Migration guide
Kit → beehiiv
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) and beehiiv target the same creator audience but solve different jobs. Kit is the mature automation-and-commerce platform built around tags and digital products. Beehiiv is the growth-tooling platform built around the referral program, the recommendations network, and an opt-in ad network. If your bottleneck is acquisition, beehiiv's stack moves the needle in ways Kit's doesn't.
Published · By the TierGauge editorial team
When this migration makes sense
- You're a publication-shaped newsletter (single brand, regular cadence) more than a product business; growth-via-referral matters more than digital-product checkout.
- You'd actually use the beehiiv ad network or want the option to. Kit has no native ad-monetization layer.
- You'd participate in the cross-newsletter recommendations network for compound subscriber growth.
- Your audience is under 2,500 subs and you want an actually-functional free tier (beehiiv Launch is genuinely free up to 2,500; Kit's Newsletter free tier is also generous but features-light).
When it doesn't
- Your business is digital-product or course sales and Kit Commerce is doing real work for you. Beehiiv's monetization is referral / ads / paid subs, not product checkout.
- You depend on Kit's tag-based segmentation and Visual Automations for behavior-triggered sequences. Beehiiv's automations exist but are simpler.
- You rely on Kit's deep integration ecosystem (Teachable, Podia, Stripe, dozens of creator tools). Beehiiv has integrations but the ecosystem is younger.
- You're a course creator running a paid waitlist or evergreen launch funnel; Kit's commerce + automation combo is the canonical stack and beehiiv won't replace it cleanly.
What you lose by leaving Kit
- Kit's Visual Automations and tag-based behavioral triggers (the strongest argument for staying on Kit).
- Kit Commerce: digital-product checkout, sales pages, customer billing, all baked in.
- Kit's larger third-party integration catalog (Teachable, Podia, Thinkific, Memberful, dozens of creator tools).
- Kit's tagging system, which scales better than beehiiv's segments when audience interests fragment across many topics.
- Kit's mature deliverability operations and reputation across years of creator sending.
What you gain with beehiiv
- The beehiiv referral program: built-in two-sided rewards system that's a separate $300+/mo tool elsewhere (SparkLoop, Beacon).
- The beehiiv recommendations network: opt-in cross-promotion with other publications, compounding new-subscriber acquisition without paid spend.
- The beehiiv ad network: optional monetization layer that pays creators for ad placements in newsletters, no separate sponsorship hustle required.
- A more modern editor (Notion-like blocks, embedded polls, content boost integrations) than Kit's Broadcast composer.
- Built-in paid subscriptions (Premium tier) without setting up a separate commerce flow, for publication-shaped paid content.
- A genuinely-free tier up to 2,500 subscribers that includes a custom domain and the referral system, not a feature-stripped trial.
Plan mapping at the entry paid tier
The lowest non-free, non-custom tier on each side. Use this for the "if I'm on $X with Kit, what's the equivalent on beehiiv?" gut check.
| Limit | Kit (Creator) | beehiiv (Scale) |
|---|---|---|
| Contacts | 1,000 subscribers (anchor; scales up) | 100,000 subscribers |
| Emails / month | · | Unlimited |
| Team seats | 2 | 3 |
| Automations | Unlimited | · |
| Campaigns | · | 3 publications |
Step-by-step migration
- 01
Export your list from Kit
Pull a fresh CSV of every active subscriber. Capture the fields you actually use downstream: email is required, name is standard, signup date and tier (free/paid) are useful when Kit provides them.
- 02
Provision beehiiv
Sign up, set sender identity, and verify your sending domain (DKIM, SPF, DMARC). Do this before importing the list; sending from an unverified domain is the single fastest way to land in spam at the moment of cutover.
- 03
Import the list and map fields
Upload the CSV. Map email + name + any custom fields. Decide whether to import as one list or split into segments/tags. Kit-style organization rarely maps 1:1, so plan the split before the upload, not after.
- 04
Rebuild automations and templates
beehiiv's automation builder is structurally similar but won't import Kit's flows directly. Rebuild only what you actively use; the move is a chance to delete the unused ones rather than lift-and-shift dead infrastructure.
- 05
Send a test broadcast
Pick a small segment and send a real broadcast (not just a preview). Verify deliverability, link clicks, and unsubscribe flow. If anything's off, you find it before the announcement, not after.
- 06
Announce the move and cut over
Send your last broadcast from Kit announcing the new sender domain and what to expect. Cut over DNS and sending from beehiiv on the same day, not staggered. A dual-send week creates more confusion than it prevents.
Kit-to-beehiiv specific gotchas
Universal steps cover most of the work. These are the failure modes unique to this exact pair.
-
#1
Kit exports as a CSV per tag or per form. Subscriber tags do NOT round-trip to beehiiv as native segments; reconstruct what matters as beehiiv segments before importing, or accept a flatter list.
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#2
Kit's Visual Automation sequences are tag-driven. Beehiiv's automations trigger off subscribe/unsubscribe and engagement events but don't replicate Kit's branching logic. Plan to flatten complex automations into linear sequences or keep Kit running for the automation-heavy slice.
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#3
Kit Commerce digital-product checkout has no beehiiv equivalent. If you sell guides, courses, or templates through Kit, set up Gumroad / Lemon Squeezy / a Stripe page before cutting over.
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#4
Custom domain handoff requires DNS planning. Kit hosts your sender domain; beehiiv issues new DKIM records. Stagger the cutover so you're not bouncing emails for 24 hours during DNS propagation.
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#5
Subscriber engagement scores don't transfer. Beehiiv recomputes from scratch; expect 4 to 6 sends before its engagement signals stabilize.
Common questions
- Is beehiiv cheaper than Kit?
- Both start at the same headline price (Free). The reason to migrate is the pricing model and feature scope, not the entry-tier number.
- Will I lose subscribers in the move?
- Email lists transfer as raw addresses; subscriber relationships transfer with you because the addresses haven't changed. What you can lose: re-engagement (some readers won't notice the new sender domain immediately), paid subscriptions if Kit handles billing differently from beehiiv (the gotchas above call out the specific cases), and any "engagement" or warmth signals that Kit's deliverability inferred from your sending history. Plan a clear announcement and a deliverability warm-up week.
- How long does the migration take?
- For a list under 10,000 subscribers, a clean migration is one focused week: domain setup and verification, list import, automation rebuild, test broadcast, announcement, cutover. Larger lists or complex automations can stretch to 2 or 3 weeks. The constraint is rarely the import itself; it's the deliverability warm-up and the time to rebuild flows you actually depend on.
- Are Kit and beehiiv direct competitors?
- Yes. Both are primarily email marketing tools, which is why this is a defensible head-to-head migration rather than a cross-category consolidation.
- Where can I see Kit vs beehiiv side-by-side?
- The /compare/beehiiv-vs-kit page on TierGauge shows side-by-side plans, headline pricing, included features, and limit comparison at the entry paid tier. This migration guide is the long-form decision narrative; the compare page is the data-only dashboard.
Sources
- Kit: https://kit.com/pricing
- beehiiv: https://www.beehiiv.com/pricing
Pricing verified . Migration mechanics are based on the public pricing pages and standard ESP migration patterns; verify destructive steps (DNS cutover, paid subscription transfer) against the vendor's current docs before executing.