Loops vs ConvertKit: a creator email platform against one built for software products
Kit, which used to be called ConvertKit, gives away its plan up to 10,000 subscribers but keeps automations for paid tiers starting at $33 a month. Loops gives away all features but delivers only to 1,000 contacts and 4,000 sends a month. Past the free plans, Loops costs less at 5,000 and 10,000 subscribers and Kit costs less at 25,000. The better fit depends on whether you are selling a product to users or content to an audience.
By Julian Pryor · Updated 7 Oct 2026
Short answer
If you publish a newsletter, sell digital products or a paid newsletter, and mostly send broadcasts, Kit's free plan to 10,000 subscribers is hard to beat. If you run software and need a welcome and trial sequence working on day one, Loops' free plan does that, and its paid plan is $17 cheaper than Kit Creator at 10,000 subscribers. Kit Creator becomes the cheaper of the two only at 25,000 subscribers, where it saves $32 a month.
Two free plans with opposite catches
Kit's Free plan goes up to 10,000 subscribers and includes unlimited landing pages, forms and email broadcasts, audience tagging and segmentation, and the ability to sell digital products and subscriptions. The catch is that Visual Automations, email sequences and branding removal are listed from Creator upward. Loops' Early Stage plan includes all features, workflows among them, with a small "Powered by Loops" footer. Its catch is volume: unlimited contacts are stored, but only the 1,000 newest receive mail, and sends stop at 4,000 in any rolling 30 days at up to 10 emails per second.
So a list of 8,000 newsletter readers who get one broadcast a week fits Kit's free plan, and a product with 600 beta users who need a three-email onboarding series fits Loops'. The reverse is unworkable on both: Kit's free plan has no sequence, and Loops' free plan would ignore 7,000 of the 8,000 readers.
Paid prices at four list sizes
Kit's figures are its pricing-page readouts for Creator and Pro on 7 October 2026. The $33 Creator price at 1,000 subscribers is quoted with a $390 yearly bill; the page labels the later stops "/mo" without saying which billing term they use. Loops' figures are slider readouts from the same day.
| Subscribers | Loops | Kit Creator | Kit Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | Free (limits above) | $33 ($390 billed yearly) | $66, or $50 on a first-year promotion |
| About 5,000 | $48 at 4,788 | $75 | Not read |
| About 10,000 | $99 at 9,998 | $116 | $158 |
| About 25,000 | $198 at 24,339 | $166 | $233 |
At 5,000 subscribers Kit Creator is $27 a month more than Loops ($75 less $48), which is $324 a year. At 10,000 it is $17 more ($204 a year). At 25,000 it is $32 less ($384 a year in Kit's favour), even though Kit is counting 661 more subscribers. Kit Pro adds Subscriber Signals, unlimited users and deliverability reporting for $42 more at 10,000 ($158 less $116) and $67 more at 25,000 ($233 less $166). Prices: kit.com/pricing and loops.so/pricing.
What the product is built around
Kit's pricing page and navigation are built around creators: landing pages, forms, a paid newsletter, sponsorships, and a commerce area with "simple product pages, automated fulfillment, and low transaction fees". It also lists a Kit App Store with categories such as memberships and courses, and a 14-day free trial of paid plans with no card and free migrations. Creator adds unlimited Visual Automations and sequences, subject-line A/B tests, branding removal and round-the-clock email and chat support, and Kit's pricing page lists SMS marketing on that tier.
Loops is arranged around the software lifecycle. A workflow starts from four possible triggers: a contact being added, a contact property changing, a contact joining a list, or an event received. The property trigger can be limited to a change from one value to another, so a plan moving from free to paid can start a different series from paid to canceled. Branch nodes send contacts down the first matching path, and experiments test email variants.
Where the SaaS case diverges
A subscription product's emails hang off billing: a trial begins, a card fails, a seat is added. Loops' Stripe app forwards events such as checkout.session.completed, invoice.payment_failed and customer.subscription.trial_will_end, and its events endpoint takes any event name you send from your backend. It also lists a Polar integration. On the Kit pages read for this comparison, nothing describes that kind of billing hook from a third-party processor. Kit's commerce tools process sales made through Kit, which is a different job from reacting to subscriptions you bill yourself.
The flip side is audience building. Kit's landing pages, forms, referral system on Pro and newsletter tools are features a content business uses daily. Loops lists forms among its integrations but is not built around newsletter growth.
Deciding between them
- Kit fits newsletter businesses, course creators and indie makers who sell content or small products, especially those above 10,000 subscribers on broadcasts alone.
- Loops fits SaaS products whose emails depend on what users do in the app or what Stripe reports.
- Either, then move if you are a solo maker with an audience and a product: start the newsletter on Kit's free plan and run product emails from Loops' free plan, and revisit once one of them crosses a paid tier.
Switching steps
- Export Kit subscribers with tags. Turn tags that describe behaviour into Loops contact properties and tags that describe interest into mailing lists.
- Import unsubscribed addresses as unsubscribed. Loops will not run a "Contact added" workflow for CSV uploads, so a bulk import does not trigger a welcome email.
- Rebuild sequences as workflows with timers between emails, then compare the first run against the old sequence on a small group.
- Update the sending domain's SPF and DKIM records before moving broadcast volume, and keep the old ones live for a few days.
Where to read next if creator tooling is not what you are after:all comparisons, Loops vs MailerLite, MailerLite vs ConvertKit, ConvertKit vs Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign vs ConvertKit and tools for bootstrapped SaaS.
Loops vs ConvertKit (Kit): common questions
Is ConvertKit the same as Kit?
Kit is the current name of ConvertKit. Its pricing lives at kit.com/pricing, while its data processing page still sits on the convertkit.com domain. This page uses the URL name for search reasons and Kit's own plan names in the tables.
Which free plan is better, Kit or Loops?
It depends on whether you need automation. Kit's free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited broadcasts, landing pages and forms, but Visual Automations and sequences start on the Creator plan. Loops' free plan has every feature including workflows, but it delivers only to your 1,000 newest contacts and caps sends at 4,000 in any rolling 30 days.
How much more is Kit Creator than Loops at 10,000 subscribers?
Kit's pricing page shows Creator at $116 a month for 10,000 subscribers. Loops lists $99 at 9,998 subscribers. The difference is $17 a month, or $204 a year. At 25,000 the order reverses: Kit Creator is $166 and Loops $198 at 24,339 subscribers.
Does Kit work for a SaaS onboarding sequence?
It can run a drip sequence, since email sequences and Visual Automations are on Creator and above. What the pages read do not describe is a way to react to your own Stripe or Paddle subscription events. Kit's commerce features are about selling digital products and subscriptions through Kit. Loops documents a Stripe app and an events API for the SaaS case.