My Honest Kit (formerly ConvertKit) Review After 3 Years of Use
Short version: ConvertKit is still my top recommendation for creators who actually sell things. But if you’re just building a simple weekly Beehiiv, it’s total overkill and you’re burning money. I’ve been a paying customer for three years, and this is my unfiltered take on where it shines and where it falls flat.
Full disclosure: some links below are affiliate links. I only recommend tools I’ve paid for and actually use.
What’s Actually Worth Paying For in ConvertKit?
Let’s skip the feature list you can find on their homepage. The one thing that keeps me paying my invoice every month is the Visual Automations builder. It’s the core of the entire platform, and it’s brilliant.
It’s a flowchart for your subscribers. Simple as that. You can build complex, branching logic without writing a single line of code. This is where ConvertKit separates itself from simpler tools like MailerLite or Beehiiv.
Here’s a real-world example from my own business. When someone buys my ‘Beginner’s Guide to APIs’ ebook, a few things happen automatically:
- They get a tag: ‘Customer – API Ebook’.
- This tag triggers an automation that immediately delivers the ebook.
- It then waits 3 days and sends a follow-up email asking if they have any questions.
- A week later, it sends an email with a link to a free advanced tutorial.
- If they click that link, they get a new tag: ‘Interested – Advanced Topics’.
- Two weeks after that, the automation checks for that ‘Interested’ tag. If it exists, it sends them a soft-pitch for my full video course on the topic.
This entire funnel runs on autopilot. It nurtures new buyers, identifies highly-engaged readers, and makes relevant offers without me lifting a finger. Trying to build this in a less sophisticated tool would involve duct-taping multiple services together. In ConvertKit, it’s a single screen that I can map out visually. That, for me, is the entire reason to pay for it.
The integration between their forms, landing pages, tags, and broadcasts is also incredibly tight. Everything talks to everything else without any weird Zapier automations workarounds. It just works.
What Sucks About ConvertKit? (My Biggest Gripe)
The form and landing page builder is mediocre. There, I said it.
It’s functional, yes. You can build a simple page to collect emails or sell a digital product. But the design options are rigid and feel dated. Compared to dedicated builders like Leadpages, Carrd, or even the block editor in WordPress, it’s frustratingly limited. Customizing anything beyond the basics requires fighting with custom CSS, and their templates are all variations on the same minimalist theme.
My concrete gripe: I spent a whole afternoon trying to embed a ConvertKit form into a custom-designed hero section on my website. I wanted it to perfectly match the site’s branding. It was a nightmare. The default styles kept conflicting with my site’s stylesheet, and overriding them was a messy process of trial and error. I eventually gave up and used a form plugin for my CMS that integrates with ConvertKit’s API. It cost me an extra subscription, but it saved my sanity.
They’ve made minor improvements over the years, but it’s clearly not their focus. If you need beautiful, highly-customized landing pages, you’ll need another tool. Think of ConvertKit’s pages as ‘good enough’ for a quick start, not as a long-term solution.
Is ConvertKit’s Pricing Worth It in 2026?
This is the big question. ConvertKit isn’t cheap, and the price scales with your subscriber count. Let’s break down the value of each tier.
Free Plan (up to 1,000 subscribers): Honestly, this is a demo, not a usable free plan for a serious business. You can’t use the visual automations or create automated sequences. Without those, you’re missing the entire point of ConvertKit. It’s fine for literally starting from zero, but you will outgrow it the moment you want to send a simple welcome email. I see it as an extended trial.
Creator Plan (starts at $29/mo for up to 1,000 subscribers): This is the plan most creators should be on. It unlocks the visual automations and sequences, which are the platform’s killer features. The price scales up from there—for example, up to 5,000 subscribers will run you $79/mo. I find this pricing fair. If you have 5,000 subscribers and you aren’t making at least $79/mo from them, the problem isn’t your email tool. This plan has everything you need to build a real business.
Creator Pro Plan (starts at $59/mo): This adds subscriber scoring, a newsletter referral system, and advanced reporting. The referral system is the most interesting feature here, allowing you to reward subscribers for sharing your newsletter. It’s a great growth mechanism. But is it worth the price jump from the Creator plan? For most, I’d say no. I’m still on the Creator plan and have never felt held back. The Pro plan is for established creators who are looking to optimize growth at a large scale.
My verdict on pricing is that the Creator plan offers solid value. It’s an investment, but it’s one that directly supports monetization in a way that cheaper tools don’t.