If you’re reading this, you’ve probably outgrown Mailchimp’s pricing curve, hit a wall with its automation builder, or just want a tool built around creators instead of e-commerce brands. ConvertKit (now branded as Kit in some markets) is the most common landing spot for that switch. This guide walks through the actual migration — exporting your data, mapping tags and custom fields, rebuilding automations, and avoiding the gotchas that cause people to lose subscribers or break sequences mid-move.
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| Mailchimp | ConvertKit | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | E-commerce brands, teams needing an all-in-one marketing suite | Creators, bloggers, newsletter writers, course sellers |
| Free plan | Yes, up to 500 contacts [VERIFY: pricing] | Yes, limited features up to a subscriber cap [VERIFY: pricing] |
| Automation model | Visual journey builder, broader marketing automation (ads, social) | Sequence + rule-based automations built around tagging |
| Tagging/segmentation | Tags exist but are secondary to \”audiences\” | Tag-based subscriber model is the core organizing principle |
| Landing pages/forms | Included on paid plans | Included, with a strong focus on opt-in forms and creator funnels |
| Migration difficulty | — | Moderate: manual re-mapping of tags/automations, no fully automatic 1:1 import |
What Mailchimp Does Well (and Where It Falls Short)
Mailchimp is a broad marketing platform: email, basic CRM features, ad integrations, and e-commerce tools bundled together. It’s a reasonable fit for small e-commerce stores or teams that want one dashboard for email plus social ads.
Best for: Online stores and small businesses that want email, light automation, and ad management in one tool without adding software.
Pricing: Mailchimp uses a contact-based pricing model with a free tier and paid tiers (Essentials, Standard, Premium) that scale with list size and feature access. [VERIFY: pricing] — exact tier thresholds and monthly costs change often enough that you should check Mailchimp’s pricing page before committing to a plan.
Limitation: Mailchimp’s automation builder gets clunky once you need multi-step, condition-based sequences tied to subscriber behavior. Many creators find themselves fighting the interface rather than the strategy, which is usually the actual reason they start looking at alternatives.
What ConvertKit Does Well (and Where It Falls Short)
ConvertKit is built specifically for people who make money from an audience — newsletter writers, course creators, coaches. Its core model is tags and sequences rather than static \”lists,\” which makes segmentation more flexible once you understand how it works.
Best for: Solo creators, bloggers, and course/product sellers who want a simpler automation model built around subscriber behavior and tags rather than broad marketing-suite features.
Pricing: ConvertKit offers a free plan with core email sending capped by subscriber count, and paid Creator/Creator Pro tiers that unlock advanced automations, integrations, and reporting. [VERIFY: pricing] — subscriber caps and tier pricing have shifted with recent rebranding, so confirm current numbers on their site. If you want to try it before committing, you can start with ConvertKit’s free plan and upgrade once your list and automation needs grow.
Limitation: ConvertKit’s visual design tools for emails and landing pages are more limited than Mailchimp’s — if you rely heavily on highly branded, image-heavy templates, you may find ConvertKit’s plain-text-first design philosophy restrictive.
Step-by-Step: Migrating From Mailchimp to ConvertKit
Step 1: Audit and export your Mailchimp data
Before touching ConvertKit, get a clean export of everything you’ll need:
- Subscribers: Audience → All Contacts → Export Audience. This gives you a CSV with email, name, tags, and any custom fields.
- Automations: Mailchimp doesn’t export automation logic as a file — screenshot or document each automation’s trigger, delay, and content manually. You’ll rebuild these by hand in ConvertKit.
- Forms and landing pages: Note the copy, fields, and design elements you’ll want to recreate. These also don’t export as reusable files.
Do this audit even if it feels tedious. The single biggest cause of a messy migration is skipping documentation and trying to \”remember\” automation logic later.
Step 2: Clean your list before you move it
Migrations are the best excuse to remove subscribers who haven’t opened an email in 6-12 months. Bringing a stale list into a new platform hurts your sender reputation from day one and, on ConvertKit’s subscriber-based pricing, costs you money for contacts who’ll never convert. Segment out inactive subscribers in Mailchimp and either exclude them from your export or plan a re-engagement campaign before you migrate.
Step 3: Set up your ConvertKit account and plan tier
Sign up and pick a plan based on your current active subscriber count (not your full Mailchimp list, if you just cleaned it). If you’re not sure which tier you need yet, start on the free or entry tier — you can upgrade once you’ve rebuilt automations and confirmed everything works.
Step 4: Import subscribers into ConvertKit
Go to Grow → Subscribers → Import Subscribers and upload your Mailchimp CSV. ConvertKit will ask you to map your CSV columns (email, first name, tags, custom fields) to its own fields. This is the step where naming consistency matters — if your Mailchimp tags were inconsistent (\”Customer\” vs \”customer\” vs \”Paid Customer\”), clean that up in the spreadsheet first, because ConvertKit will import them as separate tags otherwise.
Step 5: Rebuild your tags and segments
Mailchimp’s \”audiences\” and ConvertKit’s \”tags\” don’t map 1:1. Rather than recreating your old list structure exactly, use this migration as an opportunity to rebuild segmentation around ConvertKit’s tag-and-sequence model — tag subscribers by behavior (downloaded lead magnet, purchased product X) rather than by static list membership.
Step 6: Recreate your automations as sequences
Using the documentation from Step 1, rebuild each automation in ConvertKit’s Automations builder. Common mappings:
- Mailchimp welcome automation → ConvertKit welcome sequence triggered by a form subscription
- Mailchimp abandoned cart/behavior automation → ConvertKit automation rule triggered by a tag or purchase event (requires an e-commerce integration)
- Mailchimp date-based automation (birthday, anniversary) → ConvertKit automation triggered by a custom field date
Test each automation with a dummy subscriber before turning it live.
Step 7: Rebuild forms and landing pages
Recreate your opt-in forms in ConvertKit using the copy and fields you documented. If your forms are embedded on a website (WordPress, Squarespace, custom site), you’ll need to swap the embed code — this is a good time to also test that submissions are landing correctly and triggering the right sequence.
Step 8: Reconnect your integrations
If you use Shopify, WooCommerce, Zapier, or a course platform connected to Mailchimp, you’ll need to reauthorize those connections pointing to ConvertKit instead. Check each integration’s documentation — some (like Shopify) have direct ConvertKit apps, while others may require Zapier as a bridge.
Step 9: Run a parallel test before full cutover
Don’t cancel Mailchimp yet. Send a real campaign through ConvertKit to a small segment first, confirm deliverability and formatting look right, and double-check that automations fire correctly for a live subscriber. This step catches formatting and merge-tag errors before they hit your full list.
Step 10: Cut over and cancel Mailchimp
Once you’ve confirmed sequences, forms, and integrations work as expected, switch your live signup forms fully to ConvertKit, update any DNS/domain authentication records ConvertKit requires for deliverability, and only then downgrade or cancel your Mailchimp plan — after your final export is confirmed complete and backed up.
Common Migration Gotchas
- Tag chaos: Inconsistent tag naming in your export creates duplicate, messy tags in ConvertKit. Clean the CSV first.
- Broken merge tags: Mailchimp’s
*|FNAME|*syntax doesn’t translate directly — ConvertKit uses its own liquid-style personalization tags, so review every automated email for broken personalization before sending. - Domain authentication: If you don’t set up SPF/DKIM records for ConvertKit on your sending domain, your deliverability can drop noticeably in the first few weeks. Do this before your first real send, not after.
- Automation logic drift: People often \”upgrade\” automations during rebuild instead of just replicating them, then get surprised when subscriber behavior changes. Rebuild first, optimize later.
Should You Actually Migrate?
If your main frustration is Mailchimp’s pricing as your list grows, or you want simpler tag-based automation built specifically for creators, ConvertKit is a reasonable move — the migration is manual but not technically difficult. If you rely on Mailchimp’s e-commerce features, ad integrations, or heavily designed email templates, weigh that against ConvertKit’s more minimal design toolkit before switching.
For most solo creators and newsletter writers, the switch pays off once automations are rebuilt — you can get started with ConvertKit and follow the steps above at your own pace, keeping both accounts active until you’ve confirmed everything transferred cleanly.