 for 10,000 active profiles, a $34 monthly difference or $408 over a year (34 times 12). Kit's figure is its yearly-billing rate. At 1,000 contacts the order flips: Klaviyo is $30 and Kit Creator is $33.
Can Klaviyo's free plan hold a SaaS beta list?
Only a small one. Klaviyo's free plan covers up to 250 profiles and 500 emails a month, plus $5 of mobile messages. A 300-person beta already needs the 500-profile email plan at $20 a month. Kit's free plan holds up to 10,000 subscribers but allows broadcasts only, not sequences or Visual Automations.
Can I replay past Stripe events into Klaviyo without emailing everyone again?
Yes. Klaviyo's Events API has a backfill flag: an event sent with backfill set to true is recorded and visible in metrics and segments but does not trigger flows. Supply the original time with each event, and a unique_id so duplicates are discarded rather than double counted.
Does either tool cap how many emails I can send?
Klaviyo's email plans list a monthly send allowance of 10 times the profile count, for example 100,000 emails at 10,000 profiles. Kit's pricing page lists unlimited email broadcasts on its Free plan and unlimited sequences on Creator, with no send cap shown.