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ConvertKit vs Sailthru

ConvertKit logo

ConvertKit

News

The creator platform for digital professionals

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Sailthru logo

Sailthru

Email Marketing

Retail and publisher email personalisation, now one product inside the Marigold portfolio

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only ConvertKit has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: ConvertKit the free Newsletter plan allows only one basic visual automation, so sequences beyond a single flow require paying; Sailthru the product sits in a portfolio with several overlapping platforms under one owner, so roadmap investment is a portfolio decision rather than a product decision and is worth asking about in writing.
  • They diverge on capability: ConvertKit covers Email marketing, Sailthru covers Interest profiles.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which ConvertKit and Sailthru actually diverge.

Attributes where ConvertKit and Sailthru differ
AttributeConvertKitSailthru
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelfreemiumquote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWebWeb, REST API
CategoryNewsEmail Marketing
Founded2013Unknown

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in ConvertKit

  • Email marketing
  • Landing pages
  • Subscriber tagging
  • Automation workflows
  • Digital product sales
  • Broadcast emails
  • Subscriber segments
  • Email templates

Only in Sailthru

  • Interest profiles
  • Personalisation engine
  • Prediction Manager
  • Site personalisation
  • Zephyr templating
  • Lifecycle optimiser

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

ConvertKit

  • Sending newsletters and email sequences to an audiencenot Sailthru
  • Selling paid subscriptions and digital products to a mailing listnot Sailthru

Sailthru

  • A publisher sending a personalised daily newsletter assembled per reader from a content cataloguenot ConvertKit
  • A retailer that wants email and on-site recommendations driven by the same affinity modelnot ConvertKit
  • High-cadence sending where per-recipient content assembly matters more than journey branchingnot ConvertKit
  • Teams that want churn and lifetime value scores available as native campaign conditions rather than imported fieldsnot ConvertKit

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

ConvertKit

  • The free Newsletter plan allows only one basic visual automation, so sequences beyond a single flow require paying
  • The free plan is a single user, and the Creator plan at $33 a month allows two
  • Subscriber signals, engagement analytics and paid recommendations are Pro only, at $66 a month
  • A/B testing is capped at 2 subject lines below Pro, which allows 5
  • Paid pricing is banded by subscriber count, so the published figures apply only at the smallest band

Sailthru

  • The product sits in a portfolio with several overlapping platforms under one owner, so roadmap investment is a portfolio decision rather than a product decision and is worth asking about in writing.
  • Pricing counts stored profiles, so retained inactive readers keep costing money long after they stopped opening anything.
  • On-site personalisation requires a developer to implement the JavaScript and maintain the content feed, which puts the highest-value feature behind engineering time.
  • Zephyr is a proprietary templating language, so template maintenance skills are scarce compared with the Liquid syntax used by most competitors.
  • It is built for high-cadence content and retail sending, and B2B lifecycle programmes with long sales cycles sit poorly on the model.

Pricing, plan by plan

ConvertKit

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Up to 10,000 subscribers
    • Unlimited landing pages and forms
    • Unlimited email broadcasts
  • Creator$33/month
    • Up to 1,000 subscribers
    • Unlimited visual automations
    • Email sequences
  • Pro$66/month
    • Up to 1,000 subscribers
    • Everything in Creator plan
    • Subscriber engagement scoring

Sailthru

On request
  • Sailthru$undefined/year
    • Priced on stored profiles and send volume
    • Site personalisation and prediction features licensed by module
    • Annual contract through Marigold

Which should you pick?

Choose ConvertKit if

  • You need email marketing.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want landing pages.
ConvertKit review

Choose Sailthru if

  • You need interest profiles.
  • You work on Web, REST API.
  • You also want personalisation engine.
Sailthru review

Questions people ask

Is ConvertKit or Sailthru better?
Neither clearly leads. ConvertKit starts at Free and Sailthru at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, ConvertKit or Sailthru?
ConvertKit has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for ConvertKit and On request for Sailthru.
Does ConvertKit or Sailthru run on more platforms?
ConvertKit runs on Web. Sailthru runs on Web, REST API.
Can I use ConvertKit for free?
Yes. ConvertKit has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Sailthru starts at On request.
What is ConvertKit best used for?
ConvertKit is most often used for sending newsletters and email sequences to an audience, selling paid subscriptions and digital products to a mailing list. Of those, sending newsletters and email sequences to an audience and selling paid subscriptions and digital products to a mailing list are not what Sailthru is typically brought in for.
What can ConvertKit do that Sailthru cannot?
ConvertKit covers Email marketing, Landing pages, Subscriber tagging, Automation workflows. Sailthru covers Interest profiles, Personalisation engine, Prediction Manager, Site personalisation.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

ConvertKit: How much does ConvertKit cost?

ConvertKit offers a free tier and two paid plans: Creator at $33/month (annual $390/year saving $78) and Pro at $66/month (annual $790/year saving $158). All plans include unlimited landing pages, email broadcasts, and audience management features.

Source
Sailthru: Who owns Sailthru now?

Marigold, formerly CM Group, which also owns Campaign Monitor, Emma, Selligent, Liveclicker and Cheetah Digital.

ConvertKit: What does the free ConvertKit plan include?

The free plan supports up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited landing pages, forms, email broadcasts, audience tagging, and digital product sales. No credit card required to start.

Source
Sailthru: Does that affect the roadmap?

It can. Overlapping products in one portfolio compete for investment, so ask which platform is the strategic one for your segment before signing multi-year.

ConvertKit: What are the subscriber limits on ConvertKit plans?

The free plan supports up to 10,000 subscribers. Both Creator and Pro paid tiers support up to 1,000 subscribers. This creates a subscriber limit decrease when upgrading from free to paid plans.

Source
Sailthru: Is it worth it just for newsletters?

For personalised daily newsletters at publisher scale it remains one of the strongest options. For simple broadcast sending it is heavily over-specified.

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