HubSpot vs Kit for B2B newsletters

Pricing at 1,000, 3,000 and 10,000 contacts (as of October 2026)

The two vendors count different things. HubSpot bills on marketing contacts and on seats. Kit bills on active subscribers and nothing else. Here is what the public pages showed at three list sizes on 2026-10-08. All prices are monthly, in US dollars.

HubSpot's public page does not show the price of extra contact tiers above what each plan includes. For a list of 3,000 on Starter or Professional, the exact figure is in your account's billing settings or the sales quote, so the lines below say so.

• 1,000: Kit Creator is $39 a month, or $33 a month billed yearly ($390 a year). Kit Pro is $79 a month. HubSpot Starter includes 1,000 marketing contacts and is priced per seat; the page shows both $7 and $20 a month per seat, so budget for $20 unless the page confirms the lower figure applies to you.
• 3,000: Kit Creator is $59 a month, Kit Pro is $99 a month. HubSpot Starter includes 1,000 contacts and Professional includes 2,000, so 3,000 needs an extra tier on either: check the vendor's pricing page. Professional itself starts at $800 a month plus a one time $3,000 onboarding fee.
• 10,000: Kit Creator is $139 a month, Kit Pro is $189 a month. HubSpot Enterprise includes 10,000 marketing contacts at $3,600 a month plus a one time $7,000 onboarding fee. Professional with extra tiers may cost less: check the vendor's pricing page.
• HubSpot free: 2,000 email sends per calendar month with HubSpot branding. A 1,000 person list sent weekly is about 4,000 sends, so the free plan runs out fast for a real newsletter.
• Kit free: up to 10,000 subscribers and unlimited broadcasts, but automations and sequences stop running, so a welcome sequence needs a paid plan.

What "marketing contacts" means in HubSpot and how it changes the bill

HubSpot stores every contact in the CRM, but you only pay for the ones you set as marketing contacts. A marketing contact is one you reach through HubSpot's marketing tools, such as marketing emails and ads. Non marketing contacts do not count toward your tier and you are not charged for them. Sales can still email them one to one.

The catch is the tier boundary. If you go over your tier by even one marketing contact, HubSpot moves you to the next tier automatically and bills you at that tier until your next renewal date, even if the count drops later. HubSpot's own example: an account with 998 marketing contacts on the 1,000 tier adds five more, reaches 1,003, and is upgraded to the 2,000 tier.

Downgrades do not happen mid term. They can only happen at renewal, and HubSpot asks for at least five business days notice before the renewal date. Setting contacts to non marketing also waits for the next update date: the renewal day each month on monthly plans, the first of the month on yearly plans.

What this means for a B2B newsletter: keep the list clean before the update date, set a maximum marketing contacts cap in settings so forms and imports cannot push you over, and watch the notifications HubSpot sends at 75, 90 and 98 percent of your tier.

Welcome and nurture sequences on each

A B2B newsletter needs at least two automations: a welcome sequence for new subscribers and a nurture sequence for people who download a lead magnet. The two platforms treat these very differently.

On HubSpot, automations are workflows. The free tools give you 1 automated action and Starter gives you up to 10, which is enough for a short welcome email but not for a branching nurture. Professional and Enterprise have unlimited actions and omni channel automation. One rule to know: a workflow's send email action only reaches contacts set as marketing, so a nurture sequence counts toward your contact tier.

On Kit, the Creator and Pro plans include unlimited visual automations and email sequences. The Free plan does not run them; sequences you build stop running while you are on Free. There is no per action cap on the paid plans, so a long nurture with branches costs the same as a short one.

In practice, a small team gets a complete welcome and nurture setup on Kit for $39 a month at 1,000 subscribers. On HubSpot, the same setup with branching usually means Professional, which is a different price class and includes the $3,000 onboarding fee.

Handing a newsletter reply to a salesperson

This is where the two products split. A reader replies to your newsletter and says they want to talk. What happens next?

On HubSpot, the contact already exists in the CRM with the marketing email activity on their record. A salesperson opens the record, sees the opens and clicks, and creates a deal in the pipeline. From there they can send one to one emails and sales sequences, which HubSpot allows to any contact, marketing or not. No copying between tools.

On Kit, the reply lands in whichever inbox you set as the reply address. The subscriber record shows their tags, the form they came from and, on Pro, an engagement score from 1 to 5 stars. To get that into a sales process, you forward the email, or push the subscriber to a CRM through one of Kit's apps and integrations (the pricing page lists 100+ direct apps) or the Kit API. Someone has to own that bridge.

If sales handoff happens a few times a month, the Kit route is fine. If it happens daily and sales needs history on every lead, HubSpot removes a lot of manual work.

Migration

Moving in: Kit offers a free migration service for accounts on a paid plan, where its team rebuilds subscriber lists, forms, templates and automations. HubSpot Starter does not require onboarding. Professional requires a one time $3,000 onboarding fee and Enterprise requires $7,000; both have an import tool for contacts.

Moving out: both let you take your data. Kit exports subscribers to a CSV from the Subscribers page, with tags, custom fields and attribution data as columns; the download link is emailed and expires after 5 days. HubSpot exports records on all plans to CSV or XLSX, needs export permission, and allows up to 300 exports in a rolling 24 hour window. Unsubscribed contacts are included unless you filter them out, so check the suppression list on arrival.

Either way, bring the tags or lists that mark who came from which lead magnet. That history is what makes the nurture sequences work on the new platform.

What Sawa does with either

Sawa works in the platform the client already uses. If you are on HubSpot, we build the newsletter, lead magnets and sequences there. If you are on Kit, we build them there. If you have neither yet, we help you choose using the questions on this page, starting with where the contact record should live.