When building your online business it is CRITICAL that you have a system in place that handles your email marketing.
However, in order to have a successful system you need to automate a number of different processes, these include knowing how to structure your email as well as choosing the correct email marketing tool.
In this article we will be looking at two email marketing tools that are legends when it comes to the email marketing industry, they are Drip and ConvertKit.
In this Drip vs ConvertKit comparison article, I will be taking an in-depth look at both of these email marketing tools and breaking down which one is better and why!
So without further ado, let’s dive straight into this comparison review.
Table of Contents
Drip vs ConvertKit
Before we do a deep dive into each of these platforms and layout the pricing, the key features, and the pros and cons let’s take a look at what they really are.
What is Drip?
Drip is a marketing automation software that focuses only on e-commerce. In fact, they built their own CRM resource called ECRM that was designed to help build personalized customer experiences while increasing sales and revenue.
I like to think of Drip as the voice of the independent shops since they provide a platform that allows these shops to compete with the giant e-commerce marketplaces.
Drip equips any e-commerce brand with the tools and systems they need in order to connect with their customers and compete fairly online.
That being said, Drip is trusted by over 6000 brands including some of your favorites such as The Spice House, Craft, and Polaris.
Fun Fact: Drip was acquired by Leadpages in 2016.
Related: Full In-depth review on Drip
What is ConvertKit?
In a nutshell, ConvertKit is an email marketing tool that helps creators earn a full-time income through the power of email marketing.
So if you are a blogger, author, YouTuber, teacher, chef, or designer then ConvertKit was built for you!
ConvertKit helps these creators scale their businesses using forms, effective tools, and advanced automation.
Founded in 2013 by Nathan Barry and David Wheeler, the email marketing software quickly rose to become a force to be reckoned with in the email marketing industry!
Today they have over 19,000 customers and send out over 500 million emails every single month!
Related: Full In-Depth review on ConvertKit
Pricing
This is a key factor when it comes to choosing the right email marketing tool for your business.
After all, what good is it having a mind-blowing marketing automation tool that costs $20,000 per month?
Let’s take a look at the pricing of Drip and ConvertKit.
Drip Pricing
The pricing at Drip is super straight-forward and it depends on the number of contacts that you have. For example:
For 500 contacts you pay $19 per month.
For 2000 contacts you pay $29 per month.
For 4500 contacts you pay $79 per month.
For 10,000 contacts you pay $154 per month
If you have over 5,000 contacts you can request a one-on-one walkthrough of Drip’s platform. Also if you have 5,500 contacts you get access to live chat support as well as email support.
Unlike most other email marketing tools you aren’t limited to the number of emails that you can send which I found pretty cool!
Moreover, if you have over 160,000 contacts then you will need to get in contact with a customer support expert at Drip. (More information on the customer support later down in this article)
What do you get with these paid plans? Well, all plans include:
- Detailed Email Analytics
- Behavior & Event Tracking
- Unlimited Users
- Segmentation
- API
- Unlimited Users
- MyDrip learning hub
- And much more!
ConvertKit Pricing
ConvertKit’s pricing is actually super straightforward as well.
They offer a free plan that allows you to manage up to 1000 subscribers. This free plan also allows you to:
- Build unlimited landing pages & forms
- Send email broadcasts
- Tag your subscribers
- Customize your domain
- Have unlimited traffic
The paid plans start at $29 per month and vary depending on the number of subscribers that you have. For example :
For 1000 subscribers you pay $29 per month
For 3000 subscribers you pay $49 per month
For 10,000 subscribers you pay $119 per month
These paid plans include everything in the free plan as well as premium support, automated funnels & email sequences, and integrations.
You can also get 2 months free if you decide to purchase any of the plans on an annual basis.
Who has better pricing?
ConvertKit is overall cheaper when it comes to price in the long-run. Let’s say you have 25,000 contacts you will pay $199 per month at ConvertKit however for the same 25,000 contacts you will pay $369 per month at Drip.
Moreover, if you have less than 1000 subscribers you can use ConvertKit for FREE! The same can’t be said for Drip which charges up to $29 per month if you have 1000 subscribers.
You also get 2 months free at ConvertKit if you decide to go with the annual plan!
Ease of Use
What good is any software if it isn’t easy to use?
I am sure if any email marketing tool was priced at 99 cents per month but the usability required a rocket science degree then you would look in the next direction.
Let’s take a look at the ease of use of ConvertKit and Drip.
ConvertKit Ease of Use
Immediately when you enter ConvertKit’s dashboard you can tell it was designed for the individuals who have no coding or technical experience.
Aside from MailerLite, ConvertKit is one of the most straightforward and intuitive email marketing tools I have ever seen!
When you first enter the software you are given a checklist that helps you get started with their email tools which I found pretty awesome.
The entire platform is clearly beginner-friendly as it provides you with tons of material that was designed to help you become acquainted with ConvertKit and help you get one step closer to creating amazing campaigns.
Navigation inside ConvertKit is a walk in the park and the neat dashboard makes it easy to navigate between the 5 different tabs, subscribers, automation, forms, sequences, and broadcasts.
If you are a creator then ConvertKit is truly a dream come through. This is thanks to the drag-and-drop editor which gives you the full creative freedom to design your emails exactly how you would want.
That being said, if you are looking for a comprehensive and detailed user interface then you may want to check out an email marketing tool like ActiveCampaign or Aweber.
Drip Ease of Use
Drip is also an incredibly easy program to grasp.
Thanks to the amazing visual workflow builder you can create amazing campaigns by simply adding, removing, and adjusting different rules.
Drips visual editor makes it really easy to create eye-catching and highly-converting emails.
The best part?
You will never have to touch a line of code or even paste any HTML code.
Moreover, moving your data from another platform to Drip is an incredibly smooth process.
This is all due to the live chat and email support as well as the intuitive how-to videos and well-stocked learning hub MyDrip.
That being said, if you are looking for that additional help you can request the services of the ECRM customer success team.
Their job is to help you with EVERYTHING on your email campaigns from creating your first automation to optimizing your strategies for success.
All in all, Drip does an excellent job of making sure that you have a smooth ride with them.
Which one is easier to use?
In my opinion, I have to say ConvertKit won this round but only by a hair.
Despite the fact that Drip has a live chat as well as a help center that will help you solve any problems that you may come across navigating the platform, ConvertKit comes out on top.
That being said they both have visually appealing drag-and-drop builders that I know anyone can get the hang of once they give it a shot.
I personally prefer ConvertKit because it’s super beginner-friendly and walks you step by step in setting up your email sequences.
Special Features
Both of these email marketing tools have some really unique features that make them stand out against each other.
Let’s take a look at each of these special features.
Drip’s Special Features
Drip has two features that immediately caught my attention the second I looked at them, they are customer data optimization and engagement tools.
Let’s take a brief look at both of these unique features.
Customer Data Optimisation
DATA IS KING!!
Drip definitely agrees with this statement and it’s proven through their customer data feature.
This feature allows you to store all of your customers’ data in one central location which encourages ease of use.
This provides the perfect opportunity to track your customer data regardless of the channel that they come from.
This feature is made up of three different areas, Tags, Custom Fields, and Events & Customer behavior.
With Tags, you will get the perfect understanding of every person that visits your website. This gives you a great representation of who your audience consists of so you can build campaigns that are tailored specifically to them. Tags also open the opportunity to segment your audience for future use.
Custom fields allow you to gather all the necessary information that you need in order to fully personalize each email. You can get every detail from your customer’s name to their checkout ID.
Events & Customer Behavior gives you deep insight into when and how often your customers are interacting with your brand. These tracking events help you understand exactly how many visits and clicks they made so you can create even more personalized emails.
Engagement tools
I like this feature because it directly appeals to everyone regardless of where they’re at on their customer journey.
Thanks to behavior-based automation you can engage with your customers when your brand is top of mind like when they’re visiting your website, opening your email, or checking their Instagram.
The Engagement tool keeps the journey going across all your social media platforms. That means you can send out a highly personalized email and then retarget them on Facebook or Instagram with a messaging that is similar to that in the email.
All in all, this tool helps you not only create a better overall experience for your customers but also drastically improve your conversion rates.
ConvertKit’s Special Features
ConvertKit has two features that I personally like to see accompanied by an email marketing platform.
These two features are forms and landing pages.
Forms
Did you know that 50% of marketers say inbound marketing strategies, such as onsite forms, are their primary source of leads?
If executed successfully sign-up forms can really help take your business to that next level.
At ConvertKit you can take advantage of three different types of forms, inline forms, pop up forms, and slide in forms.
These forms were designed with one goal in mind and that’s to help you make a strong first impression with your customers as well as provide you with a system that collects emails on auto-pilot.
Moreover, these forms are fully customizable and look fantastic regardless of the device you’re on.
Here are some other cool features that these forms have:
- Automatic Delivery – This allows you to set an incentive to be delivered right to your subscriber’s inbox once they opt-in
- Double opt-in for deliverability – Whenever someone clicks to download your “freebie” they are also double opting into your email list which helps block spammers!
These forms are also super easy to add to your website, all you have to do is embed the code whether that be on Zapier, Javascript, or HTML. (My favorite has to be Zapier)
Landing Pages
Having a well-designed landing page can be one of the determining factors of if your website visitors follow through with your call-to-action or not.
ConvertKit offers fully customizable templates that you can take advantage of so you can start building high-converting landing pages in minutes.
You are also given access to over 100,000 stock images that you can use on your landing pages.
The best part?
You don’t need any coding experience.
The landing pages are also mobile responsive so they look great regardless of the device that your customers are using.
The landing page builder also provides you with quality metrics so you know exactly how you can improve your landing page and increase your conversion rates.
Automation
Automation is literally the backbone of any email marketing software.
In fact, did you know that 79% of top-performing businesses have been using marketing automation to generate leads for three or more years Pardot
If you ever come across an email marketing tool that doesn’t have automation just go in the opposite direction.
Of course, both Drip and ConvertKit have phenomenal automation features. Let’s take a quick look at the automation features they both have to offer.
Drip Automation
When it comes to automation at Drip I can confidently say they know what they are doing.
Drip automation has two features. The first feature being workflows and second, being rules.
The rules are simply just that. Rules.
For example, you may have a rule set up that once a subscriber is added to your campaign they are automatically added to your Facebook custom audience so you can utilize retargeting and Look-alike audiences in the future.
On the other hand, workflows are where the magic happens.
With workflows, you can create highly converting campaigns by simply dragging and dropping the actions to where you see as necessary.
Moreover, you get a wide range of pre-made workflow templates to choose from. These templates include:
- Birthday & anniversary
- Cart Abandonment with a split test
- Feedback survey
ConvertKit Automation
ConvertKit does an excellent job when it comes to handling all automation.
They have a powerful automation builder that allows you to build powerful automated emails and funnels.
With ConvertKit automation you can send the right content at the right time to the right subscriber!
You are given access to a bunch of cool automation features like:
- Customizing a subscriber’s path based on their actions.
- Segmenting your audience based on their customer journey
How are these automation features possible?
Well, this is done with visual automation that gives you the power to build custom paths for your funnels by connecting events, actions, and conditions.
My favorite part about the entire automation is the fact that I am given a birds-eye view of my entire email campaign sequence so I can see exactly how my subscribers experience my sequences.
I absolutely love the simplicity of it.
I must admit, ConvertKit is not as advanced as other automation builders on the market like ActiveCampaign and GetResponse.
However, at the end of the day, it still gets the job done and if you’re a creator then it will work perfectly for you.
Who has the better automation?
If you are looking for a simple way to execute your automation then ConvertKit is the way to go.
On the other hand, Drip gives you everything that you need in order to create an automated system for your email marketing campaigns.
That being said, in my opinion, ConvertKit is the winner in this round as it’s easier to grasp and understand!
Integrations
It’s no secret that when building your online business you will need multiple different apps in order to get the job done.
So it would make sense if all of these apps worked as one wouldn’t it?
That’s where integrations come in!
Let’s take a look at the integration options offered at Drip and ConvertKit.
Drip has dozens of integrations that you can integrate seamlessly with including Shopify and WooCommerce.
ConvertKit equips you with over 90 different integrations that you can choose from including some of my favorites like Unbounce and Kickofflabs.
ConvertKit also integrates with Zapier which expands your reach by giving you access to hundreds of other apps that you can integrate with.
Reporting & Analytics
Reports and Analytics are super important when it comes to long-term success with your email marketing campaigns.
Having great reports and analytics and being able to analyze them efficiently would give you the opportunity to improve your email marketing campaigns and increase your overall conversion rates!
Let’s take at the reports and analytics that are offered by Drip and ConvertKit.
Drip Reporting & Analytics
Drip does an excellent job of providing you with everything that you will need in order to make the correct decisions about the direction of your email marketing campaigns.
In Drip you are given access to 9 different reports. These reports include:
- Subscriber Growth
- New Subscribers
- Unsubscribes
- Email Metrics
- Open by hours
- Clicks
- Bounce Rate
- Events
- Recent Activity
These reports aren’t the most advanced reports that I have seen however, they still do a great job of getting the job done.
ConvertKit Reports & Analytics
Compared to other email marketing software ConvertKit is lacking when it comes to analytics and reports.
That being said, ConverKit equips you with a clear dashboard that shows you exactly how your subscribers are interacting with your email marketing campaigns.
ConvertKit provides the basic metrics that will help you improve your campaigns, these metrics include click-rates, open rates, unsubscribes, and the number of subscribers you have.
If you are looking for an email marketing tool that provides detailed reports and analytics then check out ActiveCampaign.
Who has better Reporting & Analytics?
This is a clear tie! There is no clear winner here. Both email marketing tools provide the basics that you need in order to make good decisions about your email marketing campaigns.
So if you aren’t SUPER data-driven then you won’t have a problem with any of these email marketing tools.
Customer Support
Customer Support is A HUGE determining factor for me when it comes to choosing a solid email marketing software.
Regardless of if you are a seasoned marketing professional or if this is your first time sending an email I can guarantee that you will need some kind of support.
Let’s take a look at the customer support offered at Drip and ConvertKit.
Drip Customer Support
The customer service at Drip is as effective as it needs to be. You are provided with email support regardless of what plan you are on.
However, I was disappointed when I realized I can’t take full advantage of the live chat support if I’m not on one of the higher-priced plans.
There was also no noticeable phone support which can be a huge disadvantage especially if you want a problem solved immediately!
That being said, Drip has an entire help center that has information on tons of topics from billing to signing in to how to set up your account.
Drip also offers guides, user manuals, and even API documentation for those people that like to get their hands dirty with code.
I also like the fact that Drip has dedicated experts that will give you a one-on-one demo to help you solve any problems that you may have with Drip.
ConvertKit Customer Support
When it comes to customer service ConvertKit does an excellent job of ensuring you have everything at your fingertips in order to make your ride with ConvertKit a smooth one.
They offer TONS of resources that will help you with your email marketing journey with ConvertKit. These resources include blog articles, video training, and a large knowledge base that has a wide range of tutorials on how to use ConvertKit.
If this is not enough then you can join their forum which is filled with creators who may have the same challenges as you!
I also like the fact that they have live training sessions and weekly workshops.
The downside comes when you actually want to have a conversation with the support team.
There is no phone support so if you’re the type of person that likes to hear a live person helping you solve your problems then you are out of luck.
There is no live chat which I found as a huge bummer.
That being said, if you want to get in contact with the support you have to submit a ticket and wait.
Who has better customer support?
I would have to say Drip wins this round.
Despite the fact that ConvertKit gives you a TON of resources that you can take advantage of that will help you solve any problem you may have they don’t have a phone or live chat support.
Drip also doesn’t have phone support but they have live chat which causes them to win by hair!
Related: This email marketing tool has the best customer support !!
What I like and don’t like about Drip and ConvertKit
Like every other email marketing tool out there Drip and ConvertKit have their fair share of pros and cons.
Let’s take a look at what I like and don’t like about Drip and ConvertKit.
What I like about Drip
- It was completely designed and engineered with the e-commerce business owner in mind
- You don’t need a credit card in order to try it for free for 14 days.
- They have live chat support
- It has solid automation features that make your job easier
What I don’t like about Drip
- You need 5,500 contacts or more in order to get access to the live chat
What I like about ConvertKit
- It was built to help the creators earn a consistent living online.
- They have a free plan
- They offer free migration when switching from other email marketing tools
- If you have less than 1000 subscribers you can use the software for free!
- Don’t need a credit card in order to take advantage of the 14-day free trial
- It offers a reasonable price for the features that are offered.
- They have HIGH deliverability rates
- It’s super beginner-friendly
What I don’t like about ConvertKit
- They don’t have phone support or live chat support
- They don’t have as detailed analytics as compared to other email marketing tools like ActiveCampaign
The Verdict: Which one should you choose?
Well, that depends.
Do you own an e-commerce store that’s looking for a solid system to improve your customer experience while boosting sales? If so then Drip is perfect for you.
Are you an ambitious creator who is looking for a way to turn their passion into a full-time income? If so then look no further than ConvertKit.
Drip was designed for helping you scale your e-commerce business to the next level. So if you run a blog then Drip may not be your best bet. You may want to look in the direction of ConvertKit.
If budget is a major determining factor then ConvertKit would definitely be the better choice in the long-run.
That being said there is no clear winner since it all comes down to what your goals are and what direction you want to take your business.
The Best Drip and ConvertKit Alternatives
If you are looking for another email marketing tool that specializes in e-commerce then I would recommend that you check out our review on OmniSend.
If you are looking for a cheap email marketing tool with great functionality then check out our review on MailerLite.
If you own a small business then I would definitely recommend checking out our review on the email marketing tool GetResponse.
If you want an email marketing tool with amazing customer support then check out our review on Ontraport.
If you are looking for detailed reporting and analytics then I suggest you read our review on ActiveCampaign.
