Creators Rarely Return to Mailchimp
Nathan Barry, CEO and founder of ConvertKit, on ConvertKit’s path to $100M in revenue
This reveals that ConvertKit won by specializing around the creator workflow, not by trying to be a smaller Mailchimp. Mailchimp made email easy for general SMB marketing, with drag and drop campaigns and broad small business appeal, while ConvertKit stripped away design heavy complexity and centered on creators who need sequences, tagging, monetization, and interoperability across Shopify, Teachable, Memberful, and Stripe. That makes Mailchimp a common starting point, but not the natural next step once a creator business gets more serious.
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The real upgrade path splits in two directions. Creators moving beyond simple broadcasts tend to choose ConvertKit for audience growth and monetization, while teams that need developer built event tracking, deep API control, and custom messaging flows jump past both tools to Customer.io, Intercom, or similar products.
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Mailchimp was the original mass market email tool, and then specialists peeled off its best segments. Ecommerce moved to Klaviyo, creators moved to ConvertKit, and technical product led messaging moved to Customer.io. That is why moving from ConvertKit back to Mailchimp feels like moving from a specialist tool back to a general one.
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ConvertKit also reinforced this position with network products around creators, including recommendations, sponsorships, and a payments layer that can aggregate sales data across outside tools. Those features make the product more useful as a creator business expands, instead of forcing a migration just because revenue or list size grows.
The next battleground is not ConvertKit versus Mailchimp, it is whether creator email platforms can keep stretching upward before customers need a true customer data and automation stack. ConvertKit is pushing that ceiling higher by adding monetization and ecosystem tools, which should keep more growing creator businesses inside its product for longer.