Guides · Email & newsletters
Kit vs Beehiiv for freelancers
A draft comparison of Kit and Beehiiv for freelancers choosing between email sequences for clients and a newsletter they publish themselves.
Draft · Updated September 25, 2026 · 3 min read
Draft. This is a buying framework. A hands-on test would name the dates and the work. Pricing and plan names need a check on the vendor site before you purchase.
Tools named in this draft
- Placeholder link
Kit
Email sequences and creator automations, formerly ConvertKit.
- Placeholder link
Beehiiv
Newsletter publishing with growth tools and an ad network on paid plans.
SoloStack may earn a commission if a tracked Kit or Beehiiv link is connected and you buy. This draft compares public positioning. It is not a migration diary, and it is not a growth case study.
Email is the shelf after publishing. A blog post without a next step depends on search or social to send the reader back. A freelancer usually wants one of two things from email, and they are different products.
Two jobs
Client nurture. You met the reader once: a discovery call, a lead magnet, a workshop. You want a short sequence, a tag, and a path to a paid offer. That is the job Kit (formerly ConvertKit) has described for years: creators who sell to their list, with automations and simple digital products.
A newsletter as the publication. The email is the thing you ship. You care about the writing screen, recommendations, and, later, whether the platform can sell ads against an audience you grew. That is the job Beehiiv describes: a newsletter product with growth tools and an ad network on higher plans.
Plenty of freelancers want both. The expensive way to get both on day one is two paid platforms and a thin list. Pick the job you will do this quarter.
| Kit | Beehiiv | |
|---|---|---|
| Public pitch | Creator email, automations, selling to subscribers | Newsletter publishing, growth, and ads |
| Fits a freelancer who | Runs sequences into a service or a small product | Publishes an issue on a schedule and wants the writing tools around it |
| Free starting point | A free allowance up to a subscriber threshold, then paid | A free plan, then paid tiers as the list and features grow |
| SoloStack link | Placeholder | Placeholder |
Subscriber thresholds and plan names change. Read the current pricing page before you import a list. These notes are a September 2026 drafting pass.
Kit
Use Kit when the email’s job is a relationship you already know how to sell. Examples: a five-email welcome for a copywriting lead magnet, a checkout for a template pack, a client nurture that tags “retainer” versus “one-off.” The product’s history is creator commerce, and the automations are the point.
Kit is an awkward home for a media-style newsletter if what you want is a referral network and an ad marketplace. You can publish a broadcast from almost any email tool. The Kit-shaped advantage shows up when the broadcast is one step in a sequence.
Beehiiv
Use Beehiiv when the publication is the product. The editor, the website for the newsletter, recommendations between publications, and the ad network are the public story. A freelancer building an audience in public — a niche briefing, a weekly teardown, a curated set of links with a point of view — is the reader Beehiiv is talking to.
Beehiiv is a weaker fit when you need dense automation around a service business and you do not publish an issue. You would be paying for a newsroom and using the contact form.
A way to choose this month
Answer one question: if you stopped sending for thirty days, what would you miss?
- Missed sales conversations and an unfinished welcome sequence point to Kit.
- Missed readers and an empty issue slot point to Beehiiv.
- Missed neither means the list is still a theory. Stay on a free plan, write four issues or one sequence by hand, and buy when the habit is real.
The writing tool upstream of either platform is a separate decision. The publish pipeline keeps the draft, the edit, and the send in that order. A polished Beehiiv theme will not repair a draft you did not edit.
What both still require
Deliverability, consent, and a point. Importing a scraped list is a good way to burn a domain, and this guide is not a legal memo on consent. Write to people who asked. Say what the next email will do. Sell a service you can deliver.
What this draft leaves out
No side-by-side of deliverability, no ad-network revenue example, and no recommendation to switch if you are already happy. Migration has a cost in broken automations and reconfirmed subscribers. Stay where the habit already works.