Kit review 2026: fees, plans and paid newsletter costs

Kit charges 3.5% + $0.30 per sale with card processing included, and it lets you sell a paid newsletter on its free plan. On 100 US payments of $10 that leaves $935, more than Substack, beehiiv or Ghost leave on the same money. Kit, called ConvertKit until October 2024, is the cheapest place to run a paid newsletter among the platforms we have priced, as long as you can bring the readers yourself.

How much does Kit cost in 2026?

Kit’s free plan covers up to 10,000 subscribers and includes paid subscriptions and digital products. The paid Creator and Pro plans add automations and start at $39 and $79 a month.

Kit bills paid plans on confirmed subscribers and moves you up a tier automatically as your list grows. Its own billing example puts Creator at $59 a month once a list passes 1,000. Annual billing gives two months free. Some Kit help pages still call the plans by older names, the Newsletter plan for Free and Creator Pro for Pro.

What does Kit’s free plan leave out?

Kit’s free plan covers selling and sending, and the paid plans add automation. Free includes unlimited broadcasts, forms and landing pages, tagging and segments, A/B tests on broadcasts, API access and every commerce tool.

Visual automations, email sequences, rules, RSS campaigns, AI Connectors, paid apps and earning from paid recommendations all need Creator or Pro. Products sold on the free plan also carry a Built with Kit badge, which paid plans can remove. Once you pass 10,000 subscribers you have to upgrade to keep sending.

How much does Kit take on sales?

Kit takes 3.5% + $0.30 per US-dollar transaction as of October 2026, and that single fee covers card processing. Kit calls it the only cost of selling, with no monthly charge for its commerce tools.

Here is the arithmetic on those published fees. A $10 monthly payment loses $0.65 and leaves $9.35, and a $100 annual plan loses $3.80 and leaves $96.20. On Ghost or beehiiv the same $10 loses $0.66 to Stripe before you pay for a plan, so Kit’s all-in rate is about what other platforms pay Stripe alone.

Kit collects VAT on product and tip sales if you turn it on, but it does not collect US sales tax or Canada’s QST. Our creator taxes guide covers what that leaves you to handle.

How do Kit payouts work?

Kit pays sales revenue weekly, on Fridays. Your first payout takes longer and arrives 7 to 14 days after your first successful sale.

Payments go through a Kit-managed Stripe Express account that you create when you set up payments, even if you already use Stripe elsewhere. Stripe is the only processor Kit supports. Kit pays you in your bank account’s currency, and a product priced in euros carries the euro fee of 3.5% + €0.25 even if you are paid in dollars. Ad revenue follows a slower schedule. Kit releases it 45 days after the end of the month the ad ran, so August ads pay out around October 15, and there is no minimum threshold.

How do you make money on Kit?

Kit is built around selling to your email list. The commerce tools are on every plan, and you can sell from 39 countries in six currencies.

• Paid newsletters, sent as broadcasts filtered to paying subscribers, billed monthly, quarterly or yearly
• Digital products such as e-books, templates, courses or access to a link, with discounts and up to two upsells
• Tips, at the same 3.5% + $0.30, on the free plan too
• Kit Newsletter Sponsorships, which places programmatic ads and CPC sponsorships in your emails
• Paid recommendations through SparkLoop, where creators pay you between $1 and $4 or more per subscriber you send them

Ad earnings depend on how many US-based subscribers you email and how often. Browsing and applying for CPC campaigns requires a paid plan, as does earning from paid recommendations.

Kit ties paid subscriptions to your email list, which has consequences. A reader who unsubscribes from your emails also stops paying for your paid newsletter. A subscriber whose payment still fails after four retries is marked canceled, and refunds do not return the processing part of the fee.

How does Kit help you find readers?

Kit’s Creator Network is its discovery tool, and you join it when you sign up. Creators recommend each other, and new subscribers see those picks after they sign up.

You can recommend up to 20 creators at once, and Kit shows up to five on a form or landing page. The free plan gets five Smart Recommendation slots filled with similar creators. Paid plans get priority and a larger share of other creators’ recommendations, so Kit features paying accounts more often. It is a real referral loop, but not a reading app like Substack’s.

Who is Kit best for?

Kit suits creators who already have an audience on YouTube, a podcast or social media and want to sell a newsletter or products to it. On the free plan you keep more per sale than on any other newsletter platform we review, and the automations on paid plans give you room to grow.

Skip Kit if you want your payments in your own Stripe account. Kit cancels active subscriptions if your account closes, while Ghost and beehiiv keep subscriptions in Stripe accounts you control. Writers starting from zero should also weigh Substack, whose app does more to find readers.

Kit alternatives

Our beehiiv vs Kit comparison covers the ad-heavy alternative. For one-off products rather than newsletters, read our Gumroad review, and see the best platforms for digital products for more options.