If you run a solo business, “email marketing” usually means one of three jobs: grow a newsletter audience, sell a small catalog of offers to people who already trust you, or send reliable broadcasts and simple automations without hiring an operator. beehiiv (14-day free trial + 20% OFF for 3 months for new signups through that link), Kit (still widely searched as ConvertKit), and MailerLite are credible answers, but they are not interchangeable defaults.
Treat every price, subscriber limit, and deliverability add-on below as something to verify on each vendor’s billing page before you commit. Solo businesses get burned when they assume a headline tier includes custom domains, removed branding, or automation depth they need six weeks later.
beehiiv (newsletter growth as the main character)
What it is built to do: publish a newsletter, collect subscribers, and stack growth mechanics (referrals, recommendations, ad network participation where available) in one product story that feels native to newsletter operators rather than “ecommerce blasts.”
Why beginners pick it: the editor and publishing loop reward frequency and distribution. If your mental model is “Substack-shaped, but I want more business tooling,” beehiiv is often the first shortlist.
Real issues we see:
- Growth features can become a strategy tax. Referral programs and partner networks are powerful when you have a clear audience and a repeatable issue. If you are still figuring out positioning, you can spend weeks tuning growth surfaces instead of writing the next ten issues that earn trust.
- Your stack may still need a website elsewhere. Many solos eventually want a real marketing site, documentation, or a hiring page. beehiiv can anchor email; it does not remove every “where does this page live?” decision.
- Verify what you consider “done” on your plan. Custom domains, team seats, API access, and monetization surfaces move by tier. The failure mode is not “beehiiv is bad,” it is “we outgrew the tier faster than expected because we counted features from a blog post written last year.”
Best when: your primary product is the newsletter itself (or a media brand adjacent to it) and you want growth tooling bundled with publishing, not bolted on as an afterthought.
Kit (creator funnels, tags, and “sell the next thing”)
What it is built to do: treat subscribers as people on a path: tags, segments, visual automations, landing pages, and creator commerce patterns that match “I teach, I template, I coach, I ship a paid newsletter.” Kit is the name many still remember as ConvertKit; search and integrations may still show the old label in places.
Why beginners pick it: the product language matches solo creators who think in sequences (“free guide → nurture → offer”) more than in “campaign calendar for a marketing department.”
Real issues we see:
- Automation is a craft. Visual builders are friendly until you have five branches, three entry points, and a tag cleanup you forgot to document. Solos become accidental CRM-lite admins unless they keep a simple map: triggers, goals, and what each tag is allowed to mean.
- Pricing scales with list size in ways that sting if you collect emails casually. A bloated list (cold imports, giveaways, stale leads) is expensive everywhere; on creator-focused tools it can feel personal because the bill tracks “people you barely email.”
- Commerce is powerful when you use it; confusing when you do not. If you only need broadcasts, you might pay for surface area you never touch. That is not a moral judgment; it is a fit question.
Best when: you sell digital products, courses, coaching, or memberships and you want subscriber behavior (clicks, purchases, tags) to drive email without wiring five tools together on day one.
MailerLite (affordable broadcast email with a wide sweet spot)
What it is built to do: email campaigns, automations, landing pages, and simple websites for small businesses that want dependable sending and a gentler learning curve than enterprise MAPs.
Why beginners pick it: the product tends to win on clarity and cost discipline for straightforward needs: newsletters, promos, lead magnets, and basic journeys, often with less “creator brand tax” in positioning.
Real issues we see:
- Account approval and compliance checks can interrupt momentum. MailerLite (like other ESPs) may review new accounts or certain industries more strictly. Have your domain authentication plan ready (SPF, DKIM, DMARC as your stack requires) and expect that “sign up and blast 20k cold contacts” is not the supported path.
- Advanced marketing ops teams sometimes outgrow the ceiling. If you need deep CRM sync, complex lead scoring, or multi-brand governance, you may migrate later. For many solos, that is a future problem, not a day-one problem.
- Feature depth varies by module. Landing pages and sites are useful; compare templates, forms, and blog behavior against what you actually publish weekly.
Best when: you want email as infrastructure for a small business (appointments, local services, SaaS side project, agency client lists) and you care about predictable cost while you prove the channel.
A simple decision table (no scoring gimmicks)
| If your next 90 days look like… | Lean toward |
|---|---|
| “I am building audience around a publication and referrals matter.” | beehiiv |
| “I am selling templates, courses, or coaching through sequences.” | Kit |
| “I need solid email + landing pages + simple automation at sane cost.” | MailerLite |
Migration and hygiene (whichever you pick)
- Clean the list before you celebrate the import. Remove obvious bounces, role addresses you do not truly use, and segments you have not mailed in a year unless you have a deliberate re-engagement plan.
- Authenticate your sending domain and keep reply-to behavior honest. Cheap tools do not fix bad lists or sketchy subject lines.
- Export paths matter. Pick a vendor where you can live with the export format and automation documentation you would need if you switch tools after twelve months.
Verdict (starter)
Pick beehiiv if the newsletter is the business and you want built-in growth loops aligned with that shape.
Pick Kit if you are a solo creator optimizing for tags, visual automations, and selling the next product to the same audience over time.
Pick MailerLite if you want broad email marketing capability with a beginner-friendly surface and pricing that usually stays understandable while you validate the channel.
If you are still stuck, choose the tool whose default dashboard matches the work you will do this week: write and distribute (beehiiv), wire a simple funnel (Kit), or ship campaigns and a landing page (MailerLite). You can always migrate once you have real open and click data tied to a real offer.