Kit vs Substack
Side-by-side plans, pricing, and feature gates for Kit and Substack, verified . Both are primarily email marketing tools.
Plans side by side
Every published plan from each vendor, with the headline monthly anchor price. Some prices scale with subscriber count or seats; full detail lives on each tool's page.
Kit
- Newsletter
Free up to 10,000 subscribers
Free - Creator
Most popular, 1,000 subscriber anchor
$33/mo - Pro
Advanced creators and small teams
$66/mo
Substack
- Standard
Free to publish; 10% of paid subscription revenue
Free
When Kit wins
- Independent newsletter writers and creators selling digital products
- Course creators who want one tool for emails and checkout
- Solo operators with under 10k subscribers (free plan covers them)
Where Kit is the wrong fit
- B2B sales teams that need pipeline management (use Pipedrive or HubSpot CRM)
- Brands that need deep multi-channel marketing automation (use ActiveCampaign or HubSpot)
- Teams that need granular role-based permissions
When Substack wins
- New writers with no list yet who want platform-driven discovery
- Writers who would rather give 10% of revenue than pay a flat $20-100/month with no readers
Where Substack is the wrong fit
- Established creators with a paid list above ~5,000 subscribers; the 10% share exceeds what Kit, Ghost, or beehiiv would charge in flat fees at that scale
- Operators who want full control over deliverability, subscriber data, and migration optionality
- Brands needing automations, segmentation, or marketing tooling
Common questions
- Is Kit cheaper than Substack?
- Both Kit and Substack have free or custom entry pricing, so a direct entry-tier price comparison is not meaningful.
- Does Kit or Substack have a free plan?
- Both have free plans. Kit: Free up to 10,000 subscribers. Substack: Free to publish; 10% of paid subscription revenue.
Kit: https://kit.com/pricing · Substack: https://substack.com/going-paid
Last verified . Pricing changes between refreshes; confirm at the vendor before purchasing.