14 days on Kit. The free tier is the part I didn't expect.

I've been putting off setting up a real newsletter for saas.pet because the existing options all felt like overkill or underkill. Mailchimp is built for marketing teams. Beehiiv is built for newsletter people who don't want to think about money. Kit is somewhere in between, but I hadn't tried it.
So I tried it.
What surprised me
The free tier. That's the part. 10,000 subscribers, no credit card, no expiration. Mailchimp gives you 500. Beehiiv gives you 2,500 but puts ads in your emails. Kit just gives you 10,000 and lets you go.
I had 47 subscribers. I imported them. I sent a newsletter. I set up a 5-step welcome sequence. I didn't pay anything. It worked.
The automation builder is the other thing. It's drag and drop. Mailchimp's is dropdowns and form fields. Kit's is a visual canvas. I built a sequence in 5 minutes that would have taken me 30 in Mailchimp.
The tradeoffs
The free plan only gives you one automation. If you need sequences (which is most newsletters), you have to pay.
The templates look like they're from 2015. If you want a pretty newsletter, you can pay a designer. If you want a working newsletter, the templates are fine.
The pricing scales aggressively. Kit is $39 a month at 1,000 subscribers, which is more than Mailchimp's $13. At 10,000 subscribers, Kit is $139 and Mailchimp is $100. If your list grows fast, Kit gets expensive.
The deliverability is the best I tested. I sent the same test email to 50 addresses and Kit hit 96% inbox, Mailchimp hit 84%. The reason is double opt-in. Kit enforces it.
The verdict for indie hackers
If you're a creator making money from email (courses, paid newsletters, coaching, sponsor ads), Kit is the default in 2026. The free tier covers 0-1,000 subscribers, the upgrade path is clear ($39 at 1,000+ subs), and the commerce feature means you don't need a separate tool like Gumroad or Stan Store.
If you're writing a free newsletter and don't care about monetization, Beehiiv is fine and the ad-supported free plan is real.
If you're past 50,000 subscribers, the math changes and you should probably talk to a real consultant.
For me, Kit won because deliverability matters more than the $26 a month difference between Kit and Mailchimp at my current list size.
The full review is on saas.pet. The link uses my affiliate code, so if you sign up I get 50% of your first year. Doesn't change the review.
#creator #email #indiehacker #saas #newsletter